[NealH]

I listened to the new NHT-XD system this weekend at a local dealer and it was indeed a pleasant affair. The bottom line is that they are very nice sounding speakers. Even balanced with an organized soundstage that is wide, rich and appropriately detailed. Tonality is excellent on this system, as is coherency. I could not detect any crossover anomalies. The speaker system struck me as being very transparent and truthful to the music source. They played the disappearing act very well.

Soundstage recreation is generally excellent. Broad, reasonably deep, but with some restriction in height (more on this later). Instruments are separated, delineated and placed well within the stage (both laterally and in depth). There is a pleasant rhythm that engulfs the entire soundstage which leads to a very musical, and likable, sonic character. They remind me a lot of the Vandersteen 5A's in this respect. I could see no problem at all listening to this system, hours on end. No edge, sibilance, boxiness, or other response aberrations – certainly not to a level that brought attention to itself anyway. I played the system mostly at low and moderate levels, mostly moderate. Pumping up the volume to metal head levels may bring out weaknesses or aberrations however I never went there as I was listening for pleasure, not pain.  Dynamics were adequately portrayed, not overhyped, and not MIA.  

Getting up from the listening chair and moving around was pleasant in that the basic tonality and breadth of sound was maintained. I really did not evaluate the speaker’s ability to hold the center image when I moved a foot or so to the side, which is reported to be quite good with these speakers, but I can comment that the basic frequency response and reverberant field when moving about in the room seemed to be almost as good as when seated in the listening chair. These strike me as being an easy speaker system to live with especially for an active in-home lifestyle when it is difficult to stay glued to the listening chair.

However, as with all components, this speaker system is not perfect. The image height is not sufficient in my opinion. It was just not high enough for me. And, I could argue that they were not quite as immediate sounding as other speakers that I have auditioned and/or owned. Coming off several years of Magnepan 3.6 ownership, I can comment that the Maggies have a bit more impact and immediacy that makes music sound just a little more exciting. Not necessarily better or more engaging, but just a bit more exciting. This is a preference call though, and your mileage may vary. As well, being a prior Maggiephile may explain my preference for a little more height in the stage. But in most other areas, the XD system left little to be desired in a music lover’s speaker.

Are they worth $6K? As always this is difficult question to answer. I would certainly think their performance, for the most part, is equal or better than the equivalent priced competition. Add in some room correction, reported to be coming in the future, and these could well toss down the gaunlet for those competing for your dollars.

The source during my audition was a Marantz SA-11S1 with their reference preamp.

I also posted this quick take on AA.

[John Ashman]

That's a great, well thought out review and I'd only like to comment on the idea of soundstaging.   Of course, no speaker is perfect nor will they ever be.  The big thing with imaging is that there is simply no way of determining what is a better or worse image for the most part.  Most would agree that more image specificity is better.  But not all.  Most would say that the wider the soundstage, the better.  But some worry more about depth.  Is there even *supposed* to be image height?  Or should the image at a constant height between the speakers?  How do you determine what version of depth is better?  Should the speaker bounce sound off the back wall?  In phase or out of phase?  And then you open up an even bigger can of worms with acoustics.  

So, from a review stand point, it's kind of nice to have the only real quibble be about how they image - this is the one variable that is incredibly difficult to know what is right, wrong or just different.  And with the room dependence, you'll get 100 different soundstages in 100 different rooms.  And each one will be interpreted 100 different ways by 100 people.  

With Xd, NHT made a speaker that is phase/time correct, low distortion and tonally accurate with a nearly perfect and very wide hemi-spherical radiation pattern.  That means it will have a soundstage that is unique to itself, just like any other speaker.   And it will image/soundstage differently in every room.  

Now, for my customers' experiences, the only complaint about image height is when they are standing, because then it seems low.  But everyone seems to comment on the image height while seated as that puts the speakers at ear level.  I've heard few, if any, monopole speakers that produce that kind of height.  Big dipole line sources will always produce more height, properly or improperly, because they are tall and they reflect a lot of energy off the back wall.  Is that the way it's supposed to be?  Who can say?  In the end, NHT worried about producing exceptional cabinet acoutistics, low distortion, low diffraction, low reflection, low vibration design with time/phase coherency thrown in for good measure.  How it soundstages and images is a function of this particular design combined with room, set up and your own perceptions.  There is no provable right answer to how a speaker should image and I don't know if anyone has even tried to seriously study it.  

In a perfect, objective world, a speaker with provably lower distortion, great tonal accuracy, better dispersion, near perfect time/phase and extremely low cabinet interference *should* be automatically, subjectively better in most every way.  But we're subjective creatures.  I think NHT strived for technical near perfection and then lets the interpretation of that up to the listener.