If you own quality monitor speakers you want to read this new review


Today, my review on the NSMT 20M Armada speaker was just posted on Stereo Times. It will give you all the details regarding way this two piece (Monitor mounted on a band-pass active sub-woofer pedestal) is a superlative full range speaker.

However, if you love your monitor speakers you owe to yourself to read the details that explain the difference between adding a pair of sub-woofers vs. a pair of band-pass sub-woofers, because their effect will transform your monitors seamlessly into a full range system. Not just bass extension, but because of how a band-pass active sub-woofer fills in the power range (lower mid-range/upper bass) and also pressurizes your room so all the ambient cues that create, both power deep accurate bass and a vast panoramic layered sound-stage. I ran a detailed extensive process involving over ten monitor speakers with a pair of excellent sub-woofers compared to the MSNT band-pass sub-woofer pedestals, and every time the sonic "magic" took place that was quite different then using a pair of sub-woofers. If you own Harbeth or other highly regarded British monitors you will be amazed what will take place in your listening room. There is also a detailed explanation that lays out the difference between an active band-pass design and a normal sub-woofer.   Terry London/Teajay
amorstereo
Hey wolfie62,

Gezz, I wish you and some of the others posters would read the details in the review regarding the differences between regular sub-woofers, like your Velodynes, and how an acoustic band-bass design are not the same thing. Your subs use DSP to control certain frequencies, instead of loading the driver in an unique fashion in a ported box which leads to a very different loading of the room by the device. I have used excellent pairs of sub-woofers for years with monitor speakers with excellent results. However, they never reproduced the weight/foundation of the power region in the music and allowed the spatial cues to effect the sound-staging to evolve into a three-dimensional illusion that the monitors completely disappear in. I could allows "deal-in" the subs, no problem in my listening space(s) and they worked fine without mudding up the mid-range's timbres or clarity. The NSMT band-bass platforms are a different approach and deliver sonicly a vastly experience then a regular active sub-woofer. In the review I asked the designer, Erol Ricketts,to explain the differences and why he chose to use this design in this model.

My excitement over these platforms is that they just don't take a reference level monitor's performance and add bass extension, but transforms them into delivering in a way that usually is only done by large multi-driver floor-standing models without losing any of the tonal purity and sound-staging magic of small two-way designs.
Amorstereo, what is meant by "bandpass." Are you saying that the crossover in the pedestal is rolling off the bass to the monitors?  
Hey mijostyn,

Please read the review for the details/explanation you asking about. There is an extensive/detailed explanation by Erol Ricketts, the designer, that I requested he contribute to my review for the very reason you are asking your question.