I have benn putting together an audio system for two years. I live in the Twin Cities area ,so I have a wide choice of high end to listen and compare to. Account of my musicial taste,room size and money to spend on it all, the NHT 2.5i`s were an easy buy. I pull them out from the wall for long serious listening. The money I save by not bying more costly speakers(not better sounding for the extra money)I will spend onMIT biwire.The2.5i`s are remarkable sounding!!

I came across these speakers at a AudioVisual show recently and they sounded just about the best among all of the speakers on display (ranging from a couple of hundred dollars to thousands of dollars). After reading a lot of reviews (including those on this site), I finally decided to get a pair. I have had them for a month now and they seem to sound better every day. I am very satisfied with my purchase and now am looking to purchase an AudioCenter 1 and a pair of 1.5s for the rear to make a complete home theater system. The stereo shop owner suggested that at some point down the road I buy a pair of 2.9s for the front and move the 2.5is to the rear -- he's even offered to take back the 1.5 as a trade-in at full price and let me have the 2.9s. Now that's really tempting, but I've got to convince the wife first (no easy task)!

I took a pair of NHT 2.5i s home last weekend, and spent some quality time with them, I am in the market for new speakers under $1500 so they fit the bill nicely, compared to my Def. Tech BP10Bs they are more strait forward with the music, Def Tech is more laid back , but does not have the focus that NHT's have. NHT has a very narrow sweet spot, and I found them somewhat hard to set up properly to get the best soundstage. After rearranging my living room around these puppies, I finally got a very satisfying music out of them. Their midrange is very nice, and they are very transparent, almost as good as Thiel CS1.5s that I am listening to right now, their soundstage is not as wide or deep as Thiels but I found them to be a better all-around performer with different kinds of music than thiels, since thiels are not very dynamic. On the other hand with Def Tech's the sound stage is not very accurate, but the overall sound is very musical, and Def Tech's do very well with different genres of music. I like to listen to almost anything from Jazz, classic(not very often), pop, rock to dance, trance-techno. NHTs did very well with jazz , acoustic music, and some good recordings of rock but not so good with dance, trance, techno. The main reason is NHT s high's and lows get too bright and muddy. This can be attributed to the quality of the cds of course. It all depends what kind of music you are into, if you just would like to sit down and do not care about soundstage, you likes all types of music, and would like to hear the music from everywhere in your home Def Tech would be the choice. If you are looking for an absoulute accuracy with an excellent soundstage and tranceparency go with Thiel (expensive over 2000), NHT is somewhere in between, it has a nice deep bass(little loose) and somewhat bright highs, and a very nice midrange. Overall a nice speaker to build a mid-fi system around.

I had them for over a month now. Impressive for music, not the best thing for home theater. But they are designed for music. Five stars for what they are meant for.

I bought the NHT 2.5i's on impulse one day. I just asked the dealer for some good speakers under $2000 CDN. He went through his inventory and these were on sale for, tax included, just under 2000 ;) Now before he came up to chat with me, I was looking at these Martin Logan electrostatics which looked real cool and I've always been impressed with the way electrostatics sound like there're not there. The NHT's however, looked very impressive in cherrywood with their angled enclosures. Due to a recent desire to coordinate my living room, I chose to get the pale blond laminate and they look very impressive in my living room. Looks aside, it took me about a month to set it up right:

1) Bi-wire and/or bi-amp these babies. My Yamaha receiver didn't really have the damping neccessary to drive these properly. I bought the NHT SA-2 sub-woofer amp to drive the woofers in mono and my receiver to drive the mid-hi's.
Set the active crossovers to overlap as much as possible because you get wierd phase effects in the mid-base due to the SA-2 and the 2.5i crossovers interacting (18+db/octave just generates too much phase shifting). I used
10 gauge speaker wires for hi and lo's.

2) Angle them slightly outward. Most people (including me!) aren't used to having the tweeters pointing straight at them so they sound bright. Imaging suffers a tad but the sweet spot gets a little bigger. In addition, I got better diffuse reflection off the wall from the sound energy radiating from the speaker enclosure.

3) The speaker grill vibrates a fair bit when playing certain types of music(Prodigy!). You may want to remove them.

4) They're not particularily sensitive so 100 watts a side is the minimum power amp rating you should use.

So after the brainless purchase, and the late night experimenting with the tolerance of my neighbors, I'm now totally happy, or rather Now Happy Totally!
Female vocalists sound amazing, base is tight and like a lot of people have said, I'm hearing things on my CD's that I haven't heard before. Maybe some things I could do without such as mixing mistakes. I listen to a wide variety of music and generally speaking, the better recorded CD's sound great while the run of the mills sound not so good on critial listening.

