Here's some more info on Nuance from AudioReview.com.
Date Reviewed: 2/23/01 10:33:05 PM
Well today I had the pleasure of going to international Stereo to really hear a pair of Nuance sing. I told the "nuance rep" that I wanted to hear it in 2 channel, no surround. No movies. Just music. He said fine and threw in the chopping wood track. What great imaging for Q sound! It even got better when I moved the chair slightly off the center. All that imaging dissapeared! Looks like only one person will ever "benefit" to hear Nuances great imaging. I wonder what Nuance will do when multi-channel music takes off...all that wonderful imaging will really mess things up.I guess Nuance will have to make some Q sound multi channel DVD-A for demos! Can't wait to hear these!
I have a reference Cd that I listen to. It has great sound and I have listened to it on numerous different makes and models. Most have impressed me.I heard it on Paradigm Titan speakers($400.00 bookshelves), my Mirage Om-10s($1500.00 passive towers) and also JM Lab(not sure of the model, but they were $98 000). Each of these speakers sounded pretty good and obviously, at least in this case, as the price went up so did the quality of sound I heard. Them JM Labs are something else.
So I tell the Nuance rep to put the disc in and put it on track 8. He says sure but first I have to listen to Madonna's Vogue. Great...another Q sound encoded disc. And this I know...cause I have it. I thought great I can make a comparison to what I hear at home. To say the least I was not impressed. The bass was a little muddy and they had no depth. Forward, in your face bright sound.Sure, they imaged! Sounds came from beside me. Big deal,its the quality of sound that really matters. But I still had not listened to my disc yet. This is when I asked him how much for the pair...he told me $4800.00 . I knew I was going to get a riduculous price so I saved the moment by not laughing and keeping a straight face. Of course you can wheel and deal so I imagine you can pick up these bad boys for 3000-3500.
Now for the real test. On came the track 8 that I requested and within 20 seconds something was horribly amiss. I knew these would sound bad...but this bad? Even after blasting my eardrums with my portable discman on for the last 3 hours? This song has great detail, so many nuances that a listener will hear. I didn't hear them much on these 4800.00 dollar speakers. The bass was not accurate and very muddy. No crispness to the highs. The cymbals that I have come to love didn't have that nice airy feel. All this on speakers that are 3000.00 dollars more than mine! What a bargain! I was in shock at what I was hearing.
Mr. Nuance rep asked me what I thought. I told him honestly I think they sounded terrible. ESPECIALLY for the price. I could have started ripping into him about everything I know about this company but I wasn't there to do that. I just wanted to hear where my hard earned 4800.00 dollars would go. He figured me out and knew that I had an idea about audio. So he quickly took my CD out and opened the door but we chatted a little more.
He asked what I had at home and I told him. He asked me if they were "imiging speakers" and I said No-there Bipolar. He gave me a puzzled look. Expected. I shot off a quick ramble about soundstage and detail that I wasn't hearing. Soon he was blaming the acoustics in his demo room. I looked at him and said "Buddy, I have the same hard reflective surfaces in my room at home...the only difference is my room is small, about 10 ft. by 12 ft. Hardly enough room for a set of bipolars for optimum sound...believe me I dream of a room this size"
And basically that was it. I walked out and left the store.
All of you that think I just spent the last how many minutes typing this for my own pleasure think again. This is all true and if any of you are thinking about spending loads of cash on speakers, do yourself a favor and shop around. I realize that many of you love these speakers but I really don't think you have listened to much of anything else. I know there big and intimadating looking and rate very high on the impress-your-friends scale. I also know that some of you actually question your purchase of Nuance but people don't like to get burned. So, pyscologicaly you think they sound great...but now I'm starting to sound like an audiophile. Heaven forbid I wouldn't want that. I just don't like to get screwed. And all of you that go for these pieces of trash are getting it real hard in the ***.
My second posting some time later:
Date Reviewed: 12/18/01 1:27:28 AM
In regards to the post below mine.
*begin rant*
First- They DO sound terrible. This would be very apparent if one could do the A/B test. Hook 2 sets of speakers up and see which ones sound the best. If Nuance is so wonderful, then why (at least here in edmonton) do they not sell them beside another speaker that could potentialy change the consumers mind? I'll tell you why. Two reasons. Because then most would agree that they do sound terrible (bloated lows, no nice crisp cymbal crashing highs, a mid that sounds like a megaphone; I don't need to go on). The second is the most important-the markup. The amount of money it takes to make one of these is scandoulus considering what they are selling these for. That flyer they have, the $10 000 ultimate, best home theater in the business. Hmmmm. You get your mains, center, surrounds, a reciever thats worth no more than $1500.00 and a DVD player thats worth no more than $900.00(I only say this because the flyer says its progressive scan, but probably not a true 3:2 pulldown progressive scan player) so its probably really worth closer to $500.00. So in this case, the speakers cost $8000.00 roughly. All of you Nuance reps out there reading this (ya you know who you are)know there is a lot more to be had for 8 Grand than this crap. And, as a rep, if you don't know, then the company loves you. Because your selling an inferior product to people that don't know any better and taking them to the cleaners. Thinking that because they spent big bucks it HAS to be good. I say Ignorance is bliss, on both ends.
Second-The writer below says there is no tricks with the CDs they play, it simple 2 channel. CDs one can buy in the store. He's absolutley right. However, these discs that they like to demo for music do have an ace up their sleeve. They image. They image very well. They do this because of Q-sound, an old technology being used on these state of the art speakers. Nothing more than tricking the mind into hearing things where they shouldn't be coming from. Why do they use Madonna's greatest hits as demo material? Because its encoded with Q sound, especially the track Vogue. That disc is over 10 years old. Wheres some newer demo material? Its old hat, nobody really encodes with Q Sound anymore. Theres another speaker manufacturer that uses the same trick, but its not so much with the software. Its DCM Timewindows and they have actually designed speakers that make you think your hearing stuff behind you. Its not nearly as effective as a 5.1 set-up but still does the trick. And its way less money. The people of Nuance/International Stereo decided that the J6P's out there (J6P= Joe six Pack, a term for people that don't know and sometimes think they do) needed a really expensive speaker to become available to the masses and they will buy it because they just don't know any better. And it has worked. They say nobody can out do them with their 10 year warranty. Bryston, a highly respected Canadian company that makes amplifiers offers a 20 year TRANSFERABLE warranty on their stuff. Sure, its amps and not speakers, but their prone to breaking down too, like everything else we as consumers buy.
To touch on the Q sound idea again, every speaker images(to a point) and all Nuance did was grab a theme(Q sound) and go with it. Nobody knows about Q sound so they can manipulate them into believing that the state of the art Nuance speakers are reproducing this. Simple as that. And thousands have bought into it.
As for the sound of them...do look closer at the drivers. They want you to think they are expensive and have a polypropelene look to them. It's just paper woofers with some hardening substance on them. If they left them just paper it would probably sound better, but these audio scammers at Nuance know that the look of the speaker is almost as important as the sound. If it looks good, it sounds good. And anyway, who wants to admit that they got burnt for thousands? Nobody. So even though you may hear something that sounds crisper, tighter bass and is only $600.00 you will justify your Nuance purchase because you spent more. Or there bigger. Or whatever. Go to A&B sound and listen to some Energy's. A fraction of the price with 10 times the sound. Or, if your feeling adventurous, check out some hi-fi shops. Great deals can be had there too.
