Avantone CLA-10 (Yamaha NS-10M Clone) Review

[Jim Taylor]

I was with him till this:

"Our extensive experiments with top rated speaker cables clearly indicate that a quality, short length cable elicits better sonics than a superb quality, longer cable."

Now I have trouble believing any of it, even if he's right. What I get from that is that they use there ears to design the systems but they imagine hearing things.

I know. I saw that. That's why I bolded the part of my sentence that says ...

what I am concentrating on here is the room, not his equipment.

I'm pretty sure that when his website came online initially, that b.s. wasn't there. I guess more and more people who are otherwise reasonable and intelligent feel that they must kiss the a$$ of subjectivists.

Jim

 

[Cbdb2]

I know. I saw that. That's why I bolded the part of my sentence that says ...


I'm pretty sure that when his website came online initially, that b.s. wasn't there. I guess more and more people who are otherwise reasonable and intelligent feel that they must kiss the a$$ of subjectivists.

Jim

Yea, even with recording technicians (having trouble calling them engineers).

 

[thewas]

Finally we have also a full spin of the Yamaha original which measures significantly different than the here tested Avantone clone, both not good though:

 

[andivax]

Ns-10 is "fast" and well translated.
It should not to be "good" sounding speakers. At all. It is shit control )

 

[thewas]

Ns-10 is "fast" and well translated.
It should not to be "good" sounding speakers. At all. It is shit control )

These are the typical legends from the same "professionals" which tried to fix its mid hump with a tissue on the tweeter...

 

[staticV3]

Ns-10 is "fast" and well translated.
It should not to be "good" sounding speakers. At all. It is shit control )

A track that sounds good on the NS-10, will inevitably sound bad on a good speaker.

Just like you won't find an old CRT in a color grading studio, the NS-10 has no rational place in modern production.

If you want emphasis, use bandpass filters.

 

[Ktacos]

fatigue machine

 

[dfuller]

I genuinely don't know how Avantone made their lookalike and had it measure that differently considering it's supposed to be a 1:1 clone. The NS10 is fatiguing as shit, but of all the things it does, "too bright" isn't one of them.

Also - the distortion on the Yamaha is *surprisingly* good.

 

[dasdoing]

View attachment 415466

this makes a lot more sense. just the "crowdy area" of a mix

 

[DSJR]

I keep saying this - put the original on a bookshelf as originally used in domestic circles and the upper mid 'hump' is moderated a good bit by the proximity to the wall behind. The mid bass lift can be up to 5dB I recall. Used this way, the original is certainly 'brightly lit,' but I swear it's not fatiguing or 'shouty' at all! by the standards of smaller domestic models of the mid 80s or so, I remember the 10 sounding very clear and well defined indeed with no stodge lower down, as many 'UK' lower cost two ways could be and neither was there the 'spit' that other 'trendy' UK speakers had (can't speak for anywhere else of course).

So many smaller two way monitors of the 90s seemed to have this elevated upper mid response and there's a pdf online with many responses taken -

https://dt7v1i9vyp3mf.cloudfront.net/assetlibrary/n/ns10m.pdf

 

[Mart68]

These are the typical legends from the same "professionals" which tried to fix its mid hump with a tissue on the tweeter...

I was reading a1980s issue of 'Studio Sound' recently. In one of the features on a studio, a photo clearly shows NS10M with the tissue paper mod - although the photo was not clear enough to determine if it was tissue paper or something else.

Wouldn't have thought actual tissue paper would make any audible difference, personally.

But there you go, not a legend.

 

[staticV3]

I keep saying this - put the original on a bookshelf as originally used in domestic circles and the upper mid 'hump' is moderated a good bit by the proximity to the wall behind.

What mechanism will moderate the NS-10M's 500-3000Hz peak when placed in a bookshelf?

Do you have some measurements of this effect, that you could share?

 

[dasdoing]

These are the typical legends from the same "professionals" which tried to fix its mid hump with a tissue on the tweeter...

this obviously does nothing to the midrange.
the goal was to make them even more midrangier by attenuating the treble. or it was (for) that smaller 5500Hz bump. I can imagine this becoming annoying while mixing.

 

[dfuller]

What mechanism will moderate the NS-10M's 500-3000Hz peak when placed in a bookshelf?

Do you have some measurements of this effect, that you could share?

When up against a wall the boundary effect will cause it to increase where the speaker is radiating omnidirectionally

 

[Blumlein 88]

What the world needed was a badly done clone of a bad speaker. Ugh!

Never bought into the idea of a bad monitor to check how mixes translate. Why alter your sound so it sounds good on one particular crappy speaker when their are infinite varieties of not good out there.

I did at one time mod Thiel speakers by putting a doubled up bit of cotton over the tweeter in the speaker cover. Just enough to notice and help.

 

[dasdoing]

Never bought into the idea of a bad monitor to check how mixes translate.

That is probably just a myth inside the engineering bubble. It obviously doesn't make sense.
people used them to mix the midrange, and the midrange only. it just helped them to focus better. midrange is the biggest part of the mix. all instruments have energy there. you have to clean up the mess this creates.

 

[Blumlein 88]

That is probably just a myth inside the engineering bubble. It obviously doesn't make sense.
people used them to mix the midrange, and the midrange only. it just helped them to focus better. midrange is the biggest part of the mix. all instruments have energy there. you have to clean up the mess this creates.

We've been over all of this before and we aren't going to agree. You want to focus on the midrange, start with a good speaker and roll off everything not the midrange.

 

[Doenerkunde]

What mechanism will moderate the NS-10M's 500-3000Hz peak when placed in a bookshelf?

Do you have some measurements of this effect, that you could share?

This is from the Newell et al paper from the Review:

 

[dasdoing]

We've been over all of this before and we aren't going to agree. You want to focus on the midrange, start with a good speaker and roll off everything not the midrange.

That's what I would do, too...if I believed in that approach.
my main point is that the translation thing is a myth

 

[Mart68]

That's what I would do, too...if I believed in that approach.
my main point is that the translation thing is a myth

NS10 came out in 1978, the modern recording studio had not been around so long then.

A lot of research we take for granted now had yet to be done.

Is it impossible that a wrong idea became adopted and made to work in at least some very imperfect fashion?