Yeah sensitivity of the speakers makes a big impact on whether or not passive speakers produce any hiss when connected to an amp. I had some ~82db sensitivity Usher speakers once and literally couldn't hear any hiss at all even when they were connected to some really crappy $200 receiver. But...
What I find interesting is Yamaha has stuck to their guns with a fully passive approach even up to their flagship products, and I haven't heard anything about elevated failure rates on Yamaha receivers.
I wonder if this is kind of like when AMD X570 motherboards first debuted with chipset fans...
My dream speakers as a kid were the Energy Veritas V2.2i but I could never afford them.
Now that I can afford the used one's in the secondary market I've avoided them because the midrange drivers are known for dying =/
There's only so much you can do with a design like this when there's such a huge disparity between the dispersion patterns of the drivers. For such expensive speakers they are seriously limited by "placement" issues.
I would assume the next refresh would involve a cabinet redesign next gen. So likely the resale value will be relatively lower with meta when the next gen comes.
I feel like this driver could go into something like a Revel Gem 2-form factor and could be sold as a bookshelf version of the Blade or something...
A pair of these with some subs would make a really interesting HT setup. High dynamic range, point source coaxial with zero IMD (or excursion)...
Most bookshelf speakers with limited bass extension will sound "bright" in a larger room. Either add a sub or if your listening levels aren't high, boost the bass slightly.
Interesting, the R-N1000A has an e-core like the A-S801 but the higher end model R-N2000A have toroidal transformers. It explains why when I had the 801 next to the 2000 side by side, there was amp hum on the 2000 but the 801 was dead silent--different amp typologies.