Yamaha HS5 Powered Monitor Review

[Nuyes]

If you could, perhaps add your site URL to your public profile or signature? Also, it would be a huge boon to the community if you could submit your data to https://pierreaubert.github.io/spinorama/

Thank you.

But I'm uploading it to the Korean community, not on my personal website.

And I am planning to upload the data to the Spinorama website in cooperation with Pierre.

But this is expected to take some time.
Because I've been stacking all my orientation measurements 15 degrees apart, and it hasn't been long since I started measuring 360 degrees of data.

From now on, I will measure every 10 degrees according to the Spinorama specification.

 

[luxmag]

Listening window EQ filters

Are you saying these adjustments will make the HS5 flat? Thanks

 

[Hexspa]

This speaker was measured at 106dB? Does anyone else think this speaker could benefit from a remeasure?

What makes a speaker a good candidate for EQ? The listening window and early reflections being similar to the axial or smooth directivity or both? This speaker meets all of those criteria. If even at 106dB this had 1.5% distortion through most the range then it could be really a great value.

 

[amirm]

This speaker was measured at 106dB? Does anyone else think this speaker could benefit from a remeasure?

No. Actual level is 86 dBSPL. The software doesn't know about the amplifier gain in powered speakers so shows the wrong value. If i remember, I compensate for this but half the time I forget.

 

[amirm]

The distortion is at 90 dBSPL. These early measurements are not as refined as later tests as far as details like this.

 

[Hexspa]

The distortion is at 90 dBSPL. These early measurements are not as refined as later tests as far as details like this.

I see. Thank you. 90dB @ 1m is what Genelec’s GRADE criteria is based around, I believe, so I’m always trying to interpolate between the contemporary 86dB and 96dB distortion measurements. Thanks again.

 

[bennybbbx]

This is a review and detailed measurements of the Yamaha HS5 Powered Monitor (speaker). I purchased it this afternoon for US $200 which is the price that it goes for everywhere. This is for a single unit by the way.

The industrial design of the HS5 is fantastic:

View attachment 46441​

Get the larger ones and I am sure you can charge another $10/hour for your mix.

Fit and finish seems nice with a solid single enclosure encompassing the baffle (front and surround).

Here is a shot of the back:

View attachment 46442​

I have not read the manual but while I was setting it up, turned itself off, ruining my first measurement. Don't know why there is no auto-on-off switch anymore on monitors.

Note that there is no RCA jack. For my listening tests I just used a TRS to RCA and it worked fine. The acoustic measurements were made by driving the XLR connection from the Klippel KA3 analyzer balanced output.

Temperature during the test was a "balmy" 57 degrees F. Testing is 10 foot above sea level.

As noted, the unit is brand new. I thought of breaking it first but figure it would then not make any sound so decided against it.

Speaker Acoustic Measurements
Measurements were performed using Klippel Near-field Scanner which eliminates the effects of reflections and noise in my measurement room. So the results are comparable to "anachoic chamber."

As usual, we start with our CEA/CTA-2034 spinorama graph:

View attachment 46443

The Klippen NFS nicely gets rid of room modes and gives us ruler flat bass response all the way to nearly 400 Hz. But there is some unfortunate peaking that lasts quite a while until 2 kHz or so. There is some unevenness above that as well.

Fortunately our early window directivity (dashed blue) shows a rather smooth curve so some amount of EQ may be effective in killing some of that peaking.

Taking into account reflections in a "typical room" we get a predicted in-room response of:

View attachment 46444

We yet again see the excess energy in mid-frequencies. But also a graph that averages to a straight line. Ideally we see one that is sloping down. Otherwise the speaker is going to sound "bright."

Story is told then. On-axis is not flat as it should be. And we have too much high frequency energy. If you are doing your mix using this with no EQ, you will be creating a dull mix with mid-range sucked out.

For advanced readers, we have more measurements.

