LU: That’s a good segue into the next question. You’re one of the few speaker companies that also has a line of electronics. Tell us about that whole-system approach and the benefits of a complete NHT system.
CB: Right. When we decided to do this, there were some real ruffled feathers in the company. Not about the amplifiers; we get that. Amplifiers and speakers are going to be closer and closer attached.
When we thought about doing a controller, one of the things that made a lot of sense, since we have all of the data on all of our loudspeakers, was to design a processor for those people that were going to buy our speakers with it. We can make it a very simple process. We now have, something called the NHT Speaker Wizard when you’re going through setup, and you just choose the models and we’ve already figured out where the phase needs to be, where the crossover points need to be. The only thing you have to do is distance. You set it up; you hit done, and you’ve eliminated 30 pages in setup.
LU: So the guy who buys this product and does not own NHT speakers still can buy very good electronics and set those electronics up to match his —
CB: Absolutely right. He’s just going to do it manually. He’s going to do it like with anybody else’s processor at that point.
We’ve got something in the back which really doesn’t have a lot of function just yet, an Internet port we call the NHT Bus, which controsl amplifier channels. For instance, if you’re listening to stereo, it shuts down the other three channels and you’re only working on two. It’s more energy efficient; it also allows the power supplies to really concentrate on those two channels. That’s what it does now, but soon IP addressable is going to be really important.
LU: So you'll be able to get on the network much easier.
CB: Exactly. Without, really, a new board; it’s really more a software issue. So that’s something we can do in time as it becomes more prevalent. Or we can get on a network where, if there’s a streaming product upstream, you can stream it to your amplifiers or stream it through the processor if it’s wired into the network. It’s just something that we know has to happen to make the product more future-proof. People generally don’t buy a processor and then turn around and buy one in three more years.
LU: You need to be able to easily add upgrades; that’s great.
CB: So that was one approach. We’re working on some simpler approaches to the same kind of thing. Verve was really our first attempt at kind of a lifestyle system. It’s good performance. We didn’t concentrate so much on stereo imaging. Certainly frequency response and balance — like I said, we have sort of a bar that we won’t go below.
But we’re noticing — and particularly since people we sell to do so much custom installation, people are putting surround systems in more rooms than they ever have. So Verve was really designed more for a master bedroom or a small den or maybe you’re setting up a room for the kids or something like that where they can do gaming without having to spend a ton of money on it.
We’re beginning to look at an electronics piece that will go with it that isn’t 3 grand. It’s silly to sell a $2,000 speaker system with something that’s that expensive. And sort of an all-in-one box. Not overly featured, but the basic stuff that you need to be able to use it. We’re working on how much output can we get, what kind of sound stage can we create from a small, lifestyle-oriented system.
LU: Well, again, if you can do simplified electronics that have all the parameters built in and everything…
CB: Exactly; you just make it that much simpler.
LU: That’s what people want, isn’t it?
CB: Yes, it’s really becoming a solutions world. It’s one of the drivers of all of that, I’m convinced.
Origins of NHT Professional
LU: Tell us a little bit about your Professional Division and how your expertise in Pro sound influences the development of consumer products.
CB: That’s really a good question. We got into the Pro business out of pure love. It was not a promotional venture for us at all. Early on Kenny and I designed something called the M-100. We never put it on a price sheet, but we started selling it into Pro. And it was really a knockoff of the JBL 100 only it sounded good. [Laughter]
LU: Can we print that? [Laughs]
CB: I don’t care. They sold a lot more of them than we sold M-100s! So anyway, we started to build relationships with a couple of fairly heavyweight guys. And then what started to happen with — our Model 1 and our initial entry-level things imaged so well, all of a sudden, out of the blue, I get a call from the Complex in LA and Bob Ezrin [legendary producer of albums from artists such as Alice Cooper, Lou Reed, Pink Floyd, Peter Gabriel, the Jayhawks and Nine Inch Nails] had heard a pair of our consumer bookshelves and wanted them for mixing. So I met him and he introduced me to five or six other guys. We just started looking at it and going, “You know what? We’re missing a little bit here.” It’s never been a huge focus of the company, other than loving that part of the industry.
But one of the things that we found out is that we can test a lot of things in Pro and we’re more on top of what’s going on technologically on the recording end. It helps us design better-sounding loudspeakers. We know where things are going. That, to me, is probably the most important part of it. But if you can affect things on the front end of the chain, the stuff you’re selling to consumers is just going to be that much better. So we have the little M-00, which you guys sell. You know the Emmylou Harris-Mark Knopfler album?
LU: Oh, yeah.
CB: Mixed on M-00s. Chuck Ainlay [who has produced and engineered albums for Steve Earle, George Strait, Conway Twitty, Reba McEntire, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, the Dixie Chicks and Dire Straits, among others] uses M-00s on almost every project he does. They took them on the road with them and listened to their sessions.
LU: Well, it makes sense because my understanding of that album is that whenever their paths would cross, over a number of years, Knopfler and Emmylou would just get together and do a recording, so they were always kind of on the go when they were doing it.
