Simaudio N HT's Xd manual

www . Stereophile .com, November 2005 N HT’s Xd system is what audiophiles hav e been sa ying they want: a matched loudspeaker system that optimizes the perfor- mance of its components for a real-w orld domestic listening envir onment. But with their dollars they’v e voted against just such systems for years. If we put our mone y wher e our mou[...]

N HT Xd T he basic Xd configuration tested here was: the XdA, a box containing four channels of pow er amplification and crosso v er/equalization for up to two satellites and tw o sub woofers; a pair of two-wa y XdS satellite speakers with stands; and the XdW , a pow ered bipole subw oofer module. Other con- figurations of electronics, speakers , a[...]

I first came upon D EQX (www .deqx .com) at the Consumer Electronics Sho w se veral y ears back. T he DE QX system measur ed the response of a speaker’s individual dri- vers and synthesized both digital filters to linearize phase response, time align- ment, and amplitude response in the frequency band wher e each performed best, and crossov ers o[...]

Another was that the basic DE QX unit cost about $3000, and the price rose with the addition of A/ D, D/ A, and preamp-type controls. Y et another was the need to hav e a PC or laptop to do the number crunching for the mea- surements, calculations, and setup . Still, the DE QX enjo ys deserved popularity in recor ding and mastering studios and with[...]

www . Stereophile .com, November 2005 N HT Xd the general design of class-D amps is well kno wn, the Po werPh ysics designs are claimed to offer better fidelity , especially in the higher frequencies, because of a proprietary feedback design that pro vides output corr ection on each output cycle, e v en though the switching is at rates of 250kHz or[...]

inv erted onto its stand, the cov er that protects the driv ers can be swapped for a fitted grille. Each XdS connects to the XdA with a color-coded cable terminat- ed, on each end , with a clearly labeled fit- ting bearing four banana plugs. T he 5 7 - lb XdW comes fully assem- bled, requiring only the attachment of its I EC pow er cord and XLR sig[...]

www . Stereophile .com, November 2005 N HT Xd But I was the real culprit: I was sim- ply too timid with the volume contr ol. Perhaps m y long-term bias towar d big speakers was making me treat this little system with condescension, but when I stopped babying the Xd, almost all of my r eservations about its performance went out the windo w . Let’s[...]

quality of the XdW’s bass was competi- tive with an y of them. W hen I piped the stereo signal thr ough the Outla w ICBM bass-management system , all fr equencies below 40Hz w er e sent to my P aradigm Servo-1 5 sub woofer , which added a wal- lop to the bottom end that the Xd, as configured here, couldn’t duplicate. Of course, the XdA pro vide[...]

two XdS satellites and tw o XdW pow er ed bipole subw oofers. T he XdA ’s equalization and filter para- meters are held in non v olatile mem- ory , and can be updated via a U S B link using a W indo ws XP program (pro vided y ou hav e Micr osoft’s .N ET e xtension installed ). T he thr ee filters N HT sent me were : 1 ) “flatterhighend .flt?[...]

ed on the XdA amplifier’s front panel. T urning off the amplif ier and turning it on again f ixed the pr ob- lem.) Repeating this tortur e test with the 1 50Hz crosso ver filters didn’t result in an y shutdo wns with the Clarke solo, and the chord that begins “In the Flesh,” from Pink Floyd’s Is There Anybody Out There? (The W all Live) ([...]

slight bump at 2kHz is gone, and the top two octa v es are betw een 1–3dB higher in lev el. T he r esponse now falls betw een ± 1 .25dB limits all the way fr om 80Hz to 1 6kHz , which is simply extraordinary in- room perfor- mance. Extraordi- nary! Summing Up: Art Dudle y recently wr ote that the true test of a component under re vie w is how y [...]