HARALD Aasland lives in Palmyra VA, just outside of Charlottesville. He manufactures his Norwex B-2 Nisse speakers there, along with a few other models listed on his web site. The B-2 Nisses are diminutive, as you can see from the dimensions above, and Mr. Aasland encourages you to place them on a bookshelf.  His goal was to design a speaker that is accurate and musical but unobtrusive--the promotional material on the web-site uses the term Spouse Acceptance Factor (SAF).

Because of their size, the B-2 Nisses can easily be placed out of the way, but the truth is that you might want to call attention to them. They’re very attractive speakers. The review copy I received had a stained mahogany veneer that covered the entire speaker, including the back, and was finished with a high gloss lacquer. The speakers are rounded at the front corners and the grille cover leaves about a quarter of the front of the cabinet exposed, which, when the speakers are placed correctly with the drivers in towards the center, creates a pleasing visual symmetry.

The cabinets are fairly hefty and when I tapped them they resonated very little.  My overall impression of the speaker was one of weight and substance. Additionally, I felt the overall craftsmanship, especially the woodwork, was far above what you'd get from most mass produced speakers. Each B-2 Nisse has a one inch polyamide dome tweeter and a four inch mineral filled polypropylene woofer, both made by Seas, a Norwegian manufacturer whose drivers can be found on speakers made by Wilson Audo, Coincident, and Joseph Audio.

Each speaker is ported in the upper extreme corner at the back of the cabinet, i.e., as you sit facing the speakers, the port fires from the upper left rear for the left speaker, upper right for the right.  The port is not a tube inserted into the back of the cabinet; it's a hole cut into the back wall, which at that point in the cabinet must be 2 to 3 inches thick. Each speaker has a pair of gold-plated 5-way binding posts that easily accept a heavy gauge wire. 

Set Up and Listening

I initially set the speakers up in my living room, which I described in the last issue. It's a big room and my listening spot is about twenty feet from the speakers.  I placed them in the spots where my Ohm K2s usually sit. The room seemed to swallow the B-2 Nisses up, although I noticed that they had more bottom-end than I would expect from such a small speaker. I decided at that point to move them to my smaller listening room downstairs. [It occured to me later that the speakers may have been too far apart in the living room and I made a note to try them there later.]

The Rotel in my basement is only 35 watts and Norwex recommends at least 60 watts.  I didn't feel that the speakers were begging for more power; bass was tight and well defined and other instruments were clean and sharp.  I had to bump up the volume a notch above the settings for my Ohm Es, which, at 89 dB, are more efficient. My speaker stands placed the B-2 Nisses at ear level and I situated them so the speakers would be about 4 inches from the back wall.  The speakers were six feet apart. As soon as I played the first disc, Joe Jackson's Night Music, I noted the speaker's defining characteristics: Unexpectedly full and detailed bass response from a speaker so small and astonishing focus in the elements of the soundstage.

 The third cut on the disc, "Ever After," opens with a trumpet and synth stating a melody that leads into the opening verse, where Joe is accompanied by a bass synth and a doctored keyboard. The keyboard darts from the left channel, where the attack of the chords begin, and the right, where each chord resolves.  The sound traveled sharply and distinctly between the speakers and the slap-back delay on each chord's resolution rang out clearly without decay.  The track ends with a long repetition of the chorus that has Joe singing wordless vocals in the extreme left and right channels while he and Taylor Carpenter sing the chorus--Joe in the center, Taylor just over his left shoulder. As the song moves toward the close, Joe sneaks in other vocals in the each channel. Each vocal was specifically placed and as the other vocals came in they didn't crowd out or smear into the other vocals, nor did they overpower the bass synth that plays behind them.

The B-2 Nisses bring details large and small into more focus. On "Train Song," from Holly Cole's Temptation, bassist David Pilch slaps the strings for a percussive effect. I could clearly hear the strings tapping sharply against the fingerboard. There's a good bit of percussion and other sounds throughout the track and I caught many that I'd previously thought of as veiled.  The speakers reveal so much detail that on at least one occasion they caught me by surprise. I was listening to disc 1 of the Star Time box set by James Brown. I was paying attention to something else, when I noticed a buzzing noise on the opening of track 17, "Devil's Den." It sounds like a tube buzz from a guitar or bass amp that's sitting in the studio. That kind of detail is, of course, one of the risks one takes when listening to old analog recordings on revealing equipment like these speakers. 

Similarly, the B-2 Nisses are not terribly forgiving of surface noise on LPs. I listened to a purple "shaded dog" RCA pressing of Copland's Billy the Kid/Rodeo by Morton Gould and his Orchestra. Although I could hear individual instruments more clearly than on my usual speakers, I had much more difficulty separating the record noise from the music.  On the other hand, other LPs, such as a recent pressing of All Mornin’ Long by Red Garland, sounded vivid and lifelike.  At several points on the Garland LP, bassist George Joyner slides into the note and the B-2 Nisses brought each slide out clearly--I could visualize Joyner’s finger landing on the string and moving along to the note.

I listened to two symphonic discs, a Polygram release of Beethoven's Symphony No. 3 by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Sir George Solti conducting and a Columbia (pre-Sony) disc of Handel's Water Music conducted by Jean-Claude Magoire. The B-2 Nisses presented the various sections of the orchestras well and the attack and texture of the lower register string instruments came through very clearly. The speakers also brought out the ambience of the recording spaces.                                

Listening to symphonic recordings and multi-tracked pop discs did give me a feeling that the speakers would probably benefit from more power.  Symphonies seemed to be "in miniature" and the bass in XTC's Oranges & Lemons and Lloyd Cole's Mainstream lacked the impressive punch the speakers had provided from recordings that had less going on in them.  Toeing the B-2 Nisses in helped, but I moved the speakers upstairs to a higher-powered amp (100 watts), which gave me a chance to try them again in the larger room. I moved the speakers closer than I'd had them on my first try--about five feet apart--and, sure enough, the music was in much greater focus and the increased power brought out the bass detail in pop recordings. The speakers were still too small for the room, but in a large room with fewer space restrictions one has less need for a small speaker.   

Conclusion

The Norwex B-2 Nisse speakers are certainly not inexpensive at $1,000 for such a small speaker.  The price is justified, I think, by the overall build quality of the speaker and by the quality of the components. While I felt that a stronger mid-range might open the speakers up a bit, I listened to a variety of music through them and always found them to be impressive and involving. The B-2 Nisses work best in a typically sized room but a subwoofer might bring enough fullness to make them a solid choice for a larger room. While Harald Aasland designed the speakers with certain practical considerations in mind, in particular that one might have a spouse who prefers small speakers that can be placed out of the way, there’s no reason an audiophile shouldn’t give them serious consideration based on their purely sonic merits.

In my review of the Arcam DiVA A75, I noted that the right speaker would make that amp sing. One such speaker may be the Norwex B-2 Nisse.

JOSEPH's SYSTEM:

System 1:

Denon DP59L Turntable
Ortofon OM30 Cartridge
Denon DCD-815 CD Player
Denon DRM 740 Cassette Deck
Monster Cable 300i
Ohm K2 Speakers

System 2:

Music Hall MMF 2.1 Turntable
Goldring Elan Cartridge
Magnavox CDB490 CD Player
Monster Cable 350ii
Ohm E Speakers 

Original Monster Cable (12 gauge), both systems 
PowerVar ABC400-11 Line Conditioner