CB: And I think Chuck Ainlay was the one that really brought the product to them. He’d done one Dire Straits album, or one Knopfler album, on it before. So Mark was familiar with it. And they took a pair out on the road with them and every night they listened to the mix of their performance. They’d go to one of the guys’ room, have a couple of drinks, and listen.
We’ve got a lot of people doing that. We designed the M-00 as a desktop, originally, and for video workstations. We do a lot in postproduction and some of the minor stuff. It’s surprising that some of the more heavyweight guys pick them; I think it’s because they’re so portable. But they do translate well.
That was probably the hardest thing for us to learn. It’s easy to build a consumer loudspeaker that sounds really good; but when you’re in front of a pro, it’s less about the sweet points and more about, with what they hear when they’re doing their mix, when they put it on the other system, does it translate? And that’s what we’ve made — we’ve had a fair amount of success. So we have the M-00s. We have something called the M-20, which is really more of an editing speaker; higher resolution, more revealing. And a subwoofer that goes with both of those — we‘ve got a new sub coming out called the S-20. It’ll be out in the next few months.
LU: Does that replace the S-00 altogether?
CB: Yeah, it does. It has all of the same features; it’s got a little bit more output.
LU: Is it a large driver?
CB: It’s a 10-inch. But the box isn’t substantially bigger, which was one of the things that we tried to do with this. And then we have — because of the XD technology that we’ve developed on the consumer side, we have two DSP-corrected systems in the Pro version, in the Pro line — one of them called the M-60. It looks nothing like the consumer version; it looks like a big hood. But it was how we had to design it so that the dispersion was much more direct and less diffuse. Diffuse doesn’t help a guy doing mixing and mastering.
We have a tracking monitor called the M-80, which is also coming out in June. It’s a box about 2 feet wide, maybe 12 inches high — two 8s and two mids and a tweeter and 125 db average SPL out of this little box. And it’s DSP corrected. I mean, it is just dead flat. And studios are going smaller, where they’re doing this, and there’s a need for a small tracking monitor, particularly since M&K has gone away.
We’ll never get into live sound or PA; that’s just not what we’re after. We’re really after stuff in the recording studio and postproduction. We’re starting to get a lot of heat in the gaming industry, also, because of their soundtracks and some of their video’s improving.
The M-00s take off
LU: When did you first realize that you could make the move, jump, from a Pro product to a more consumer-oriented one — with the rise of downloaded music and more people listening to music from their computers?
CB: It’s a funny story, actually. My kids called me up one day and they said they had a neighbor who’d just bought an iPod and he wanted a little system and he wanted this to be his source; that’s all he wanted. So I took a pair of M-00s and a S-00 and a PVC over to this guy’s house and we set it up. He went nuts!
LU: It sounded great, huh?
CB: I sold 15 systems to friends of his immediately after. It sounded great. It was small, tucked away in a corner — it was all of the things he wanted. The speakers he complained about a little bit; he said they’re a little industrial. I said, “Sorry.” But when he heard them he was okay with it; it’s kind of why we buried it off in a corner.
That was really the impetus for it. We knew it would be a limited market, but people are listening to music more on their computers than they ever have. And there is nothing else out there that you can buy that sounds this good.
LU: I’ve heard that one of the reasons ListenUp is an NHT dealer is that Walt [Stinson, one of ListenUp’s owners] was looking for computer speakers, found the M-00s, and was, like, “We’ve got to carry this line.”
CB: I think he fell in love with it. He said, “At 500 bucks a pair, this is just — I don’t understand how they do this.” He was the one that really drove it; absolutely right.
LU: At ListenUp we recommend to our clients that they rip in a lossless format and stay away from heavy compression. For some people who are using a bunch of compressed music anyway, having high-performance computer speakers may not be as big a deal. But when you’re telling customers to keep that digital quality as high as you can, then it’s really going to make a difference to have a decent setup. And that’s really why I asked, earlier, about the USB kind of thing. Because there’s so many people buying these for computers.
CB: We’ve been talking about this now for about six months. This is not just Apple world anymore.
LU: Because a lot of people don’t have good sound cards. So they’re upgrading the speakers but they’re still plugging it into something that really sounds crummy. You start adding sound cards and other things and then you end up with some complications. So I’m thrilled to hear that you’re doing that. Have you thought of an iPod dock?
CB: We’re talking about maybe putting something on the top of it that would allow you to place your iPod there — I’m not sure how we’d handle the signal. I’ve got one of our guys — one of our technical guys is a real Apple guy and he’s working on that right now to see what we can do. There are so many docks available if we can tie into it. It’ll depend more on cost, I think. I’d like this to be $200, $250.
LU: Well, since you have multiple inputs, if you end up using someone else’s dock, then you open yourself up to Creative and iPod and everything and that would just be one of the inputs and you’re not paying licensing fees to Apple and all kinds of stuff.
CB: Exactly. It would be nice to at least have the power if the USB thing is important because then you can charge the thing.
LU: That would be nice.
CB: That, to me, is the real critical key. So, yes, I think desktop is an area where you’ll see a lot more from NHT. Again, it’s application. There are a lot of products out there, there’s a lot of noise, but nobody really seems to be taking the performance seriously.
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