NHT is "going quiet" :( (1 Viewer)

[LanceJ]

Guess I'll have to change my future plans as far as new speakers are concerned. :frowning:

Here's the press release from NHT a.k.a. Now Hear This:


Looks like their website is still up for the time being: nhthifi.com

They were one of three companies I had planned on buying from for my next HT system. Their Classic 3 bookshelf made it onto the cover of The Absolute Sound last year, quite an accomplishment for a speaker at that price point.

NHT has been one of those fun/quirky manufacturers since 1986 but at the same time always tried to give the customer quality & innovative gear for not much money, a very rare combination these days (a couple years ago the front page of their site featured a guy yodeling for about ten seconds on a mountain top before opening the rest of the page ).

I am afraid we will be seeing more and more respected audio manufacturers slipping away from us in the coming years. :frowning:

Audio companies have been dropping like flies before this economic meltdown started, so no telling what's in store for us now.

 

[Mike_J_D]

I love my NHTs - I've had them for 6 or 7 years now without a single problem or complaint. I hope they decide to continue to produce speakers and components; hate to see a great company dissolve.

 

[Jonathan Burk]

That's really too bad (and weird; I've never heard of a company stopping business but not going out of business...?)

They were definitely one of the pioneers in the high quality/high value category of speakers.

 

[LanceJ]

That trait probably came about since some of the people that started NHT in the late 80s used to work for Advent. For the younguns out there

this was when Advent was a respected speaker company that provided gear that sounded very good for its price and while most models didn't use cutting-edge technology (Advent's stuff was a bit lower on the technology scale than NHT), the designers would come up with innovative uses for traditional materials/processes that made them sound better than they would in the hands of a less-picky speaker manufacturer.

FYI: here is Advent's first ever three-way loudspeaker, the 6003 which came out around 1984 (until this model, Advent had only sold 2-way speakers all the way back to its beginning in @1970, so a three way was a big, big deal at the time). And as you can see, Advent had a habit of styling their speakers so they blended in & actually looked nice in most living rooms. IMO their last attractive models - and last true Advents in my mind - were the dual woofer "Heritage" and "Laureate" tower models sold until the mid 90s, then they were bought out and the Advent name began its slide down the proverbial toilet.