Inspiribomb
12-25-2005, 11:06 PM
As some of you know, lately I've been trying to decide what I want to do for subs. I ended up buying an Infinity CSW-10 off ebay, as well as the NHT U2 setup, but a buddy at work wants the Infinity so I'll be selling it to him. So here is the looooong review...
Intent
I wanted something to "fill in" the low end on my stereo. I absolutely LOVE my NS-500's, but I really need to turn up the bass to make my favorite kinds of music sound good. They do a decent job, but they just can't reproduce the really low notes that well. So I thought a sub(s) would be a realistic solution. I bought an Infinity CSW-10 from Ultimate Electronics to test out for a week and hear how I liked the sub in my system, and I really did, so I decided to go ahead with it. I decided to go with the NHT U2 subwoofer setup. This usually consists of two W2 subwoofers, the X1 crossover and the A1 power amp, but since I have my Kenwood 700M power amp, I opted out of the A1 power amp. That amp puts out 250 watts RMS for both subs, so 170 WPC should be perfect for them. They arrived on Friday to my great joy! Here are my first impressions:
Subs
The subwoofer boxes were REALLY heavy, at least for their size; about 14" cubes weighing roughly 40 pounds EACH. 4 boxes though? I only ordered 3 components... Well, NHT sends the owners manual in a seperate box, along with some sweet white gloves for handling the cabinets I presume and some tools (screwdrivers, etc). Nice touch! Not sure what I'm gonna do with those white gloves, other than take goofy pictures to put up on AK, but that is for another thread. ANYWAY, opening up the U2 subwoofer boxes reveals some very good packaging, and once that comes off, some of the most beautiful cabinets I've ever seen. I believe NHT calls is "anthracite," and damn it looks good. They look terrific with the NS-500's. Nicely rounded corners, recessed woofers and solid 5-way, gold-plated binding posts. Thus far, Aaron is very impressed.
Crossover
The X1 crossover mates up with the W2 subs, giving flat response down to 26 Hz, and, here's the sweet part, +/- .2 dB!!! IIRC, the response for +/- 3dB is 22 hz (don't quote me on that). BTW, those are actual measured figures. Anyways, pulling the X1 out of the box, I was quite impressed. It weighs in at about 9 pounds, and is just sexy. Its sleek, has a curvaceous front face and sits perfectly atop my L-09's (the crossovers have a rack-mount option as well). It feels solid in my hands and has a multitude of in/out puts on the back (balanced and unbalanced). This thing is just damn cool - it has power and standby lights on the front, so it kicks on when it detects a signal and goes into standby after a while when no signal is detected. Front features low pass crossover freq, phase, master gain, "boundary eq" for adjusting it to your room, as well as LFE gain. The back allows you to switch between stereo and mono subs. Lets get these bad boys hooked up...
Setup
This couldn't have been much easier. My Kenwood 700C has two sets of preouts - one set goes to my L-09's, which power my NS-500's full-range, which the other set runs into the RCA input on the X1. Then, I just run a set of RCA's from the Sub-out to my Kenwood 700M power amp. Then, of course, speaker wire out to the W2 subs. That's it, I was set to go. Lets see if I hooked things up right. Sure as $h*t, turning up the gain on the X1 raised my level of bass as the W2's did their thing. Sweet, time to tweak things. I got things adjusted a bit and put on my test CD. Damn, Dire Straits - Money for Nothin NEVER sounded so good :-D I was simply amazed. Not only are these subs incredibly clean and musical, but man, they've got some serious muscle behind em. They put out tons of clean bass that augment the rest of my system beautifully. And when I really call for it, they really can move air.
Tangent - Honestly, I was expecting the Infinity CSW-10 to sound better than the NHT's. Unfortunately, I was basing this solely on driver/magnet size. The Infinity magnet/driver structure is MASSIVE, while the NHT's look rather tame on their website. But in reality, the NHT's blow the Infinity out of the water. Between build quality and sound quality, the NHT's simply rock. End tangent.
Putting em through their paces...
OK, so music sounds phenomenal through these, but how do they handle explosions and whatnot in my video games? Well, Half Life 2 was the perfect game to test them out. For those of you who are familiar with the game, I tried out the pulse rifle. Every shot from that gun produced a kick-in-the-chest thump that was easily discernable from everything else. A grenade went off to the right of me, and I think I actually jerked my head away from that speaker when it happened. When NHT claims that their new subs are high-excursion, they mean it. They delivered the goods through every scene in that game, and I was grinning from ear to ear.
Conclusion
Kudos to NHT for this wonderful product! Although I had a hard time believing the reviews of their subs, I was very pleasantly surprised to hear that they do sound as good as people say. One review that I read claimed that they sounded as good as his M&K reference subs or something like that. Until I heard them, I never woulda believed it. Honestly, I couldn't be happier. NHT has produced a great package that looks and sounds phenomenal. I really can't praise them or this sub system enough. It is ultra versatile, ultra clean, and just sweet all around. If anyone has any questions about, don't hesitate to ask. And for any local AKers, I'd be more than happy to demonstrate them for you. Sorry if I missed anything, I'm sure I'll update this tomorrow.
