Yamaha NS-5000

[fas42]

I note that this speaker is getting good reactions from first time listeners - and has some very interesting construction details in it - something to watch ...

http://www.soundstagehifi.com/index...st-of-the-2016-tokyo-international-audio-show

 

[RayDunzl]

http://au.yamaha.com/en/products/audio-visual/speaker-systems/speaker-packages/ns-5000-main/

Zylon cone and domes...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zylon

...vapor coated with Monel Alloy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monel

 

[watchnerd]

I note that this speaker is getting good reactions from first time listeners - and has some very interesting construction details in it - something to watch ...

http://www.soundstagehifi.com/index...st-of-the-2016-tokyo-international-audio-show

TBH, if I was going to go with Be drivers, I'd go with Focals.

Me, personally, I don't tend to like them.

 

[fas42]

From http://www.soundstagehifi.com/index...st-of-the-2016-tokyo-international-audio-show ...

"But there’s no beryllium anywhere in the NS-5000"

 

[watchnerd]

From http://www.soundstagehifi.com/index...st-of-the-2016-tokyo-international-audio-show ...

"But there’s no beryllium anywhere in the NS-5000"

You're right. I misread the reference to the NS-1000.

In any case, I don't see anything about the NS-5000 worthy of getting excited about.

It's another passive design, using tubes on the back of the drivers (B&W already did this), 3-way, ordinary motors....*yawn*...

We've seen this type of speaker for decades.

 

[fas42]

It's interesting because careful engineering has gone into many key areas, refining the straightforward nature of this type of speaker. With some excellent subjective responses, on a number of sites. This is the sort of approach I use when improving an overall system, and here just working on the speaker component seems to have paid dividends - it's the fact that nothing 'magical' was done, yet excellent results were achieved, that makes this noteworthy.

 

[watchnerd]

It's interesting because careful engineering has gone into many key areas, refining the straightforward nature of this type of speaker. With some excellent subjective responses, on a number of sites. This is the sort of approach I use when improving an overall system, and here just working on the speaker component seems to have paid dividends - it's the fact that nothing 'magical' was done, yet excellent results were achieved, that makes this noteworthy.

Don't get me wrong -- incremental improvements are important. Enough of them accumulating over time can move the needle.

But I wouldn't necessarily call that major news.

 

[Coach_Kaarlo]

Some bits and pieces attached which may or may not be of interest.

Measurements are from a German hifi magazine.

And from the Factory.

Manuals etc here;

https://drive.google.com/file/d/152j6sJRd5j2k5aRrpLEnXI-sfxbFwTHW/view?usp=sharing, https://drive.google.com/file/d/17jniqG16BQ1yOsCQb36b35Vhntzs3aDF/view?usp=sharing, https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jAJz4ReV8NutB1o5go703YBhyI3k1ge4/view?usp=sharing, https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lwcxxVVNS2gWqFb3rtmIFcCzsqkx8uEK/view?usp=sharing


Subjective reviews etc;

https://www.lowbeats.de/erster-test-yamaha-ns-5000-die-hightech-box/2/

https://www.lite-magazin.de/2017/11/yamaha-ns-5000-die-eigene-musiksammlung-neu-erleben/

https://www.modernhifi.de/yamaha-ns-5000-preview-test/

https://www.audioholics.com/tower-speaker-reviews/yamaha-ns-5000

http://av2day.com/2018/01/yamaha-ns5000-loudspeakers-part-i/

http://av2day.com/2018/03/yamaha-ns-5000-loudspeakers-part-ii/

https://www.stereo.net.au/reviews/review-yamaha-ns-5000-flagship-loudspeakers

 

[Coach_Kaarlo]

Update:

Yesterday I spent 4 hours in a dealers listening room auditioning the NS-5000's.

Setup was my Benchmark DAC2-HGC with two AHB2's running in mono (one for each speaker).

Still sifting through the subjective experience, lots of things to reflect on, but one thing is clear - they play very clean and very loud (100-105 dB no problem).

The treble is bright, I would not toe them in at all as the on-axis response measures and sounds like it goes up above 15kHz (after changing them to flat they sounded much better FWIW). The big woofer is approaching an authentic kick drum, very realistic response once the volume was dialed up a little. Didn't hear anything missing in the middle (Yamaha has been criticised for undersized mid range drivers before).

Separation, detail, tonality, space - all exceptional to my subjective ears. I would be very interested to see these go up against anything from the same price point in a true ABX blind test. An easy listening experience, not fatiguing or tiring, instead they have a very natural sound. Instruments sound like instruments. But in AUD I would place them somewhere between 10k and 15k value wise.

The detail in finish, materials, execution is true spartan beauty. Real brushed aluminium (Revel plastic surrounds = yuck), deep lustre gloss piano black cabinets. And they are made to order, so if I paid a deposit tomorrow, the first chance of seeing a pair would be late January 2021.

I have purchased a pair of F208's to enjoy in the meantime, will be interesting to compare the two if I decide I can afford the Yamaha's. What the Revel's have in reputation the Yamaha's delivered in the actual experience - let's see if the Revel's sound as good as everyone says they do - they definitely measure very well.

 

[gene_stl]

Yamaha Be drivers are pretty much unequaled. They have extremely low distortion. After I bet heavily on them in 1976 I was very pleased to see Martin Collums mention them in his book "High Performance Loudspeakers" which was sort of a predecessor to Dr. Toole's book. In it he said that the Yamaha Be drivers were "the lowest distortion tweeters (with the same notation in the mid range chapter separately) that he had ever measured"
or words to that effect.

Then almost fifty years later on Page 453 of Dr. Toole's book one can't help but notice that on that page which shows spinoramas of various vintage speakers, the only one that really yields outstanding performance by todays standards is the NS 1000.

