NHT N-AZB Absolute Zero Speaker (Black)

by NHT

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 12 x 10 x 9 inches ; 20 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 20 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• Shipping Advisory: This item must be shipped separately from other items in your order. Additional shipping charges will not apply.
• ASIN: B000BYNP7K
• Item model number: N-AZB
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #29,250 in Electronics (See Top 100 in Electronics)
  • #74 in Electronics > Home Audio & Theater > Stereo Components > Speakers > Bookshelf Speakers

Product Description

Color: Black

From the Manufacturer

The Classic Absolute Zero is NHT's premium fourth generation version of the original NHT Zero mini-monitor released in 1989. The latest incarnation manages to extend deep bass response and improve horizontal dispersion while maintaining the open and natural midrange for which all Zero models are known. The Classic Absolute Zero is a great choice for stereo, distributed audio, and home theater systems.

Absolutely premium driver units ensure the Absolute Zero is the best of class mini monitor

Buying any NHT speaker means you care about getting the best speaker value for your hard earned money. It means and you care about quality craftsmanship and high-end performance. It means you're ready to join the family of fanatics who love music, movies and the best gear that produces them. Welcome to the club--Now Hear This!

The Classic Absolute Zero is perfect for stereo, distributed audio and home theater systems

Acoustic Suspension for Natual Sound

The Classic Absolute Zero, like most NHT speakers, is an acoustic suspension design (not ported or vented). It uses a long-throw 5.25” polypropylene cone midrange/woofer. The woofer frame was designed entirely in-house using F.E.A. (Finite Element Analysis) and is made using a proprietary BMC (bulk moulding compound) frame, which has the high strength and low resonance of a much more expensive cast magnesium alloy frame. The Absolute Zero uses a very sophisticated 1” aluminum dome tweeter in a tiny bezel that features a very small, yet powerful neodymium magnet. This small bezel allows us to position the tweeter and midrange drivers as close together as possible to get very even on and off axis response.

Highly Rigid Cabinet for Reduced Resonances

The Absolute Zero's beautiful and curvaceous little cabinet made is of very dense MDF (medium density fiberboard) material. It is extensively braced and cut to amazing precision by NHT's manufacturing partners using CNC lathes. It gets two base coats, then seven layers of high gloss black or white paint color coats, hand polished between each coat followed by two clear coats for long lasting beauty.

Cabinets Designed for Easy Mounting

If you need to wall or ceiling mount the Absolute Zero, the inserts on the back are specifically made to accommodate the Omnimount 20.0 wall mount and Omnimount 20.0 ceiling mount. They are also perfectly suited to conventional speaker stands.

Optional Accessories

Adding a Subwoofer: Most typically for a subwoofer/satellite system the Absolute Zero will be mated to the B-10d powered subwoofer.

Mixing and Matching: Building a system? The Classic Absolute Zero mates with every speaker in the Classic line. If you are considering building a home theater system, match the Absolute Zero with the Absolute Center channel speaker or upgrade a notch to the Classic TwoC. For rear speakers, another pair of Absolute Zero are the best solution but also consider iC2 or iC3 for in-ceiling or iW2 or iW3 for in-wall solutions.

Technical Specifications

• System Type: Bookshelf speaker
• Configuration: 2-way acoustic suspension design
• Woofer: 5.25" polypropylene cone
• Tweeter: 1" aluminum dome
• Crossover Frequency: 3 kHz
• Crossover Slopes: 18dB LP, 18dB HP
• Sensitivity: 86dB (2.83v@1m)
• Impedance: 6 ohms nominal
• Inputs: 2 each professional grade, nickel plated 5-way binding posts
• Speaker Dimensions: 9.75"/248mm x 5.625"/143mm x 7.25"/185mm (H x W x D)
• Weight: 8 lbs./3.6 kg each
• Finish: High Gloss Black, or White

Which Classic NHT Speaker is Right for You?

		Absolute Zero	Two	Three	Absolute Tower	Four
Type		Bookshelf	Bookshelf	Bookshelf	Tower	Tower
Freq Response +/- 3 dB		71Hz - 20kHz	51Hz - 20kHz	45Hz - 20kHz	58Hz - 20kHz	27Hz - 20kHz
Max Power		100W RMS	125W RMS	150W RMS	150W RMS	250W RMS
Dimensions
	Height	9.75"	12.125"	13.75"	37.9"*	41"*
	Width	5.625"	7"	7.5"	10.63"*	13.5"*
	Depth	7.25"	8.875"	10.375"	12"*	16"*
Finish		High Gloss Black or White	High Gloss Black or White	High Gloss Black	High Gloss Black	High Gloss Black
					*All Tower Dimensions are with base installed

Product Description

NHT's Classic Series represents their best efforts to date in passive loudspeaker design. Classic speakers start with the design fundamentals that have made NHT's reputation for accuracy and high performance, and add new driver and cabinet technologies which reduce distortion and improve dispersion. The benefit to you is a more articulate, more musical listening experience. NHT's newest, and best mini-monitor to date, the Absolute Zero combines their new 5.25" woofer and 1" aluminum dome tweeter to make beautiful music together. Easily wall mounted using the threaded insert on the rear panel, or place it on a shelf or stand with the user-installed cabinet rails.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Nice but not worth twice the price of the SB1s, February 7, 2008

By 

EmbeddedFlyer (Seattle, WA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: NHT Absolute Zero White (Ea) 2-Way Bookshelf Speaker (Electronics)

The Absolute Zero replaces the NHT SB1 but the street price has roughly doubled. I have a pair of the original Super Zeros, a pair of SB1s, and now a pair of Absolute Zeros. I've compared all 3 to each other in a carefully set up environment listening to a variety of material from high quality sources.