So to summarize, if you got good equipment, good source material, and a good setup of the speakers, then I highly recommend them. If you don't then pick something which is more forgiving (i.e. better used for background music).

I had an audio system, which was bought 8 years ago. It consists of an Onkyo receiver, a pair of Pioneer speakers and a Sony CD player. I am a classical listener and some soft rockers as well. I was not satisfied with its effect recently because the sound seems not that good and I might miss a lot of tones in a piece of music. The first thing I wanted to do is to upgrade the speakers. I read the reviews about speakers at Audio Review website and decided to test a few brands. I went to the audio stores and listened to B&W, KEF and NHT. KEF sounded quite nice and soft. But NHT 0.5 seemed much close to real instrument sound. Originally, I only want to spend around $500 to get a pair of new speakers. However, when I listened to NHT 2.5, I could not go with 0.5 just because the base in NHT 2.5i made the sound effect like real. I was still hesitating to buy one. It happened that I went to Wang Center in Boston to watch ‘ Swan Lake’ performed by Boston Ballet. I felt the sound effect of NHT 2.5 was very close to the real performance. I went to the store next day and got a pair of NHT 2.5i. Now I am very much enjoying the new speakers. The sound is crystal clear, sharp and real. It works great with symphonies, even better with pop music. With a price of under $1,000, I am completely satisfied with my new speakers. The next thing I will do is to get a new receiver with a Dolby digital processor.

I have been shopping for a new pair of speakers for a while. I have listened toThiel Cs 1.5, B&W 805, Def Tech BP10, and the NHT 2.5i. I was allowed to borrow
the B&W 805 for a week. The others I evaluated them at the store. I had to say
that the NHT 2.5i sounded the best. They have a narrower sweet spot than the other speakers, but it is great once you set it up right. I rated the NHT 2.5i
as best, then the B&W 805 next, then the Thiel. I did not like the Def Tech BP10
at all. You need to have a good amplifier to drive these speakers since their
impedance is low. I have an old ADCOM GFA-535. With the other speakers, after
you turn off the power to the amp, you can still hear music for another 10 sec.
With the NHT, it is more like 3 or 4 seconds.

I listen to a variety of music: classical, jazz, new age and rock. I started to
hear a lot of new detail in the music that I did not hear before. The
improvement is very apparent in well recorded classical, jazz or new age, and not so much in rock.

My next thing is to upgrade my amp and preamp so that I can bi amp the NHT. This
is the best speakers for under $2K in my opinion.

First time I heard the 2.5i was at at the local home cinema theater club, I became curious and wanted to try the 2.5i on my amp so I took it down to the shop and hooked up everything, leaned back and boy, what a experience!I had perviousy the Cervin Vega AT-80 speakers so this was like a quantum leap forward!

I sat there and lisened to the same CD:s that I had lisend so many times before and it was like they were CD:s I never heard before...
When I came track 8 on the CD named 'Shapes' with Josefin Nilsson I felt the goosebumps spread all over me and I just sat there like a fool with a big grin on my face and thought "THIS is THE speakers I want!"

The only less good thing that I have to say is that I agree to a certain point with a previous 'rater' on the fact that you have to play quite loud to get that
'perfect' sound youre listening for.

Even though I'm not an total audiophile and I haven't listen to so many different speaker i give these speakers 4 stars of 5 possible!

Lean back, close your eyes, listen and notice how a big smile appears on your face!

I had the 'pleasure' of listening to these speakers. Talk about a bass being all over the place, how people can actually give this speaker a good rating is
just beyond me. Compared to a Sonus Faber Concerto it is just plain garbage.
I must admit if you like booooommmmmiiiiinnggg basses coming from somewhere
then this speaker will serve you well.

I've had the NHT2.5i's for a couple of weeks now and I am really impressed. They are clean, detailed and create an incredible sound stage. If you close your eyes, you can "see" the location of various instruments on good recordings. .
I listen primarily to jazz and light rock, with some classical. Eric Clapton's "Old Love" on his unplugged CD sounds fantastic!

I purchased the SA2 sub-amp and am glad I did. It really adds a lot of punch to the bass. I drive the mid and upper ranges with a Sony ES receiver which delivers clear, neutral sound. I called the NHT customer service line and talked to their audio engineer, Kenny, who gave me some good advice on how to set up the SA2 and his perspective on cables (forget expensive banana plugs or spades, go direct to wire).

I auditioned a lot of speakers: B&W, Definitive, Theil, Martin Logan, Canton, Energy. I think the NHT's are the very best buy for the money. I paid $950 for the gloss black.