New Home Theatre. Want Opinions!! I am new to HTF! (1 Viewer)

[John Gates]

Greg,(and all nOhr owners that use nOhr for HT) how does the HT perform?

I bought mine specifically for HT. Unfortunately, now that I have good speakers, my love for audio has returned with a vengeance. For HT, though, these are clear as a bell with tremendous impact. Neither, however, are they harsh or fatiguing.
The 4.0 (especially the marble or ceramic models) can be driven very loud without distortion. Very clear units, and good for center channels. I have the 6.9 drums (green ones!) as mains with a black marble 4.0 center channel. They blend very well. If I had an RPTV, however, I could see having a 6.9 drum as a center channel (not shielded, tho). The tweeter in the 6.9 is more detailed and it can play louder.
If you want to go 6.1, I would recommend drums all around (marble or ceramic 4.0's in the rear.... they sound the same, but the marble cabinets are totally classy, particularly white marble with pink, brown, or grey veins). I have heard the prism line and I feel the drums play with more authority, clarity, and the soundstage of the drums is just plain HUGE. No narrow sweet spot with the drums (you can hear almost the same thing sitting BEHIND these speakers as in front of them).
I had to wall-mount my rear center channel, so I used a Prism 4.1 as my rear center. I'm very happy with this arrangement, and it sounds FANTASTIC.
The 9.0's are reputed to be an incredibly fine speaker. However, the one weakness of the 9.0 is that it doesn't play to ear-bleeding volume levels. The 7.0 and the 6.9 can play louder (driver design issue), but the 9.0 is the king of detail. With the 6.9 drum, I'm told you get 90% of the 9.0 at 1/3 the price, so that's what I did.
The 6.9's are rather large compared to the 4.0's, and they weigh a good 55 pounds each. The 9.0's are reputed to weigh in at 90+ pounds each (same size cabinet, but made of solid marble instead of synthetic marble, and the cabinet is 2 inches thick solid marble).
Your 989 should drive the nOrhs well, but you may discover that these speakers are very, very revealing of upstream gear (getting into high-end stuff now). The 4.0's are more forgiving of upstream gear, but my 6.9's showed me the weaknesses of my 787. For HT, the Onkyo ROCKS, but for detailed music, a pair of finer amps was needed to get the most out of the 6.9's. I ended up ordering a pair of nOrh Le Amps (100 watt monoblocks, brand new product) to drive the 6.9's for two-channel music, and this works extremely well. The amp section of the 989 is undoubtedly better than the 787, so you may not have to do this.
Sorry for the "book" again. ;-) Can you tell I'm having fun?
John
PS. The AV-Reality 3D uses very similar drivers to the 9.0 and has been also getting rave reviews. It has a totally different cabinet design, is 1/2 the cost of the 9's ($1500/pair). Definitely worth a look. These would be harder to audition because they are brand new, so they might be more of a leap of faith than nOrh. The solid marble cabinets from nOrh, however, are definitely something to "behold" and quite out of the ordinary. The WOW factor on them is very gratifying.
John
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System:
Onkyo 787
Mains: nOrh SM 6.9 (shipping NOW)
Center: nOrh marble 4.0
Surrounds: nOrh wood 4.0
Rear Center: nOrh prism 4.1
Subwoofers: 2 x SVS 20-39 CS w/Fidek Amp
Pics: http://www.geocities.com/givinit2him/

 

[John Gates]

duplicate post... uploaded by mistake
[Edited last by John Gates on October 13, 2001 at 11:56 PM]

 

[Mike Temple]

Adam,
I have similar tastes in music as you and found that I love the Klipsch speakers that I have. They seem to be made for rock music with excellent sensitivity and decent bass. Before you buy any other speakers, I would absolutely listen to them, If you can't, don't buy them IMO. Norhs are different, but that shouldn't be the reason to buy. One of the reasons I like this forum is because of the many answers you have gotten here, people saying to try something and not flaming your choice and touting whatever they have as the "best". After all, you are going to live with these speakers, not someone else. I too, have felt that my ears can't tell the difference between some $1500 speakers and some $3000 speakers that would justify the difference in price.
Use the extra money saved on the DVD player on other improvements and wait on the player untill later, unless you can see the two players hooked up to the player and can readily see the difference.
Happy hunting
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