TDK S80 NXT Speakers

[pre65]

Hi-has anyone "played" with these NXT flat panel speakers ?
Hi-fi world had a "thing" about them at one time and i bought some on e-bay a few years ago.
i even tried them in the main listening room and they weren't half bad.
i wondered if anyone had tried rewiring them so the volume and tone controls were separate from one of the panels ? ,or tried to use the subwoofer part on its own ?
i see Maplins are doing the smaller S60 @ £29.99 in the latest special offer booklet.

Philip

[andrew ivimey]

'orrible!

when you have got over the pleasant surprise that they do work, you will realise just how unlistenable and headache inducing they are. Peter C. says that NXT has recently had a v.important breakthrough but those nasty little flat panels are just that; ORRIBLE!

I have a chance to button hole my brother in law (works for nxt) this weekend so I will see if there is a hi-fi future but IMHO that he is still so amazingly primitive that he still considers ipods a pretty neat idea!

as some would say, 'lol'

oh and as for ripping apart things so you can just use the subbasswoofwoof, I've done it. All you get is a thing that goes thunk thunk in time with the rhythm.

Some might say this is music.

[NickG]

Come on now Andrew, tell us what you rearly think, you have been holding back up to now...

[Paul Welsby]

Originally Posted by andrew ivimey

he still considers ipods a pretty neat idea!

Ipods are a pretty neat idea. Maybe not true HI-FI but still a very neat idea.

With over 21 million sold worldwide i dont think its exactly a stupid idea.

P

[andrew ivimey]

No, that argument doesn't work ...

- just because loads of people like them doesn't make them excellent, better than other devices etc etc etc. Even if most people like something, it doesn't make it right.

(There was a time when everyone (presumably) thought the world was flat, but belief in that didn't make it so.)

Aren't ipods a little like Bose stuff; may have the looks but not the quality ???

NXT flat panels may be new and different but (again) IMHO, they sound scratchy flat and nasty which in about twenty minutes give me a headache.

p.s. the conical nxt speakers that were sold (out) a couple of years ago had a much more pleasant sound but a) they were no longer flat and b) made use of conventional acoustics to augment the 'flat' sound.

[Paul Welsby]

I would say that for 98% of the population the sound quality of an ipod (or bose for that matter) is perfectly acceptable. So i dont think you can use sound quality in this argument.

What people want is a portable, reliable, user friendly, stylish, musical storage device, that doesnt jump when they are down the gym. The ipod fits all those criteria just as lots of the other portable players do.

If the man in the street did hanker after the perfect sound quality then there probably wouldnt of been over 500 million downloads from itunes already.

Paul

[pre65]

Hi Andrew-nice to get a straight talking answer !

i use my S80 as speakers for the computer,for which i find them very suitable.
i didnt recon they were as bad as you suggest,but they seem to open out a bit when used in free space with a quality valve source (EAR phono and preamp).
Hi-fi world said they had an electrostatic quality,but as i have never listened to an electrostatic i cant really comment.
lets just say the're the best small computer speaker i've listened to (so far).
Did Mission and another "big" speaker manufacturer not dabble with NXT in the past ?
I would be interested to hear what your relative says about this "important breakthrough" in NXT technology.

Philip

[andrew ivimey]

NXT owned misssion and then sold mission off. NXT was invented by er, NXT and they had a serious stab at hi-fi - which didn't work.

Now, they specialise in small, cheap and plentiful of which the computer speaker market seems to be the bulk#. I believe everything is now made in China (as brother in law spends increasing amounts of his life over there) but Peter spoke of a breakthrough that NXT has been working on that might put NXT into Hi-Fi. This is all to do with developing the technology to do a full frequency range reproduction rather than the tinny nastiness that I associate with flat panels.

I say seems, becasue a lot of NXT is now used all over the place as sound reinforcement systems, typically in public places where we need top hear what is a being announced. NXT technology actually likes boomy noises places.

NXT are still seriously pushing their speakers systems into in-car entertainments too.

I have several pairs of NXT devices at work where, with which, when I have time, I will experiment as some of my job is connnected to controlling the 'soundfield' and sound reinforcement.

[andrew ivimey]

Hi Paul, I agree with what you say but sound quallity is my only criterion, (and why shouldn't it be) so I will continue to use it ;-)

So ipods still aren't (IMHO) right and I don't care how many down loads there have been from itunes - it doesn't make it hi-fi.

I have downloaded music from several sources inc. itunes and they don't sound as faithful a reproduction as their CD, SACD and vinyl equivalents.

Steering back to NXT, I can't tell the difference between source materials when I have NXT speakers hooked up. I can hear differences in amplifiers but NXT doesn't do any amplifier I have justice.

[Black Stuart]

Andrew, Philip,
the best part about NXT was to buy the shares about 7 years ago for pennies and sell for £s. As to Peter's statement about new develoments - I shall have to take a bo-peep to see if they are still listed - rumours like this can bump the price up.

Black Stuart