UPDATE AUGUST 2003 - New Technology Ribbon Loudspeakers for Superb Home Theater and HiFi Stereo

Ribbon Loudspeakers by Newform Research.

WHAT'S NEW

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Newform Research Update - Aug 2003

Caveats

OK, we have been preaching the advent of the complete digital chain. This isn’t completely digital all the way. There is one section of AD/DA as the Behringer only outputs analog and the Panasonic only takes analog for its multi channel inputs.

When a one box solution (amps and crossovers in one piece or gear) is available this issue will go away.

The Behringer is a very flexible and powerful piece of pro gear. Get off the beaten path when you are still a novice and you will find yourself lost in configuration menu hell. That is why we send it out fully configured. We also ask you to call us as soon as you have the system hooked up and plugged in. 10 minutes of a live walkthrough can save hours of searching the manual. Feel free to experiment once you know the basics but MAKE GOOD NOTES and build up familiarity with the menu system before making changes.

We can only utilize 4 of the Panasonics 6 channels. Still this adds up to 200w per channel.

General Points

Room equalization is a huge topic. Some things can be addressed very well by room correction and some things can’t be. Tact has the best system around and the EQ capability built into the Behringer is very crude by comparison but it can be extremely useful if applied properly.

Most Newform customers have amps and preamps worth in the neighbourhood of $5000. This package cuts that investment down to less than $1000. The system does not have the flexibility of a preamp with multiple inputs but is quite convenient if you are only using a CD or DVD player. The Panasonic does come with a remote control for volume.

Splicing into a home theater system can be done fairly readily but it is one more layer of complication. You would feed the Behringer with the front channel preouts from your processor or receiver. These would be analog as there probably is no surround sound front end out there that outputs digital.

How good is the system really?

Does it crush the current state of the art, Tact, Bryston, Spectron, Krell et all? No, the current state-of-the-art is extremely good and this is not a quantum leap in fidelity. However, it is better than many very good systems and sits on the same plateau in many respects as the best out there. I doubt anyone will be disappointed in the performance and anyone who does not have an absolutely superb system now will be thrilled.

Investment Strategy

Great sound for a $1000 total investment in amplification is a no-brainer for audiophiles. To the point of being greeted with disbelief, in fact. For the price of a good set of cables, you replace and probably improve the whole front end. When something better comes out, the XR45 can be used or sold as a normal receiver and there is a ready pro market for the Behringer. The point here is: low entry cost, decent resale value, flexibility.

There are two very strong reasons to jump into digital now. The first is economic. Our digital system is easily affordable to anyone in the high end market. That is the buy side. The sell side is that most people reading this have considerably more than $1000 tied up in their amp/preamp system. Prices for current audio gear won’t collapse overnight just because Newform has started trumpeting the arrival of the digital age in audio but certainly very heavy erosion of resale value of conventional gear can be expected over the next several years. No matter what happens, your exposure is vastly reduced the sooner you downspend to digital.

Example: A top of the line 3 gun front projector that went for $40,000 5 years ago is worth how much today?

Alright maybe the second reason is economic and the first is performance but, in any case, musical performance alone will justify this system. It doesn’t have to be couched in rationalizations. Once you let people hear this system, you will find you never have to use the phrase “It’s damn good for the money!” It is extremely good, no matter how much it cost.

There used to be audio budget guides which recommended that 40% of the budget should be put to loudspeakers and maybe 40% to amplifiers with 20% going to the source component. Typical Newform owners have much more tied up in electronics than they do in the speakers but with the digital chain, the loudspeakers become the most expensive part by far. With the cost of the Panasonic/Behringer/645 system at $3210US, adding a decent DVD player still keeps you under $3500 for a superb system. Six months ago, a great system was $8000 to start. The world has changed a lot.

An End to Tweaking?

Will tweakers feel abandoned? With dozens of parameters to fine tune, the Behringer offers immense tuning potential not the least of which is basic room correction (EQ). The loss of passive crossover components will be more than made up for by the array of DSP crossover choices. Will audiophiles adjust? We’ll see. Just remember to write down your settings or you’ll spend hours in a never ending menu maze. And, of course, there are a lot of interconnects involved. Oh yes, speaker cables are still with us. Now, that power cord ....

Upgrading Current Speakers

Upgrading your current Newforms will take about 60 minutes each and require some soldering. The external crossover terminal plates are $70US and they screw right into the existing terminal cups existing holes. You do not have to remove the woofers or otherwise go inside the box to perform this upgrade.

Summation

Newform has been eagerly anticipating complete digital systems for over 8 years. What we have discussed above is not the final word in the digital wave but a great first step. We feel that our tall Ribbon wide dispersion, monopole loudspeakers offer the best musical performance potential for the most people in the greatest variety of real world rooms. Digital amps and DSP crossovers are the perfect complement to these designs and drive the cost of the complete system into the realm of affordibility for most music lovers. This is not quite a “chicken in every pot” proposition but true high end audio can now be enjoyed by the vast majority of people who have even a mild interest in it.

The Newform/Panasonic/Behringer system is basically a simple system with a great deal of flexibility and capability that can make it complicated. If you have more than one source which you use often, some thought will have to go into the hookups. Overall though, it is a very sure first step into digital audio.

External Crossover Terminal Plates

External Crossover Terminal Plates - rear

New Web Site

It was close to a year in the making but the new website is finally up. Please look through it and tell us what you think. We wanted a subdued site that was exceptionally easy to navigate given the large amount of material we have on line. Let us know how you found it to use.

Also, please send in pictures of your system with stock Newform speakers. People like to see how our speakers look in the real world.

As soon as we learn to use our new CNC router, we will get the No Holds Barred systems finished and up on the site. This will be the subject of our next Update! The NHB systems have been waiting for the in-house CNC capability since no external supplier is interested in taking on the very convoluted and painstaking manufacturing process given Newforms low volume. Also, we had always planned to offer NHB systems with DSP crossovers exclusively and have been holding back development until the Behringer DSP crossover was available and working to expectations.

Again, the No Holds Barred line will not replace any current models but will offer higher end performance and finer aesthetics at a unavoidably significantly higher cost.

This Update will probably create more questions than it answers. Call or email and we’ll try and cover them all.

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Email: ribbons@newformresearch.com Tel: 705.835.9000