Now Hear This: 2.5i is good value!
Written: Aug 26 '01
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Pros: Excellent clarity and full-range response for the price
Cons: Can sound harsh on some recordings, room placement can be tricky
The Bottom Line: In the right room, with the right system, these can best good $2000 speakers. Wrong room, wrong system, pass the ear plugs!
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| alan_dana's Full Review: NHT 2.51 |
The NHT 2.5i is an interesting design. It behaves much like a bookshelf two-way speaker in that it employs a 6"-6.5" driver to handle most of the bass and midrange, and a tweeter. These drivers are enclosed in an isolated box within a larger cabinet, which also houses a side-firing subwoofer for low bass. Most three-way designs use the woofer to handle all the bass and the low-midrange, handing off to a 4-5" driver for the midrange.
When I ran my standard set of evaluation CDs through the 2.5i, I found a speaker that had many good traits. In particular it has very good clarity and resolution for a speaker in its price class (which is very high from a budget audio viewpoint, but inexpensive from an audiophile perspective). It did a very good job of reproducing piano, strings, horns, and percussion.
The bass end was quite solid, with good umph in the lower bass registers, while avoiding the heavy mid-bass emphasis found in many speakers. You could hear string bass notes being plucked. And it did a fine job on organ music too. These won't fool you into think you've got a 15" subwoofer, but can take you down to the point where you might feel you don't need to add a sub.
The midrange was clean, with good soundstaging. But just a bit on the cool side. No overly warm, sweet presentation.
Highs were also quite clear, higher scale piano notes were very clean. But violins had a little edge to them. All in all, the highs were on the aggressive side, with a lot of detail present.
This is a speaker for those who like a very highly resolved, full range sound. Frankly, I'm surprised this sound can be delivered for this price. Dynamics are very good, a bass drum can knock you back with its impact.
Those looking for a more relaxed, warmer, laid-back sound had best look elsewhere. These are not the speakers to turn down the lights, lean back & close your eyes to listen to Sade or Frank Sinatra & dream you are listening to them in a nightclub.
If one has front-end electronics that tend towards a high frequency tilt, then the combination with this speaker may be too sharp & aggressive for true music listening enjoyment. But if you have a CD/DVD player and amp that lean toward a laidback presentation, they could pair nicely.
Room acoustics are very important with this speaker. In a hard room with few sound-absorbing surfaces, then will take on a bright edge. But if you have a deadened room, where other speakers sound flat, then they may be the solution. Finding the best placement for them in a room can be tricky too. While the design seems to suggest placing them close to a wall to form a corner load for the bass driver, I've found them to tend to sound better when pulled out at least two feet from the wall.
Given the good dynamics and clarity, I would rate them highly as front speakers in a home theater system. These would bring out a lot of detail from movies that you otherwise might not even know was there.
All in all I consider them to be a very good speaker for $1200-$1300. But not a speaker for everyone. I could live with these, once I took some time to adjust my room properly.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 1200
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Epinions.com ID:
alan_dana
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Reviews written: 6
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