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Yamaha YH-5000SE Flagship Headphone Review

Rate this headphone:

  • 1. Poor (headless panther)

    Votes: 203 93.5%

  • 2. Not terrible (postman panther)

    Votes: 13 6.0%

  • 3. Fine (happy panther)

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • 4. Great (golfing panther)

    Votes: 1 0.5%
  • Total voters
    217
Amazingly bad. This is really for the believers that price is correlated to performance and thinking this is a 'flagship' headphone. There are probably enough fools to fill the pockets of Yamaha. The high distortion really rounds the bad FR up nicely.
 
For the $5000 price tag, Yamaha should throw in a $4000 coupon towards the purchase of a new Tenere 700 motorcycle.

IMG_4138.jpeg
 
Last edited:
Even if these were $50.00, they'd be a poor investment. At $5k, Yamaha should be embarrassed to sell these.
 
TheWalkman said:
For the $5000 price tag , Yamaha should throw in $4000 coupon towards the purchase of a new Tenere 700 motorcycle.
Click to expand...

That'd sound much better, especially with my screams of excitement
 
No, the times of shit-show standards are over. This desaster reminds me of the PR that JVC initiated for the release of the HA-SZ2000 (king of bass) that sounded absolutely terrible (just bass worked...), but was shown as a product of long research and engineer wisdom and listening sessions and bla bla bla. In the end it was a failed product that also mechanically broke quickly (and of course no spare parts available). At least it wasn't totally overpriced like this borg-influenced version of an HD800.
 
Last edited:
amirm said:
This is a review, listening tests, EQ and detailed measurements of the Yamaha flagship YH-5000SE open back headphone. It was kindly drop shipped by a member and costs US $5,000.
View attachment 385162
Unlike many high-end headphone, the YH-5000SE is quite light. It is sturdy though as parts are made out of metal. I really like the adjustable suspension band as once to your liking, it almost feels like you are not wearing a headphone! Very nicely done on this front.

The drivers are mounted quite deep in the cup with a very transparent fabric protecting them. It doesn't show well in this picture but here it is anyway:

View attachment 385163

Two sets of pads are provided. I opted to measure with the default leather ones you see here. There is another set that is made out of velour. It is similar thickness and compresses very easily.

If you are not familiar with my headphone reviews, please watch this video on how I measure headphones:


Fitment on the fixture was very easy although in higher frequencies, slightest adjustment would change the dips in response.

Yamaha YH-5000SE Headphone Measurements
Let's start with our usual headphone frequency response measurement using industry standard GRAS 45CA fixture:
View attachment 385165
I could not believe this response at first thinking something is wrong in my setup. But another reviewer measured almost exactly the same. I don't know what would justify that peak between 1 and 1.5 kHz. What follows it depressed jagged response from 2 to 5 kHz is another major oddity. We may have some clues here when we look at the distortion measurements but let's look at relative frequency response:
View attachment 385166

EQ development by hand/eye will be difficult but wait on that verdict. Here are the relative distortion measurements:
View attachment 385167
We didn't need more bad news but Yamaha delivers it to us nevertheless. As soon as the 114 dBSPL sweep started, I could hear severe distortion through the rear of the cups so didn't even need to look at the graph to see that problem. But even at 94 dBSPL we have narrow peaks between 2 and 3 kHz indicating resonances. Given the need for equalization, YH-5000SE doesn't leave us in a comfortable position. We could write off the headphone at this point and be fully justified but do stay tuned until end of the review.

Here is absolute distortion response:
View attachment 385170

Group delay is very messy indicating multiple sources mixing which points to more points of resonance:
View attachment 385171
Notice how the pattern from 2 to 3 kHz matches the distortion spikes.

Even our impedance measurement shows signs of this:
View attachment 385172

Sensitivity is about average:
View attachment 385173

Yamaha YH-5000SE Listening Tests and Equalization
It is warmer in my lab so my music listening is done with Tanchin One IEM. As soon as I swapped that for the Yamaha, the sound folded in and lost any spatial cues, as low as they tend to be with IEMs! I was not hopeful I could properly EQ the headphone but my quick attempts with some fine tuning produced excellent results:
View attachment 385174
First the negative: this headphone can't produce sub-bass with or without that bass filter. It simply gets distorted. Distortion there is a real problem. Fortunately most music doesn't have such spectrum and on rest of my music library, listening at modestly loud levels, I could not detect that distortion.

With the filters in place, the vocals came forward now as they should have been. Spatial qualities massively improved with sound now extending quite wide on each side of my ears (in relative terms). Now, combine this with a very lightweight and comfortable headphone that the YH-5000SE, and you could understand why I just laid back past midnight, and just listened to track after track and enjoying every bit of it!

