Guestbook

Hello Mr. Nubert! Thank you for the detailed statement. I would say that over 90% of the people here know how to assess such a test (i.e. simply forget it). I take a look at this magazine from time to time and am always amused! There, laser printers (black and white, of course) get an unsatisfactory rating for color printing. Why is that? :-) Or a hard disk in an Aldi PC is rated as good because it is supposedly fast and quiet. A few pages later, this same hard disk receives a poor rating because it is too loud and too slow. Any more questions? So, I think we should now tick off this test and the subject of Computerbild and continue to write the guestbook full of praise. In contrast to such strange tests, you have more than earned them! :o)

I actually wanted to save my first guestbook entry for the praise about my new speakers (nuLine 80, will be ordered in Nov.), but I have to give my opinion on the said test. But first, a big compliment to the Nubert team. The service they offer is first class! I have already asked one or two questions by e-mail and was usually called back immediately (within 30 minutes). Then an employee answered my question calmly and with the patience of a saint. But now to the test: Just this much, the test is from Computer-Bild. They have no idea about computers and test them using very strange test methods. I can just about imagine what the speakers looked like ... I don't think it's a bad thing that Nubert doesn't even mention such a dubious test source!

Response to the guestbook entry by Ali (8.10.01) and Stefan Redlich (9.10.01). A small statement (as suggested by Mr. Redlich) is unfortunately not enough to bring some clarity to the results of the tests mentioned. From conversations with journalists from various specialist magazines, I have gained the impression that the aim of the vast majority of test editors is to provide readers with information that is helpful when selecting hi-fi components. However, the test in ComputerBild 12/99 lacked EXACTLY THAT. I imagine that all of our customers will understand that we did not want to advertise our result, which NONE OF THE 10 TEST CANDIDATES exceeded. We are of the opinion that this was a blatant misjudgment and we believe we can prove it. After the test, I made several phone calls and wrote three (sometimes vehement) letters to the ComputerBild editorial team. Finally, we were invited to a meeting in Hamburg, followed by an invitation to the most important speaker developers in Germany to work on improving the test criteria in a committee. Some of the assessment criteria (such as the rather radical load test) used in the 12/99 test were subsequently revised. A kind of truce has also been reached and we are hopeful that future tests will be more realistic. I actually thought that time heals wounds and I wanted to forget this test as quickly as possible. But now, unfortunately, I have to dig out some facts about it AGAIN: 10 sets were tested, which in our opinion sounded somewhere between a VW Polo and an S-Class Mercedes (in a REALISTIC test they would have earned a rating range of around 1.5 to 4). 8 sets received a sound grade of 4.0 and 2 sets received a sound grade of 5.0. In the entire multi-page test, there was only one tiny reference to the sound quality of the adequate sets: ...all other speakers received adequate grades, with the systems from Teufel and Nubert making the best impression. Funnily enough, the two best-sounding sets were ranked 7th and 9th and the set that was described as lively but a little shrill was ranked 1st. Because sound differences were not included in the evaluation, the ranking was based on other characteristics, such as required amplifier power. Unfortunately, the physical relationships were turned upside down. The fact that our nuBoxes 460 and CS-3 with the SAME AMPLIFIER already achieve significantly higher volumes than the speakers that were rated 1 for the recommended amplifier power means that they should have been rated 1 for a LONG time. - But because they can also emit FAR MORE POWER without distortion, they were given a score of 5!!! - WHO WANTS TO UNDERSTAND THAT! - The mistakes made here were so great that the ratings of most of the speakers in the test field were reversed! Our nuBox 460 and CS-3 were rated 5 because they supposedly require extremely high amplifier power! - However, almost all of the speakers that require MUCH MORE amplifier power for the same volume and would have earned a score of 5 were given a score of 1! As a result of this distortion, some of the sets were pushed far up in the overall ranking! The assessment of SOUND INTERFERENCE DUE TO CLIR FACTOR, which is much more important than the required amplifier power and from which the second and third-placed sets in particular suffered, NO LONGER HAD THE WEIGHT to oust these sets from their places. What is a reader supposed to do with a test in which the TEST WINNER received the test result "sufficient" and "poor price/performance"? A sad thing for the informative value of the test: Correcting the errors in the recommended amplifier power would completely change the order of the rankings - although EVEN THEN the sound quality of the speakers would still not be decisive for the overall result! - A reference to this test has been available for several years in our Technik Satt booklet, which can also be downloaded from our web-page, in the Dolby Surround chapter... (construction details, last section) and commentary on measurement methods... (speaker load test, paragraphs 1 and 2). If the rated power handling of our speakers had been 20 WATT each with otherwise unchanged characteristics, this set would have risen from an initial score of 4.05 (even 4.13 after correction of a calculation error by ComputerBild) to 3.42 with unchanged evaluation criteria - this set would then have been the ONLY one to win the trophy with a (dream score?) overall score of satisfactory despite its only adequate sound! Günther Nubert

Diffuse test results: The source, if really accurate, can't really be taken seriously, but the stupid thing about tests, especially when they appear in such popular magazines as Computerbild, is that they find a wide audience. But the nuBox 360, for example, also appears in this test series with a 1.7. So don't panic, evita.de doesn't seem to me to be the right place for reasonably objective tests either, if I'm looking for a loudspeaker test I don't exactly look at www.beautynet.de :-) Evita is a DPAG site with which they want to polish up their dusty image a little, but it usually backfires...

Which Nubert speakers are supposed to perform so badly? I can't find any bad ones.

I've got it now. It's probably a 4.1 (poor) in a test for home cinema loudspeakers in Computer-Bild 12/99, for the nuBox 460, RS 3 and CS 4 set. If that's true, it's pretty tough. Unfortunately, I no longer have this issue and it is missing from Nubert's test list!!! The same set won the test in HiFi-Test 5/98 with an excellent rating!!!! So what should you make of such tests if there are such different assessments? There is a solution: Judge for yourself! Perhaps there will be a short statement from Nubert!

Hello Nubert fans! I'm an avid Nubert speaker fan myself. Can anyone explain to me why the Nubert speakers did so badly in the following test evaluation, in which many speaker brands were tested? http://www.evita.de/center_e2c/0,5540,70327,00.html - Is it all just a bribe?

Hello, Mr. Sigle! Your Nuwave 10 with ABL module couldn't top my small Audioplan Kontrapunkt IV in terms of musicality - but your AW 900 is probably the perfect combination for very sophisticated small high-end speakers! Volume at the woofer between 9.30 and 10 o'clock, frequency set to the lower crossover frequency (here approx. 60 Hz)- even with moderate electronics (Rotel pre/end combo 995/980)- absolute class. And the wife can place a small plant...(but she doesn't have to...).

Hello Mr. Schäfer,Mr. Siegle (Nubert)wrote on 25.09.2001 very hopeful Dear Mr...,Thank you very much for your entry in our guestbook. In order to preserve the character of this guestbook, we ask all readers not to use this page as a question forum. We are about to realize a forum in which all questions and opinions about our products that are of general interest can be discussed. Please direct any questions to us only to our telephone hotline (within Germany 0800 6823780, from abroad 0049 7171 9269018) or to our e-mail address. Thank you very much. Armin Siegle Tuesday, September 25, 2001 5:55 pm That would really be an absolute enrichment, I think.

I bought the anniversary set a few weeks ago and have to agree with the praise. The sub is really great, even if I certainly didn't get it set up perfectly. The nubox 460 sound great, but my desk swallows quite a lot... Unfortunately I couldn't find out the difference between dipole and bipole (with the rs3). Maybe you can give me a tip.