Advanced Speaker Measurements
A member post this little graph saying Harman has measured this speaker and showed this for its spinorama:
View attachment 46446

We have excellent agreement until we get to > 10 kHz. It is possible our microphones differ a bit in that region or the speaker samples are different. The important aspects are identical though from flat bass to peak around 1 kHz.

Horizontal reflections are not that bad:

View attachment 46447

Vertical though as is often the case is much rougher;
View attachment 46448

If you need more absorption in your room floor and ceiling would make good candidates as noted.

View attachment 46450

View attachment 46451

If you are a fan of the step function that stereophile published, today is your happy day:

View attachment 46452

Finally the pretty contour shots:
View attachment 46453

View attachment 46454


Distortion Measurements
Got tired of you all asking for this so here is the first draft:

View attachment 46455

The top-graph shows the in-room (in-lab) measurement including reflections. We see that the peaking mid-range is still there.

My measurement mic does not have much travel so I have standardized on 1/3 meter distance from tweeter. To compute 90 dB at 2 meter SPL, I shoot for 106 dB given the shorter distance.

We see that the distortion products are all from the woofer. Shown as a percentage we see this more clearly:

View attachment 46456

Thankfully the distortion is low where our hearing is astonishingly more sensitive (2 to 5 kHz).

During the sweeps, the port, pardon my language, farted like nobody's business. It didn't seem like port noise but some kind of nasty high rate brrrrrrrrrrr noise. Stuffed some cotton in the port but then I could hear it from the front. This at the start of the sweep which makes me think is responsible for those large peaks below 100 Hz. It would have been worse if the port had been in the front. You sure as heck don't want to experience that "fart" facing you....

I was going to post the CSD waterfall but I cannot make any sense out of it so I am not.

Informal Listening Test
Told my wife to turn off the TV sound so I could get ready to listen to the speakers, not realizing it was in the middle of something she was doing. She shut down the TV but I sensed this was not the time to ask her to participate in another listening test. So this is me alone, sighted and all. If you don't like it, skip to conclusions.

I level matched the JBL LSR 305P Mark II against the Yamaha HS5 although it didn't seem to be necessary. The Yamaha HS5 came closest to give the JBL a competition from the few I have tested. It had a clean and rather flat sound. Alas, it has no bass or low end. The JBL sounded like it had a little subwoofer in it by comparison. In that regard, it may be considered a bit "boomy" but I am saying that with the slightest hint of being so relative to Yamaha. If I were to give the JBL a score of 8, then Yamaha would get 5 or 6.

Conclusions
It is a relief to not find the Yamaha HS5 a piece of garbage. Could not imagine 2000 people who bought it on Amazon descending on me to complain. It is a "good" speaker. Just not ideal or excellent as it should be. The excess mid-range and lack of any oomph in 200 to 400 Hz makes it very bass shy sounding.

Yamaha nails the looks though for such a budget product. Overall, the HS5 powered monitor is "fine."

P.S. Text files are enclosed for some of the measurements.

------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.

Probably spent near $1,000 buying speakers to test and so I am deeply "broke." Don't even know what I am going to have for lunch tomorrow. Don't let me stay in this funk and donate what you can using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/

the waterfall is not in this test. Can you please post it ? . the yamaha marketing say they use a resonance less case. so good to see waterfall how it look in compare to others

I have buy now HS5 and it sound much better as focal alpha 65 evo and kali lp 6 and jbl 104 . this is because the yamaha make better bass transients so it seem true what marketing say less case resonances. I do tests in room and bass play notes can now hear at ~80 hz (my room mode) . attach are files to hear or test yourself. I use a bandpass filter wit this settings in kirchhoff eq.

i have microphone and speakers on same position 0,8 meter away and attach my speaker records. I normalize all records in DAW to 0 db . on hS 5 the bass is best in sync to the synth sound and have best transients. to compare you can try headphone or speakers. speakers can let it maybe more easy hearable when the trigger level between can hear short bass notes or all is long bass notes.

