NHT 3.3...any info?

before buying, make sure you listen to them with your equipment. i have owned 5 pairs of nht speakers in the past (from the superzeros to the 2.9's) and they can be irritating to listen to for long periods of time and they can be power hungry. i purchased the 2.9's over the 3.3's new) because of the size, and one model is designed to be placed closer to the rear wall than the other. i had better luck with amps from mcintosh and classe for taming the harshness of the upper end of the nht's. good luck.

I've listened at length to a close friends Levinson system with NHT 3.3's. Just some surface impressions, for what they are worth: They are large and require some breathing room. They produce some of the lowest, most refined bass I've heard from a pair of floorstanders. According to my friend they do require some muscle to make them sing. They are remakably detailed, and in his room and with his system produce a bigger-than-life sound to my ears. I have only listened for a few hours at a time but did not experience any listening fatigue. Even with his SS system I did not find them harsh in any part of the range. HUGE soundstage, improved further with a tube preamp (we did some swapping out of components on one occasion). Did I mention they are large? Nice finish. I've heard of some complaining about the footing being too narrow and inadequate for the size and mass of the speakers but I haven't moved them around to comment. My friend does prefer his right up against the back wall.

Marco

Slappy, here is some additional info...

I have a set of 3.3's I drive with a Phase Linear D500 amp (500 watts @ 8 ohm) and no preamp...

They "ARE" power hungry, due to their somewhat lower nominal impedence of about 4 ohms... I would reccommend an amp that's at least 200 watts at 8 ohm with good head room. I know you like to turn the volumn up on occasion.

You "MUST" place them 3 inches from a wall or the woofer's won't couple properly, and the sound becomes thin and bright... most people that have complained that the 3.3 are bright sounding, I believe don't have them placed properly.

Set up is fairly easy, your seating distance should be 1.5 times the distance between the center of the tweeters.

Make sure you get the struts (speaker stands) that go on the bottom of the speaker and keep it from rocking side to side when those 12 inch woofers fire. When I bought mine the guy had them sitting on 2x4's. These struts are no longer available from NHT. I bought the last pair they had. Kevin in the parts dept. has checked around for me, but couldn't find another set new or used.

If the 3.3's you buy don't come with the struts, I have a blueprint from the set I had custom made out of brass. I'll be glad to mail it to you, or any other A/gon member that might need it. The struts are very important to the stability of the speakers (Doppler Effect).

I chose the 3.3's for a number of reason's... first, they are an acoustic suspension type speaker, no problems with port/noise (chugging) or trying to get the port to properly couple... second they are a full range speaker, which can go deep without a sub... Third, no speaker stand issues... no stand to speaker interface coupling problems or what is the proper height for the the stand...fourth, the angled front baffels help reduce "FIRST REFLECTIONS"... fifth, ease of placement...they go 3 inches from any wall and you sit at 1.5 times the distance between the tweeters, end of story on placement.

A few simply tweeks...remove all the speaker grills when listening and get rid of the factory jumpers for the speaker binding posts. Either bi-wire or add a high quality jumper. For the jumper you may want to use a short section of the speaker wire you are currenty using.

If you want to go the home theater route. "No Problimo" just add the matching NHT AC2 center (not the NHT AC1 center). The AC2 has the identical drivers as the 3.3's, but no 12 inch woofer and a set of NHT 1.5 with 24 or 26 inch stands for the rear. I also have these speakers in house.

I won't go on "Gushing" about their sound, if you have any other questions, email outside of the forum, and I'll be glad to answer any questions I can.

It's about 8am here in Connecticut on Saturday morning, and I think I'll go chase my wife around, only problem is I'm 55 years old and when I catch her, I sometimes forget what I "WANTED" her for (;-)

HTH, Dave

having owned the following:
merlin vsm-m
soundlab U2
wilson WP6
and NHT 3.3, i will say i was most impressed w/ the quality of sound from the relatively low-priced NHTs. very dynamic, coherent, great bass, treble is tippy and can be a problem, but for the present going rate used, these are bargains.

set up can be a problem as noted above, i defer to the previous poster

rhyno

i had the home theater setup that dave described above except i used the 2.9's. (2.9's, ac2, 1.5's, 2 sub two subs). i still use the ac2 and the 2 sub two's. i had better luck with the home theater setup than a pure audio setup with the nht's. i did try tilting back the speakers (helped a little), tried fanning them out where the fronts were 90 degrees to me (instead of the angled 21 degrees). doing this, was the biggest improvement i made with them (this shows the inside of the speaker toward you). i would recommend try before you buy using your own equipment.