Originally Posted by BachToRock
Being a longtime NHT fan I would hope and assume that the new series will perform admirably, but to actually know if they possess qualities such as detailed resolution and a "open" and spacious sound is not guaranteed until we have the opportunity to audition them.
Here's my case.
Metal drivers are more rigid and this means fine details are not absorbed. Smaller drivers are more rigid, which means resolution is further enhanced. IOW, that dome midrange, by its very nature, will have very high levels of resolution (aka low distortion/low inband spectral decay).
Smaller radiators will automatically have wider dispersion in their upper ranges. The 2" will have much wider/higher dispersion than a 4" in the upper midrange/low treble. The .75" dome will have more dispersion in the upper treble. Furthermore, while the M5/M6 actually have a cancellation area in the upper midrange (which avoids too much reflection from a close wall), the Three/Four design is specifically engineered to have the widest possible dispersion in all directions. This means more ambient reflection in the upper midrange and this means a "more open, more spacious sound".
The low diffraction baffle is specifically designed to increase dispersion in the upper mids and treble by ameliorating the "kinks" that occur when the soundwave suddenly shifts direction at the speaker corner. One of the complaints of the 3.3 is that it wasn't spacious. It had reduced reflection from the ceiling/sidewalls compared to some speakers. This is because of its design, not because of some unknown, unpredictable interaction.
IOW, *everything* about the new Three/Four is designed around lowering distortion and increasing dispersion which is essentially identical to increasing resolution and spaciousness. Besides, I'm about 95% sure that the exact goal was to emulate the Xd as best possible, but with an analog speaker. With a 110dB/octave crossover, you can make a precise, wide dispersion, low distortion handoff. However, you can't do that with a 6" and a 1" in the analog domain. The handoff between the drivers will be "off" in both dispersion and distortion ("sound"), not to mention out of bandwidth distortions and FR errors because the drivers are pushed more than is ideal.
The 2" dome acts as a bridge. The typical 1" dome can be replaced by a .75" which automatically yields wider upper treble dispersion ("air") and the 6" driver can be cut off *very* early (~800Hz instead of ~3000Hz), meaning that rigidity is not a problem and the driver can be tweaked for more upper bass/low mid performance. And rather than having the upper mids being handled by a driver that would have squelched dispersion, the 2" dome is free to radiate a coherent soundfield, unfettered by being too big for the job. It's a solution that has been done on some flagship speakers such as B&W's [actual] Nautilus, Energy's Veritas and several others, but never, to my knowledge, on something this affordable before.
So, yeah, I'm making a presumption here, but only the presumption that NHT didn't do anything to impede the obvious advantages of this design. The *only* thing really in question is *how detailed* and *how spacious*, not if it is better in these areas because that is a given. Well, tonal balance is the other issue. What is the flavor of the speaker? We don't know that. My prediction is that it is voiced marginally towards the forgiving side of things so that they don't come across as bright in a normal room. The Xds are shockingly smooth, so if they can mimic that balance, all is right with the world
Sold my 1.5's in preparation for some THREE's
Hey, I thought *I* was being presumptious- pot, kettle, black!!!