the FR(rew measure attach) in my partly treatet room with ~18 qm basotect 5 cm (mostly on rear wall) of all speakers is in bass ok for 5 inch speaker. I use speakers on desktop and nearfield. A lot more bass as the JBL 104 with 4.5 inch . all measures are without EQ . such a large boost as in other hs 5 measures i have not. I have the JBL 104 and hs 5 5 cm higher so it is more near to axis of woofer in compare to focal and kali . i have also do a focal measure when 5 cm higher . not much changes

On impulse envelope ETC the hs 5 also look much better (on same postion of course) as my other speakers. i test hs 5 on diffrent position it never get more than 25% level after the peak. I do all with estimate ir delay. this shift the peaks then. I read etc show room reflection, maybe it show also case reflections easy

I only regret that i not much earlier test this speakers . finally i can say it is no snake oil that the hs 5 sound great on desktop as used for audio applications

 

[bennybbbx]

the 900 hz peak seem really only happen because of rear wall is not as Yamaha suggest 1 meter away from speakers. i now have move my desktop ~20 cm more away from rearwall. I have wheels under desktop so it can move easy. now the speakers are 1,1 meter away from rearwall and on ear height same stative height. I align the level compare to peak maximum at 900 hz. because the 1.1 meter measure have less 900 hz peak then the upper bass and high freq are higher as the old measure .

 

[thewas]

Interesting to see that the quite old HS series will be now expanded to some smaller models

Yamaha’s new HS3 and HS4 monitor speakers promise great sound in small and affordable packages

They could fit nicely into a bedroom studio or be taken on the road

www.musicradar.com

 

[bennybbbx]

I load the spinorama data from @amirm in REW and align them to 315 hz for compare and do much zoom. on my in room measurements i see also boosts in my 6 inch speakers and now in Amirm measure the 2-3 db level reduce in boom range in compare to 300 or more hz. seem the main reason wy the hs5 or hs 6 sound better as others is that it have from 300 hz down a falling slope. this help because rooms boost this 100-250 hz frequency alot. much EQ for reduce this band sound not good for me. so i let it in but hear in compare to headphone that it is too much. in zoom screenshot there can see the hs5 have in general no less bass as the adam or other 5 inch speakers. it have only this reduce and this go until low end. boost 40 hz low bass sound not worse for me. maybe there are more speakers with such a falling slope. so i try all speakers that are test in rew maybe there are more.

I think the hs 7 is even more better as the hs 5 less 1 khz boost and more reduce of the boomy room frequencies between 100-200 hz without EQ phase shift . I use the adam t5v as a reference but there are also speakers that boost from 300 hz even more. use shelving filters to simulate that is also not so good i hear

 

[grymoire]

Thanks for the review!

I have a pair of HS50m's, a previous iteration to the HS5's, which I have modified over the years.

Changed the transformer to a toroidal one, snipped the wire for the limiter, taken the grill off the tweeter (quite fatiguing with it on tbh), and put a linear phase EQ (Ikgb QRange) on my computer to compensate for its lack of low mids and bass. I have attempted acoustic filters with boxes and foam to tidy up the low end, they we're very DIY (but they worked!), however they became more of a bugbear to deal with as time went on.

Is this for real? I can't find any info on how it would affect the sound, was it easy to do?

 

[TheBatsEar]

Interesting to see that the quite old HS series will be now expanded to some smaller models

Yamaha’s new HS3 and HS4 monitor speakers promise great sound in small and affordable packages

They could fit nicely into a bedroom studio or be taken on the road

www.musicradar.com

I was looking into the HS4, as i was looking for something small for my desk, but they only have a builtin stereo amplifier and use a passive network to split between tweeter and woofer.

In the end i had a Neumann KH80 and a Genelec 8020D at about the same size as the HS4. I ordered the Genelec 8020D as the Neumann add some latency because of their DSP (to use it i would need to buy an Apple Ipad). I'll do DSP upstream, so having twice the latency doesn't make sense.

Anyway. Paid around 1000€ for the 8020D in white.