Filter
Top Products
www.Stereophile.com, November 2005
NHT Xd
But I was the real culprit: I was sim-
ply too timid with the volume control.
Perhaps my long-term bias toward big
speakers was making me treat this little
system with condescension, but when I
stopped babying the Xd, almost all of
my reservations about its performance
went out the window.
Let’s start with the basics: the
human voice. The two-way XdS, act-
ing nearly as a point source and with
virtually the entire range of the human
voice within its compass, reproduced
voices naturally, without added bloom
or coloration. Well-recorded, closely
miked singing, such as Lorraine Hunt
Lieberson’s on her Handel Arias
(SACD/CD, Avie AV0030), or the
soloists on La Tarantella (SACD, Alpha
ALPHASACD503), stood out in relief,
their accompaniments defining the
space behind them. Larger vocal forces,
from Polyphony to the Mormon
Tabernacle Choir, were rendered as
ensembles of individuals, maintaining
resolution and image granularity
regardless of the dynamic scale.
Instruments, from individual soloists
to large orchestras, were just as well
defined in tonality and space through
the Xd. I was particularly taken with
Julia Fischer’s new set of J.S. Bach’s
Sonatas and Partitas for Unaccompa-
nied Violin (2 SACDs, Pentatone PTC
5186 072), recorded with less ambi-
ence than is usual for Pentatone—I felt
as if I were no more than 5' from her
violin. The clarity of the illusion of the
central image was so good that even its
vertical dimension was convincing.
And it was the Xd system that first
allowed me to appreciate the new Water
Lily Acoustic SACDs of Yuri
Temirkanov’s performance of Mahler’s
Symphony 5 (WLA-WS-76-SACD) and
Alexander Dmitriev’s of Shostakovich’s
Symphony 7 (WLA-WS-77-SACD),
both with the St. Petersburg Philharmon-
ic. The two-channel sound, somewhat
congealed through my big-city system,
was clarified enough by the Xd that I
could discern the unique perspective and
the individual instrumental choirs, even
though producer-engineer Kavi Alexan-
der’s classic Blumlein miking technique
means there’s no instrumental highlight-
ing. (See Art Dudley’s “Listening” col-
umn in the October issue for more about
these releases and their creation.) These
recordings also revealed the Xd’s sheer
potency: Normal credulity made it hard
to believe that such large-scale events,
spread wide and deep, were coming from
such small speakers. This is doubtless a
result of good matching of the amplifiers
to the demands of the speakers.
Not only was the Xd system capable
of big, spacious, wide-range sound, it
was nearly immune to conventional
room problems. You know the princi-
ple: Absorb or diffuse the first reflec-
tions from the sidewalls so that those
early reflections don’t screw up the
imaging. This is partly because most
speakers’ off-axis responses only
vaguely resemble their on-axis
responses and both contribute to the
perceived balance. The Xd’s accurately
customized, extremely steep crossovers
are supposed to linearize the XdS’s on-
and off-axis responses, at least in the
horizontal plane. I found that I could
remove my freestanding Echo Buster
wall treatments and still get a great
soundstage from the Xd system with-
out corrupting the imaging specificity.
But the beauty of NHT’s approach
went beyond freeing me from concerns
about wall treatments. The Xd is also
less critical of other domestic issues
because its DSP options can compensate
for boundary proximity. Of the XdA’s
four settings, I was able to test only two.
The default setting is for a freestanding
location several feet from any floor, wall,
or ceiling, and this was how I enjoyed
the Xd most. I also tried the Xd with all
three speakers flat against my room’s
front wall. At normal listening levels, the
appropriate EQ compensation reduced
the system’s tendency, due to its near-
ness to the wall, to “shout.” These prob-
lems could return at really high levels,
but this was of little consequence—those
levels were incompatible with serious
listening or even sanity. I couldn’t try the
EQ setting for corner placement
because my room’s only unoccupied
corner is behind a door. The last EQ set-
ting is for a single XdS placed on a large
object, such as a TV. Again, I could not
assess that, but I remember that a high-
light for me of the 2005 Consumer
Electronics Show was a brief demo of a
6.2-channel Xd system—and if I recall
correctly, the center XdS speaker was
inside an entertainment center.
Given a well-recorded ensemble of
the size that might rationally fit into my
listening room, the Xd system virtually
disappeared. This uncanny effect was
accomplished by its balanced and open
sound, as well as by its complementary
room interactions and appearance. On
the Chris Lomheim Trio’s The Bridge
(SACD, Artegra ART2004), the piano,
bass, and drums were immediate, tight,
and focused, with no noticeable confu-
sion from the sidewalls or, indeed, any
awareness of the listening room itself—
just the music. Because the Xd speakers
are so small and so visually unobtrusive,
they encouraged the illusion of trans-
port; other speakers demand that I
close my eyes to achieve the same level
of enjoyment.
Comparisons
While the XdS satellites are a bit small-
er than my warmer-sounding Para-
digm Studio/20s, the Xd system easily
outperformed them in dynamics and
bass. The Xd was also more smoothly
integrated across the audible spectrum
than either the Studio/20s or the Stu-
dio/60s. As nicely as the Paradigms
work in my room, there are moments
when I can hear that each has more
than one driver. With the XdSes and
XdW the same distance from my lis-
tening seat, I never heard anything
other than a unified sound source; in
that regard, the Xd system approached
the performance of the B&W N802Ds
that I will be reviewing next month.
The presentation, however, did seem
more light-weight than the big B&W
at low levels, much like small planar
speakers such as my old Stax ELS-F81s
or Magnepan’s MGMC1. This may
simply be due to the Xd’s radiation
patterns not exciting all room modes,
or a lack of coupling to them at low
levels. Whichever, this reduced interac-
tion with the room contributed to my
observation that the Xd system seemed
less limited by the room when pushed
to very high dynamic levels.
The Xd’s bass was nearly as full and
extended as that from a pair of Paradigm
Studio/60s, but couldn’t compete with
the output of the B&W N802Ds or the
Revel Ultima Studios. Nonetheless, the
WHEN I STOPPED BABYING THE Xd, ALMOST ALL
OF MY RESERVATIONS ABOUT ITS PERFORMANCE
WENT OUT THE WINDOW.