Conclusions
Objectively, the YH-5000SE is very flawed both in tonality and in transparency (distortion). I don't buy it for a moment that much of this is intentional/voicing. You would need very elaborate equalization circuits to create that chewed up frequency response. And that leaves you nowhere in explaining the distortion even though at least one reviewer tried, calling it tube like. No, not remotely so. These are design mistakes that should have been caught and remedied. Build a proper headphone first and then change the tonality if you like, and document it.

Subjectively, the headphone sounds as bad as it measures. It destroyed my reference tracks of all genres. Female vocals collapse to the back of my head. Orchestral music sounded dull lacking resolution and spaciousness. I would say the overall fidelity was if you mixed AM and FM radio together for those of you who remember those things! :) No way any Yamaha Piano sounds like this in person. Listening to recording of such through this headphone would destroy the art, not recreate it.

Shockingly, four filters transformed the sound to a magical place I didn't think was possible given what we had to work with. Then, back up forces in the form of comfort came in, producing a very enjoyable and satisfying experience. It hugely softened the blow of the objective measurements in the eyes of this reviewer. This shows the power of building correction filters based on objective measurements, salvaging what at first would not have seemed worth the effort.

If you are listening to this headphone and think this is what music is supposed to sound like, I highly recommend you get the aforementioned Tanchin One IEM to appreciate what high fidelity music reproduction is all about. At $27, it is pocket change. Indeed, I am listening to that IEM and marveling every second at its fidelity but we digress.

I can't recommend the Yamaha YH-5000SE although I do wonder if would be happy using it everyday with EQ and appreciate its comfort.
------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.

Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
Click to expand...

Here are some thoughts about the EQ.
Please report your findings, positive or negative!

Notes about the EQ design:
  • The average L/R is used to calculate the score.
  • The resolution is 12 points per octave interpolated from the raw data (provided by @amirm)
  • A Genetic Algorithm is used to optimize the EQ.
  • The EQ Score is designed to MAXIMIZE the Score WHILE fitting the Harman target curve (and other constrains) with a fixed complexity.
    This will avoid weird results if one only optimizes for the Score, start your journey here or there.
    There is a presentation by S. Olive here.
    It will probably flatten the Error regression doing so, the tonal balance should be therefore more neutral.
  • The EQs are starting point and may require tuning (certainly at LF and maybe at HF).
  • The range around and above 10kHz is usually not EQed unless smooth enough to do so.
  • I am using PEQ (PK) as from my experience the definition is more consistent across different DSP/platform implementations than shelves.
  • With some HP/amp combo, the boosts and preamp gain (loss of Dynamic range) need to be carefully considered to avoid issues with, amongst other things, too low a Max SPL or damaging your device. You have beed warned.
  • Not all units of the same product are made equal. The EQ is based on the measurements of a single unit. YMMV with regard to the very unit you are trying this EQ on.
  • I sometimes use variations of the Harman curve for some reasons. See rational here and here
  • NOTE: the score then calculated is not comparable to the scores derived from the default Harman target curve if not otherwise noted.
Great L/R match.

I have generated one EQ, the APO config file is attached.

Score no EQ: 39.7
Score Amirm: 68.3
Score with EQ: 79.1

Code: 
Yamaha YH-5000SE APO EQ Flat@HF 96000Hz
August082024-094437

Preamp: -12.00 dB

Filter 1: ON PK Fc 20.2 Hz Gain 7.00 dB Q 0.62
Filter 2: ON PK Fc 1316.8 Hz Gain -6.98 dB Q 2.23
Filter 3: ON PK Fc 2882.0 Hz Gain 12.69 dB Q 2.25
Filter 4: ON PK Fc 5533.9 Hz Gain 5.36 dB Q 4.94


Yamaha YH-5000SE APO EQ Flat@HF 96000Hz.png
 

Attachments

  • Yamaha YH-5000SE APO EQ Flat@HF 96000Hz.txt
    276 bytes · Views: 26
Well, if the price included DAC, headphone amp with EQ adjustments it still wouldn't be a great purchase
 
I shared my own short encounter with this headphone in https://www.head-fi.org/threads/yamaha-yh-5000se-—-a-flagship-from-an-orthodynamic-headphones-veteran.964970/post-18199782 (post #1,615) where I attribute a bizarre amplified vocal dynamism effect to the spiky response. I otherwise can attest to the lovely build feel and pad comfort. It's a bizarre headphone perhaps creating an ear gain jaggedness that for some few can yield a pleasing effect for certain music. And I guess traditional EQ would indeed struggle to generate peaks and dips that sharp. Have we actually seen a cheaper version of this kind of ear gain response?
 
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