NHT C Series C-3 Premium Home Theater 3-Way Bookshelf Speaker - Clean, Hi-Res Audio | Sealed Box | Aluminum Drivers | Single Unit, High Gloss Black

I've been using the NHT C3s as my main 2.0 stereo speakers for music, video, and games. They sound fantastic and they really love power. The main thing is, they will reveal the quality of the source. If the album was mixed poorly or uses too much compression ( Boston's 'Third Stage' album ) ... uhg, it will totally come through and sound like total crap, and that's WITH flac files, proper amplification, gain staging adjustment, and some high quality EQ to tweak the sonics. Nothing will work to fix it because it is showing you the exact source. Put on a well recorded track like Eric Clapton's 'Change the World', however, ... close your eyes and you'll hear every nuance on a wide soundstage with all the players placed in their different locations. You'll even here sounds back behind your head if your speaker placement and room treatment is right.These are listed at 87dB sensitivity but they test more around 85dB and they are a 6ohm nominal load but dip down into 4ohm, so you want a good high dampening factor on your amp (>100). I put a couple of Fosi V3 monos on these and they sound wonderful. Being a non ported design means the bass will be tight and linear with no bloom but a bit harder to drive. They are pretty forgiving on room placement because of this. I would recommend using these with the grills removed to improve imaging ... it really matters here. I'm not using a subwoofer but you might want to. I have a Schiit Lokius equalizer to add in a little low end if needed and I use a new Schiit Saga 2 preamp with all three gain settings (passive, low, and high) to match what sounds best for the source I'm using ... and it varies ... I'm always tweaking it to get it just right. If you want to listen to your music at a level of surgical precision then these are your scalpels, no doubt. If some track has a lot of compression on it, you can make it tolerable ... if your DAC is harsh at the top, adjustments can be made, but these speakers aren't going to do it FOR you by smearing over details in one area or another. You are going to be the one making the adjustments and you will learn a lot about sound engineering just from what these drivers expose. It doesn't have to be an expensive proposition ( $120 amps) but clean discrete gear that's adjustable is what you want and it will pay off big time... you'll be able to play and optimize anything.I'd recommend adding some Harrison Labs in line high pass filters either at 30HZ or 20Hz to ease up on your amp and free up the speakers from sub harmonic excursion which just robs your rig of performance.These are end game boxes ... highly recommended !

I purchased a pair of the NHT C-3 bookshelf speakers at the remarkable price of $536, plus sales tax, and this might be the best value I've ever encountered in new equipment.The fit & finish is terrific, easily competitive with much more expensive speakers, and the cosmetic change from the rounded top & bottom of the earlier Classic Three makes for a simpler, more-refined appearance. The finish is prone to acquiring fingerprints, so you'll want to wear cotton gloves to remove the speakers from their packing.Sonically, the C-3 has all of the attributes you'd expect in a high-quality standmount, with excellent stereo imaging and soundstage presentation, but this system also has a remarkable continuity that - especially in a larger room - makes the transition from one driver to the next nearly seamless in this 3-way design, with the overall effect more closely suggesting a flat panel-type loudspeaker than a small-box dynamic. The sealed acoustic suspension design also permits the 6.5" woofer of the C-3 to perform well into the lower frequencies found in most unamplified music recorded with limited processing; this comes at a decrease in system efficiency, but makes for a speaker that is commendably balanced throughout its range.If there's a limitation, it's in the maximum spl that the speaker can attain - it's not going to blast you out of the room - which is not much of a sacrifice to make in favor of the natural response and musicality provided by the C-3 under normal listening conditions. The C-3 will play reasonably loudly, but put these speakers safely away for parties, and drag out some garage sale Cerwin Vega boxes for rocking the house.Note: this evaluation is based upon the C-3 speakers in a fairly large room - 23'x18' with a 16' ceiling, where the music has a chance to breathe a little bit, and from a listening position far enough back as to allow for 2nd and 3rd reflections. The speakers were also driven by a 200 watt/channel McIntosh integrated amplifier, a very stable power source for this low impedance (4 ohm, minimum) load. Although the Mac might be a much more expensive design than what one might normally expect to be connected to sub-$1000 speakers, it demonstrates the truly fine performance that can be had with the C-3, and that utilizing higher end equipment with these speakers would not be money wasted.A Google search will show the NHT C-3 review from Home Theater HiFi, which provides an excellent summation with measurements & specs.To sum up, these are very attractive speakers with an enjoyable, natural musical presentation that's in line with much more expensive designs; the C-3 could be one of the best hi-fi bargains around!