Intent
I wanted something to "fill in" the low end on my stereo. I absolutely LOVE my NS-500's, but I really need to turn up the bass to make my favorite kinds of music sound good. They do a decent job, but they just can't reproduce the really low notes that well. So I thought a sub(s) would be a realistic solution. I bought an Infinity CSW-10 from Ultimate Electronics to test out for a week and hear how I liked the sub in my system, and I really did, so I decided to go ahead with it. I decided to go with the NHT U2 subwoofer setup. This usually consists of two W2 subwoofers, the X1 crossover and the A1 power amp, but since I have my Kenwood 700M power amp, I opted out of the A1 power amp. That amp puts out 250 watts RMS for both subs, so 170 WPC should be perfect for them. They arrived on Friday to my great joy! Here are my first impressions:
Subs
The subwoofer boxes were REALLY heavy, at least for their size; about 14" cubes weighing roughly 40 pounds EACH. 4 boxes though? I only ordered 3 components... Well, NHT sends the owners manual in a seperate box, along with some sweet white gloves for handling the cabinets I presume and some tools (screwdrivers, etc). Nice touch! Not sure what I'm gonna do with those white gloves, other than take goofy pictures to put up on AK, but that is for another thread. ANYWAY, opening up the U2 subwoofer boxes reveals some very good packaging, and once that comes off, some of the most beautiful cabinets I've ever seen. I believe NHT calls is "anthracite," and damn it looks good. They look terrific with the NS-500's. Nicely rounded corners, recessed woofers and solid 5-way, gold-plated binding posts. Thus far, Aaron is very impressed.
Crossover
The X1 crossover mates up with the W2 subs, giving flat response down to 26 Hz, and, here's the sweet part, +/- .2 dB!!! IIRC, the response for +/- 3dB is 22 hz (don't quote me on that). BTW, those are actual measured figures. Anyways, pulling the X1 out of the box, I was quite impressed. It weighs in at about 9 pounds, and is just sexy. Its sleek, has a curvaceous front face and sits perfectly atop my L-09's (the crossovers have a rack-mount option as well). It feels solid in my hands and has a multitude of in/out puts on the back (balanced and unbalanced). This thing is just damn cool - it has power and standby lights on the front, so it kicks on when it detects a signal and goes into standby after a while when no signal is detected. Front features low pass crossover freq, phase, master gain, "boundary eq" for adjusting it to your room, as well as LFE gain. The back allows you to switch between stereo and mono subs. Lets get these bad boys hooked up...
Setup
This couldn't have been much easier. My Kenwood 700C has two sets of preouts - one set goes to my L-09's, which power my NS-500's full-range, which the other set runs into the RCA input on the X1. Then, I just run a set of RCA's from the Sub-out to my Kenwood 700M power amp. Then, of course, speaker wire out to the W2 subs. That's it, I was set to go. Lets see if I hooked things up right. Sure as $h*t, turning up the gain on the X1 raised my level of bass as the W2's did their thing. Sweet, time to tweak things. I got things adjusted a bit and put on my test CD. Damn, Dire Straits - Money for Nothin NEVER sounded so good :-D I was simply amazed. Not only are these subs incredibly clean and musical, but man, they've got some serious muscle behind em. They put out tons of clean bass that augment the rest of my system beautifully. And when I really call for it, they really can move air.
Tangent - Honestly, I was expecting the Infinity CSW-10 to sound better than the NHT's. Unfortunately, I was basing this solely on driver/magnet size. The Infinity magnet/driver structure is MASSIVE, while the NHT's look rather tame on their website. But in reality, the NHT's blow the Infinity out of the water. Between build quality and sound quality, the NHT's simply rock. End tangent.
Putting em through their paces...
OK, so music sounds phenomenal through these, but how do they handle explosions and whatnot in my video games? Well, Half Life 2 was the perfect game to test them out. For those of you who are familiar with the game, I tried out the pulse rifle. Every shot from that gun produced a kick-in-the-chest thump that was easily discernable from everything else. A grenade went off to the right of me, and I think I actually jerked my head away from that speaker when it happened. When NHT claims that their new subs are high-excursion, they mean it. They delivered the goods through every scene in that game, and I was grinning from ear to ear.
Conclusion
Kudos to NHT for this wonderful product! Although I had a hard time believing the reviews of their subs, I was very pleasantly surprised to hear that they do sound as good as people say. One review that I read claimed that they sounded as good as his M&K reference subs or something like that. Until I heard them, I never woulda believed it. Honestly, I couldn't be happier. NHT has produced a great package that looks and sounds phenomenal. I really can't praise them or this sub system enough. It is ultra versatile, ultra clean, and just sweet all around. If anyone has any questions about, don't hesitate to ask. And for any local AKers, I'd be more than happy to demonstrate them for you. Sorry if I missed anything, I'm sure I'll update this tomorrow.