The speakers, which are sold as a pair, each use a 5-inch high-compliance, polypropylene, mica-filled woofer and .5-inch PEI dome tweeter. The drivers are optimized for high rigidity but low mass, giving them reasonably high sensitivity (80 dB with 2.83V at 1 meter), another way of saying modest amplifiers won't have much trouble driving them. Their acoustic-suspension cabinets are sealed to prevent undue resonance or tubby, tuneless bass, which often results from low-cost ported designs.

With a nominal impedance of 6 ohms, the speakers will work nicely with amplifiers up to 35 watts per channel, nominal, or 120 watts, peak power. They boast a frequency response of 80 to 40,000 Hz (+/-3 dB), giving you decent bass output for their compact size and unusually extended high-frequency response for your most demanding digital media. For indoor use, you may want to augment their performance with a subwoofer to deliver deeper and more powerful bass; be sure to select one with a variable crossover so you can tailor its upper frequency to effectively "take over" at the point of the NS-AW150Ws' lowest deliverable frequency.

The speakers are magnetically shielded, so you can place them on or near a TV or video monitor without fear of picture degradation from their magnetic fields. Five-way binding posts simplify connection with several different terminations of speaker cable (including banana plugs), and the NS-AW150Ws even come with two lengths of cable to get you started.

While you wouldn't want to leave the speakers exposed on, say, the deck of a boat, they are water resistant and designed to withstand light wind and rain--a benefit of their sealed en