Which NHT mini?

Z

Zenshi

Gawd
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Jul 7, 2007
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Well I am still looking around for a set of mini speakers to swap out my Yammi cheapo PC speakers. I had been looking at the NHT Absolute Zeros as my choice due to their high WAF and good reviews. Then just recently NHT said they brought back their very popular Super Zeros.

http://www.nhthifi.com/Bookshelf-speaker-SuperZero-2-0?sc=12&category=3772

Now I am at a loss. I still like the Absolute Zero's look and they seem to get a great review. But the Super Zero is only $99/speaker, smaller, have a great history, and has a silk dome tweeter vs the Al tweeter in the Absolute Zero.

Has anyone ever heard the Super Zeros (the old ones)? How does Al tweeters in general compare to silk dome?

Thanks in advance for your comments.
 
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i have aluminum tweeters on my JBL 2600's and i have polk component speakers in my car with silk tweeters, and let me tell you nothing sounds smoother than silk tweeters, the smaller speakers couls always be upgraded with a better woofer. especially becasue it's only a 4.5 the absolute zero's have a 5.25. overall i would bet money on the absolute's sounding better and putting out more "sound" because there is more cone surface area. i'm sure these are great speakers but you can find better deals on ebay or even craigslist, there's no shame in buying used speakers imo, oh and another thing, i think American has some Polk's on sale ;)
 
Yeah those M-00 look nice but I already have a receiver so I do not need self powered speakers.

I think I will continue to stick with the Absolute Zeros since I am not really sure if the new Super Zeros are as good as the old ones. If I want to go silk dome, I can always decide on the other choices I had originally considered, which are the Aperion Intimus 5B, the Usher s520 or the Dana 630s. (Edit: Whoops after a re-review of the 630's specs, I realize these are 4 ohms so no go for me....I some how missed that in the past)

I just better go buy one of these so that I can stop bothering you people with stupid questions. :p

Thanks again.
 
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I actually have the Super Zero (XU) which are the original SZ in a cabinet made for wall mounting. I also ordered a pair of Classic Twos yesterday (which is similar to the absolute zero, just a 6" woofer instead of the 5").

If you want I'll give you a comparison when the Twos arrive :cool:
 
A pity they chose 1" tweeters. Aluminum is really better off at .75" to push out the tin-can resonance (i.e., the Classic 3) unless you go for more heavy duty designs.
 
jonjones said:
A pity they chose 1" tweeters. Aluminum is really better off at .75" to push out the tin-can resonance (i.e., the Classic 3) unless you go for more heavy duty designs.
Click to expand...

True, they could have also anodized it like the Classic 3 too. However, if it's anything like the SB-3 then tin-can resonance isn't an issue.

I'm much more concerned regarding distortion before xover to my sub. Less than 3% distortion 40-20khz is kind of a dream of mine :p
 
Hey,

Speakers arrived and I've been listening to them. So fair initial impressions are good, I'll do my best to drop a detailed impression a bit later. ;)
 
Here's my comparison between the SuperZero and the Twos:

While the two can live without a sub it definitely benefits, but the SZ just can't. Also, the SZ sounds a lot more compressed and seems much more likely to start distorting early on in comparison. While the SZ works well for HT use IME, for music it's probably not the best choice when compared to the classic series and the like.

IMO, you'll probably better off with the Absolute Zero if you can afford it. While it'll still roll-off relatively fast odds are it won't sound as compressed as the SZ. The aluminum tweeter used seems just fine, the crossover seems to be of substantial quality so you don't have to worry about potential frequencies that would cause resonance getting into the tweeter.
 
Thanks Shike! Then my choice will still be the Absolute Zero. :)

For the moment, I have decided to purchase a DIY speaker kit from PE as I want to dabble in building a speaker (at least the dummies way of building a speaker :p ). I hear the Dayton drivers are really nice.

However, for my wife's rig, the DIY speakers are too big so I still think I will go with the Absolute Zeros when I decide to set up her system.

Thanks again for the valuable comparison info.
 
If you're interested in DIY I also suggest you check out ZaphAudio. He does a lot of DIY projects and measurements. For more parts and drivers also check out madisound.

I'd love to do DIY but I don't have the skill, time, tools, workspace (apartment), etc. available. :(

I'm happy I still have my DIY sub before I moved in or I'd be SOL paying a lot more for a prebuilt.
 
Yeah I was looking at some of the options at Madisound as well. The kit that looked real nice was this one.

https://www.madisound.com/store/product_info.php?cPath=35_40_402_408&products_id=8306

Designed by Zaph and uses SEAS drivers. It probably puts out really nice sound. Alas, the price is a bit steep for me at this time.

The ones I want to get are these.

http://www.parts-express.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?Partnumber=302-960

They use Dayton Reference Series (RS) drivers RS 150s for the mids and RS28A for the tweeters (specially made for PE by Usher). Both I hear are very good value drivers. Maybe not SEAS or Scanspeak but for me, I think they will be more than enough. At that price, I think they will be able to hold their own against speakers much more expensive (according to Zaph's review of various tweeters and mids).

Anyway, thanks again for your help.
 
Ok so I waited to see if the speakers would go on sale during Black Friday/Thanksgiving/Cyber Monday but to no avail.

Oh well in any case I figure I should go order these now so I went and ordered the RS621BK "Encore" kit. I did get free shipping and some weird portable speaker as a gift so I guess I saved some money.

Can't wait until these come in! Though they are a bit bigger than I would like (though they are not much bigger than the Ushers s520 that I always wanted to try), I really am looking forward to hearing these since I hear the reference series drivers are very good. I probably will build these over the holiday (hope I don't break them )
 
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