The fit and finish are great. They are solid and fairly heavy speakers for their size. The lacquer black paint is really nice. I had the speakers paired with a Denon PMA-1600ne and a Marantz PM7000n integrated amplifier. I felt the bass was very tight. Not a lot of bass since the speaker is sealed but the bass was solid and fairly natural sounding. Definitely not lacking and in no way boomy or bloated. I also felt the midrange was very clean and natural sounding. Those were the pluses. I felt the treble was too bright. For me. Some reviewers say it is clear. It is clear but maybe too clear. You hear everything in the highs. For me, listening to the speakers became fatiguing. I had my amps set to flat response but I ended up having to turn down the treble into the negative numbers for me to listen to them. Lastly, they are not the most sensitive speakers so if you buy them, you really need to have an amplifier with a lot of power. They like power. The Denon had plenty but the Marantz was adequate. You will definitely notice that you have to turn up your amp's volume more than with other speakers. If you have a built in room correction on your amp or receiver I think you should let it calibrate your room with these speakers. Maybe it can adjust it so it tames the treble. So, in summary, I think the fit and finish, paint, bass and midrange were really pleasing, but the treble was just too bright sounding for me.

Note I paid $268 each new. These are nicely detailed speakers that sound wonderful. They are intended for audiophile oriented listeners (which is actually a very wide variety of people but I am saying these are not for everyone). They are for the listener who wants very realistic sounding gear, think of what instruments actually sound like in real life - the good and bad of that. These are NOT warm sounding, they are also not cool sounding unless the recording is itself poor. They are very neutral to the source and very flat in frequency response. They do not have boosted bass. As well, since they have a sealed cabinet the bass never suffers from port chuffing & I love that because I can not stand port chuffing. The bass very fast and detailed and perhaps slightly lightweight for some listeners, you may want a subwoofer to fill in the lows. (I did not find I need one in my room.) The mids are natural sounding and really all vocals shine. The treble is fast and detailed and very smooth for a "detail" oriented speaker. (no listener fatigue) It also has that grip on electronic music, cymbal crashes, electric guitars and such that I have found you need a metal based tweeter to bring to life. (again these are not warm or euphonic, if you want warm there are many other speakers out there - try the polk lsim703 currently on clearance for 450 a pair online down from 1500) They are fairly dynamic speakers, for example in a direct comparison they are noticeably more dynamic than my JBL 306 MKII studio monitors Give them at least 10+ hours of high volume play time to break them in a bit, they will soften up a bit sound a slightly more coherent and less "metalic". I really like these speakers. I currently have at home/ and recently have owned the following speakers in a similar price range (Polk LSIM703, Focal studio monitors, JBL 306 MKII, wharfedale denton, infinity r162, ELAC UB5, several Boston acoustics speakers m25, a25, KEF q100, KEF q150, several DIY designs, JBL LSR308, & more) I am just trying give the idea that I have other systems to compare with. These are really, really good speakers for the money ($268 each for the C-3 when on sale) I like many different speakers, I don't really have a true favorite - however I'd likely take these over everything I just listed.

If you don't want to read a long review, here's the short version:"TL;DR: The absolute best...period. Enjoy the last pair of full range speakers you'll ever need for anything."Need more? read on!When I found out they made updates to NHT's new full range bookshelves, I couldn't help myself. I bought the pair, but held off on the sub just to hear what they'd sound like without them (as they suggested on their website), and ...holy crap, you really don't need a sub. Imaging is so good I don't need a center channel. Separation and clarity in low tones are even throughout. Bass response is quick and tight. Mids sound natural and neutral. Highs are clear but not harsh. I'm already starting to listen to all my music in my library again and exposing a lot of bad recordings I thought were good. I'm watching all of my Blu-rays all over again and hearing things I didn't know were in the recording. If I want to up the ante, I could add a sub later on and some smaller SuperZero's for surround. The paragraph below is my background on why I chose these speakers over a more well-known brand name.Over the past couple of years, I've been wanting to get a quality sound system and was very picky as I'm now a "Buy it for Life" kinda guy, especially when it comes to my electronics. A couple of years back, I've took some serious audiophile speakers for spins at a friend's house, and we're talking crazy amps and crossovers and sound treatment on walls, etc.--I mean, the guy's setup was easily 35K+. After trying different speaker combos, and receivers and what not, he took me into a second room where he had a pair of his old NHT speakers, I think they were NHT Classic Threes, and the difference was barely noticeable. He turned to me and said "if I could do it all over again, I would just get NHT Threes and call it a day." The difference in sound (at least to extremely picky, but non-obsessed audio folk like me) wasn't worth the 33K more. These are the newer version of the threes that, I hear, are easier to repair if needed.As a side-note, huge kudos to Amazon's customer service too, as when I got the speakers, the grills were loose and were broken due to packaging and shipping (which NHT did fix the packaging to solve this issue). They helped me replace the grills within a week with no problems.I hope this review helps you find the speakers you're looking for, but for me, my search is over, and I couldn't be happier.