Unlike older NHT products, the Absolute Zeros are made in China which makes the new higher price even harder to swallow. I'm betting NHT's costs have actually gone down over the USA made SB1s. So it's kind of sad they saw fit to raise the price so high? This is even more true because, as I'm about to explain, one can argue the much cheaper SB1 sounds better!

Before I get to the sound, the Absolute Zero looks nicer, less obtrusive, and a bit more expensive than the previous SB1. The curved cabinet makes them look more sleek although the plastic grill frames don't fit all that well and have two cheesy visible strips of foam rubber that's tacked on flanking the tweeter. I presume the strips are there to control high frequency diffraction effects improving the sound but it's ugly if you look at the speakers from the side with the grills on.

Sound wise, the Absolute Zero is the brightest of the three speakers. Some have said it's more detailed as well, but that's very subjective. Most people consider a brighter speaker to be more detailed, but that's not always true. More high frequency distortion, for example, can make a speaker sound brighter while revealing LESS detail. I'd say the new Absolute Zero reveals about the same musical detail as its predecessors and many other good speakers in its price range.

The deeper bass performance is very similar to the SB1 which means there's honest bass down to 90hz or so. Below that, the bass rolls off more gently than in most similar sized speakers which are typically ported these days. The sealed NHT designs are also better for putting up against a wall, in a cubby hole, cabinet, etc. as there's no port to worry about. The new Zero has much more satisfying bass than the much smaller original Super Zero but most will still want a subwoofer if you like real bass.

The new Zero allows a subwoofer to be crossed over around 100hz with no big "hole" in the bass like you get with most small satellite speakers. Most satellites with 4.5 inch or smaller woofers have trouble honestly making it down to even 150hz despite their optimistic specifications. Not so the Absolute Zero or SB1.

In terms of soundstage (imaging), all 3 speakers are about the same with perhaps the SB1 being slightly weaker. NHT speakers have always done a good job of "disappearing" and the Absolute Zero is no exception.

My biggest complaint with the Absolute Zero is a somewhat nasal character in the lower midrange that's missing in the SB1 and Super Zero. It's especially obvious on certain vocals and it's the same sort of sound, just less obvious, that you often hear from those cheap plastic enclosure surround sound satellites that are so common these days. Perhaps NHT is making their drivers at a different factory in China and they're not as accurate as they used to be? Whatever the reason, it's a step backwards.

The brighter high-end can also be a mixed blessing. The old SB1 is more forgiving of MP3 material with encoding artifacts, poorly recorded/mixed content, etc. The Absolute Zero can make less than pristine recordings sound more harsh--especially at louder volumes. The tweeter looks very similar to the SB1 tweeter, but it's clearly not identical and there may be crossover changes as well. Again, it's possible the new tweeter is made by a different manufacture in China.

In terms of efficiency, NHT has been steadily increasing it. The SB1 is slightly more efficient than the old Super Zero, and the Absolute Zero is very slightly more efficient still. It will play about equally as loud as the SB1 before it starts to sound obviously strained. But again, the brighter high end makes it sound more harsh when pushed hard. I was driving them with a high-end power amp with 200 watts per channel and clipping indicators, so I'm quite certain it wasn't my amp that was straining.

Most people will think either the SB1 or Absolute Zero sound significantly better than the original Super Zero--at least unless you're using a properly set up subwoofer. The SB1, in particular, sounds notably warmer and more full than the thin sounding Super Zero. The Absolute Zero initially sounds a bit louder (which it is) and brighter (which it also is) than the SB1 perhaps giving it an edge in a quick A/B comparison.

But if you spend some time listening to a variety of material on both the SB1 and Absolute Zero, as I have done, I think most would agree NHT has taken a small step backwards even if the Absolute Zero were the same price. At roughly double the price, I think they've taken a BIG step backwards and there are better options in the Absolute Zero's now lofty price range.

Overall, I wish NHT still made the SB1 as I prefer the sound and they were half the street price. Still, if you require a non-ported small speaker under 10 inches high that can reach down below 100hz, there are not that many good choices. So for these rare applications, the Absolute Zero might still be worth considering. Or, if the street price ever drops back to where it should be, the Absolute Zero would again be competitive.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Accurate and smooth., June 12, 2007

By 

J. Fera - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: NHT N-AZB Absolute Zero Speaker (Black) (Electronics)

I am more into music than movies, and while these do a great job with DVDs and HiDef TV, they really make CDs sound awesome. I listen to music in 2.1 using an NHT Classic Twelve subwoofer, and it's the best my music has ever sounded. The Zeroes by themselves leave a little to be desired in the low end, but I totally expected that from seeing the specs (71 Hz. low end rolloff). So I crossover at 80 Hz. with my Onkyo receiver and voila - great sound. I've got other speakers that can go lower, but the mids and highs from the Zeroes is SO much smoother. If you want to listen in 2.0, I'd bet the Classic Threes would do a great job on their own. You'd probably still want a sub for movies, though.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Perfect small room use, March 25, 2007

By 

T. Wilson "skexzies" (Saint Louis, MO USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: NHT N-AZB Absolute Zero Speaker (Black) (Electronics)

These mini speakers have excellent tonality - but take note that their small size prohibits them from reproducing lots of bass. I use them for my PC speakers - because every pair of normal PC speakers I've ever purchased were junk. The grills come off and the finish is polished piano black EVEN on the back which looks cool when approaching my desk. Just remember that much below 120Hz and these speakers struggle (Can't defy the laws of Physics). Midrange and Treble are open and airy. No strain at loud volumes either - although they want to hop a little. I listen to mix of Rock/Rap/Country/Death Metal/Irish Pub songs and Frank Sinatra/Johnny Cash/Karen Carpenter for vocals. I recommend them to everyone. NHT makes a very versatile speaker that is shockingly good.

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