I think Yamaha knows how to build superb loudspeakers. Before I would buy the rather pricey NS 5000 I would try and find a pair of NS 2000 which are reputed to have even lower distortion than the NS 1000. There is a pair on fleabay right now for $5K the pair.

The Yamahas are the only Be drivers made by vapor deposition. The diaphragms weigh essentially nothing.(tweeters = 30mg) Much less than any subsequent attempts including Focals and TAD compression drivers and a few others all of which are formed from Beryllium sheet metal. They are likely superior to most other diaphragm materials but not up the the Yamaha originals.

Also people should not be confused by high priced polycrystalline diamond tweeters. These are built as an extra revenue source for companies making diamond electronic substrates and should actually be very cheap and perhaps when TangBand decides to build one they will be. There are inexpensive polycrystalline sapphire tweeters that probably perform better than diamond since the density is less and the stiffness close. In ten years Parts Express will have cheapo diamond diaphragm tweeters.

https://www.parts-express.com/cat/tweeters/17?N=19813+4294967118+4294960672&Ne=10166&Nrs=collection()/record[endeca:matches(.,"P_PortalID","1")+and+endeca:matches(.,"P_Searchable","1")]&PortalID=1

https://www.parts-express.com/pedocs/specs/264-865--tang-band-25-1719s-spec-sheet.pdf

If I were building some DIY spikkrs today I would probably start with the above tweeters.

 

[Sprint]

I heard them last year in Munich Hiend. Did not find it interesting. Not sure if it was the amp that brought its sq down. It is costing 14,K Euros. Definitely not worth this high price. At the same time, I heard other passives Gradient 1.4, Cabasse baltic, Canton 9K, JBL L150. These all sounded much better than the Yamaha's. I have nothing against Yamaha's and am a big fan of some of their products. My first set up was 4 * NS777 floor standers which I enjoyed for 6 years. For 14,K euros, there are even actives which has better price/performance like Kii three, D&D 8c, Genelec 8361, Genelec 1237A, PSI Audio A-25M and the sound quality is far far better than these NS-5000.

 

[Coach_Kaarlo]

Yamaha Be drivers are pretty much unequaled. They have extremely low distortion. After I bet heavily on them in 1976 I was very pleased to see Martin Collums mention them in his book "High Performance Loudspeakers" which was sort of a predecessor to Dr. Toole's book. In it he said that the Yamaha Be drivers were "the lowest distortion tweeters (with the same notation in the mid range chapter separately) that he had ever measured"
or words to that effect.

Then almost fifty years later on Page 453 of Dr. Toole's book one can't help but notice that on that page which shows spinoramas of various vintage speakers, the only one that really yields outstanding performance by todays standards is the NS 1000.

I think Yamaha knows how to build superb loudspeakers. Before I would buy the rather pricey NS 5000 I would try and find a pair of NS 2000 which are reputed to have even lower distortion than the NS 1000. There is a pair on fleabay right now for $5K the pair.

The Yamahas are the only Be drivers made by vapor deposition. The diaphragms weigh essentially nothing.(tweeters = 30mg) Much less than any subsequent attempts including Focals and TAD compression drivers and a few others all of which are formed from Beryllium sheet metal. They are likely superior to most other diaphragm materials but not up the the Yamaha originals.

Also people should not be confused by high priced polycrystalline diamond tweeters. These are built as an extra revenue source for companies making diamond electronic substrates and should actually be very cheap and perhaps when TangBand decides to build one they will be. There are inexpensive polycrystalline sapphire tweeters that probably perform better than diamond since the density is less and the stiffness close. In ten years Parts Express will have cheapo diamond diaphragm tweeters.

https://www.parts-express.com/cat/tweeters/17?N=19813+4294967118+4294960672&Ne=10166&Nrs=collection()/record[endeca:matches(.,"P_PortalID","1")+and+endeca:matches(.,"P_Searchable","1")]&PortalID=1

https://www.parts-express.com/pedocs/specs/264-865--tang-band-25-1719s-spec-sheet.pdf

If I were building some DIY spikkrs today I would probably start with the above tweeters.

I sold my NS-2000's recently. Agree that they are extremely well built, engineered, and voiced speakers.

Interesting insights thanks for sharing, particularly around the modern attempts to replicate Yamaha's Beryllium engineering results.

 

[tuga]

Found a series of interesting videos describing technologies used in the NS5000:

 

[tuga]

Photos of the tweeter w/ rear chamber and acoustic absorber (NS-3000):

 

[q3cpma]

A bit unrelated, but someone should really send a NS-x000 to one of the Klippel-men.

 

[thewas]

The new floorstander NS-2000A was revealed yesterday at the Munich High End Show 2022

NS-2000A - Technische Daten - Yamaha - Deutschland

Das NS-2000A ist ein beeindruckendes 3-Wege-System von Standlautsprechern, die den originalen Klang und die Klangfarbe aller Musikinstrumente perfekt wiedergeben.

de.yamaha.com

 

[tktran303]

Yes ; would love to see measurements of the
classic NS1000
future classic NS5000
Upcoming NS2000A

Let’s “see” and “hear” how they sound…

I have Yamaha’s U3
Made in Japan 2021.
I don’t think I can even measure or describe how they sound…

 

[usersky]

A bit unrelated, but someone should really send a NS-x000 to one of the Klippel-men.

I would love to see even the NS-333 "klippeled".

 

[hege]

I keep coming back to these, they look so gorgeus.

It's a sin that they haven't been properly measured yet, I'll pledge to chip in $100 for shipping.

 

[restorer-john]

It's a sin that they haven't been properly measured yet

They already have been measured. Ask Yamaha. They actually know how to design, manufacture and properly measure loudspeakers.

They've been doing it a very, very, long time.