The NXT generation
May 29 '01
The Bottom Line NXT is a little baby now, but perhaps in a few more years, will be in our homes all-over.
- This is a sort of argument for and against NXT speaker technology for use in a home cinema -
Ever been in a computer store and recognized some ultra thin speakers with a PC? If you have, those are NXT panels. NXT is a new system for producing sound.
Rather than the traditional way of pistonic motion (or a normal speaker) NXT uses exciters to vibrate the thin surface membrane to produce sound. This technology has been around for two years. Wharfedale were the first to introduce the technology to Hi Fi. Using painting frame sized NXT panels to produce a sort of invisible sound source.
As always there is bad points, but the good points more than make up for it.
The Good Points
-NXT speakers are small, not in height or width but in relation to normal speakers they have almost no depth. The deepest a NXT panel will breach would be around 2 or 3cm. But still, that’s compared to at least 18cm of a Dynaudio rear speaker, so they are almost invisible.
-The NXT panels are compatible with any surface, or placement. This means you can place your NXT panels any where in the room. Unlike conventional speakers, you can place them in corners, on walls, the part where ceiling meets wall, almost any place. And as well the can be placed on stands.
-Unlike normal speakers, the NXT speaker produces sound from all over its surface, so is a panel measures, 30x10cm, it will produce sound from that 30x10 area. The sound will be produced with more spread, and it will be all from one point not two or three; a normal speaker usually takes a tweeter and woofer, these two are often out of place in the vertical plain, so causing time shifts, so a flat panel produces sound from the same vertical plain.
-The NXT speaker can produce sound from low frequency to high frequency. The human ear is most sensitive around 2 to 3 KHz. A normal speaker has two drivers the tweeter and woofer, these two are crossed over with a crossover, this is often around a frequency, often between 2 to 5 KHz. The exact point which you don’t want a bad sound or degraded because two drivers produce the same tone in different points. A NXT speaker can produce from around 300Hz, to 18KHz. This means a seamless sound production from the entire sound range.
The Bad Points
-NXT can’t produce very low frequencies, so a subwoofer is often necessary.
-NXT have been around for two years, conventional speaker have been around for the most of the 20th century, so development hasn’t breached full capability, making buying questionable if they could be better.
-NXT have been criticized because they are not as good as an equally priced speaker.
As you can see, there are plenty of good points, but then one bad point is worth a mention. NXT have been around for two years, just two, so you may wish to wait for further advances in the technology.
Products?
You may be thinking this to be the perfect idea for home cinema, if of course you haven’t already started one, but are there any actual products about?
I’m not quite sure how to answer that but yes, there is. What I mean is that I live in the UK, and many of the readers, YOU, may be living else where. But I have seen some Jamo type NXT speakers, and some Mission NXT speakers. The Mission – a British speaker manufacturer - speakers are packaged with an active subwoofer. These packages come in either hi fi or home cinema packages. You either get two NXT speakers for hi fi or five for home cinema, and both come with the sub. Also seen are some ‘Icon’ – the actual name – from Cyrus, which have a large NXT panel and a conventional woofer for bass.
How they got around the low frequency production
Well the Mission packages come with an active subwoofer, but the actual speakers would malfunction if used directly from the amplifier. So the subwoofer comes with some sort of umbilical wires which go from you amplifier to the sub (which then cuts away all the dangerous low frequencies) and then passes the higher frequencies to the NXT’s through some output terminals. The subwoofer is there to aid the low frequencies taken from the output of the amplifier. Though you need to take an actual output from the amplifier to the sub, not just from the amplifiers power out.
With Cyrus they simply added a standard woofer. But one problem they were faced with is the way the NXT speaker rolls off. Meaning the crossover would be too abrupt and would sound unconvincing, so they changed the NXT low frequency output to a higher 400Hz, to combat the roll off.
How they come in to play with home cinema
Whether or not your convinced with NXT there is still one very strong positive fact: their size. This may not apply to people with big houses, but for people with small rooms, large big boxes are not very nice to have. Take away the big box with an almost invisible speaker.
You see, you can find small speakers these days, but most of them will be no smaller than 15cm depth. Making it stick out on a wall. Take away the 15cm and replace with 4cm. Now you have an almost identical sound but at less than a quarter the space.
Those Mission speakers I was talking about earlier, these are the exact dimensions: HxWxD, 30 x 10 x 4.5cm.
Where they go
The way that NXT panels produce sound is a little different; they produce a field of waves, spreading over an area in front, unlike the traditional speaker which produces arcs which curve right around the speaker itself.
So with an NXT speaker you can place them in places where other speakers couldn’t go; they can be placed on the wall, in the wall, on a stand, in the corner, and at the ceiling point, like I said before.
Hook up
So how do they hook to your amplifier or receiver?
Well it really depend on what you buy, some will take a link straight from the amp to the speaker or like the Mission’s. But I can say you won’t have to change anything whatsoever which you already have. It doesn’t matter, as long as the power rating is within the NXT’s range you should be fine. You may need a ‘preout’ also known ‘speaker level’, for the subwoofer, or a line out would do.
Price?
I’m not sure about this. The NXT is very new, and is likely to form a range of varying prices, the Mission package costs, £800 (home cinema form) here in the UK, and the Cyrus hi fi speakers cost over £2000. So really it’ll be like DVD players, they were £1000, but now they cost little more than £150.
Buy now or later?
I can’t say really. By all means buy them. But you may wish to read up on the technology. Read magazines like T3, and look for reviews, you don’t want a poor sounding speaker system. In a few years time the technology with have advanced and those Mission’s will be no better than some £400 ones. I’m still sceptical myself. The last NXT speaker I heard sounded awful, but that was two years ago though. If I ever bought a NXT system, it’ll be in a few more years, so the technology will mature a bit more.
About the sound
Many audiophiles have been criticising the NXT to sound less pinpoint and directional compared to normal speakers. But if they are used for home cinema – and they will be – this sort of sound is the right stuff. The cinema experience in the home has to be atmospheric. And with the sort of spread like sound from the panels you get a broader sound field.
The Future
It’s a bit of an argument, the sound is good for movies, but not brilliant for music. In the future they panels would be a good alternative, but for the smaller living room. Its especially good for countries like England, which if I’m honest, has small homes.
Lets hope they develop a few more NXT packages.
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