Update 6 months in: I just paired these up with a Rogue Audio Sphinx v2 and Chord Mojo, and the result is wonderful. These aren't "warm" speakers - they are revealing and detailed, assuming you have the space to let them breath and the power to drive them. The combo with the Sphinx and Mojo is easy on the ears while being super detailed. With the Sphinx's strong damping factor, the bass coming out of these things is stunning and clean. I'm enjoying music at any volume and of any genre. It's sad to see a 2 star review here from someone who doesn't understand speaker efficiency and is pissed about broken cosmetic stuff. These speakers won't make a bad system good, but they seem perfectly capable of growing better with every improvement up the chain, the sign of well-made, transparent stuff.Original Review:I was pleased with these out of the box, but now, two weeks in and some obsessive tweaking behind me, I finally hit on the potential of these speakers and I'm happy to give them 5 stars. They are incredibly revealing. Put on a bad source, and you'll be frustrated with how they sound. Then switch to a lossless, high-quality recording, and you'll see they are capable of incredible clarity, depth, and bass for their size. In other words, they don't seem to polish the music, just present it in remarkable clarity. I had to play around with many positions to get them right (they didn't sound good more than 10 ft. apart with a big hit to imaging), but once they were dialed in they created a totally convincing phantom center and I felt like I could see exactly where each instrument was placed. The sweet spot is amazing, and they still manage to fill up the large room with clear sound that's pretty good from any position, due to the wide dispersion.

I bought four NHT speakers from the C series -- two C3's and two C-LCR's. They were all purchased used from the Amazon warehouse. The first three were listed as "like new" condition and the description didn't include any mention of broken or missing parts. However on arrival the front grill on all three of these speakers were broken. The small plastic pins that hold the grill on were snapped off in the speaker and the grill wouldn't attach on one or both sides. The fourth speaker was listed as "very good" and again the description didn't indicate any problem, but in this case the grill was just missing. Needless to say I am disappointed in the quality on this product both from NHT and Amazon. You can clearly tell that the grill was cheaply designed by the manufacturer, with the plastic pins used to hold on the grill being an obvious weak spot. Similarly Amazon as the seller should do a better job of policing their listings. I have bought many "like new" items from Amazon warehouse and rarely have any problem but in this case all 4 of the speakers were graded improperly, as there's no way that a like new product should be broken.Anyway from a sound quality perspective I think these speakers sound very good, particularly for the price. I've compared them to my KEF LS50's and I like them as well or better. If they could just fix the grill problem it would be a great product.

I grew up in the 60's and 70's...so ROCK n ROLL...These are the best speakers I have owned. I have had Huge speakers...and small room speakers...and PC speakers. These are the BEST. I have these in small room with good acoustics...and carry them to my boat that has a big deck. They are CRISP...CLEAN...and need a little more power to get full affect. You will sounds that you have never heard before...worth the money I paid over 2 years ago...400.00 ish new.

This speaker sound good, it’s great in music and beyond my expectation in many ways.

The reason I chose to buy the NHT c-3 speaker was after reading various reviews and opinions these might have the sound characteristics I like and would work well in the small 10ft square room I would be using then in.I’m happy to say that I made a good choice with these speakers and they sound great powered by my 150 watt rms into 4ohm integrated amplifier.The build quality for a this budget bookshelf speaker is way better than I expected at this price point, pleasingly solid with a flawless finish.The SoundTo me the treble midrange sounds smooth with plenty of detail that’s non fatigue for long listening sessions. Being a sealed design with no port, the bass is tight and controlled and can go quite low but does not sound overblown, this makes placement in a small area less of an issue.Overall I really enjoy listening to my music with these speakers and that this keeps me listening longer, which is what it’s all about.

I bought this thinking it will be a set of speakers but unfortunately it came in one. Possible to just buy another one?