The Sound
Contents
If you don’t like a neutral, honest sound with no opschmuck, you better stop reading now. (We really wouldn’t understand why you wouldn’t want a neutral, honest reproduction, but there’s a group looking for something different). The Yamaha NS-3000 is easily one of the most neutral speakers we’ve had in our listening room. Simply on par with the Grimm LS1 series. The reproduction has a lot of overlap with the Focal Sopra No1, but goes a little further in a few areas. Yes… you read that right…
Speed and insight
What immediately stands out is the speed and insight this speaker offers. This is where the studio roots overwhelmingly emerge. High Hats are incredibly easy to distinguish in sound and material. Vocals are in front of you as if nothing stands between the singer and you. And the bass is also insanely well-defined and remarkably round for a bookshelf: this speaker doesn’t sound bare… at all. Unless the recording doesn’t have the information to begin with.
The advantage of a fast speaker is that it is less affected by the space. This became clear to us, for example, with Grimm’s MFB subwoofer. Because of its tightness and speed, you hit the room less with disturbing resonances. We also hear this in this speaker: it places easily and sounds good very quickly. Of course it makes sense to place the speaker very precisely; then it sounds even better. But really critical … no: the Yamaha NS-3000 is not critical in our opinion.
Coherence
Whatever the Zylon material may be… we do feel that it makes sense to make all units from the same material. There is something about this Yamaha NS-3000 in terms of coherence. This speaker really sounds like a whole. That gives calmness and insight. And that makes you listen more, because it is not tiring. In fact: it is wonderful to listen to this system and discover new things!
Yamaha A-S2200 or Pass Labs / Bryston?
As reported, we played on both the Yamaha A-S2200 and the Pass Labs with Bryston combination. Both amps play very well, but it’s clear that the Pass Labs with Bryston offer the extra grip and ‘grunt’. It gets just a bit more power and foundation. The Yamaha on the other hand offers more air and space. We did not expect that. Still we would without a doubt choose the Pass Labs with Bryston, purely because the whole is tonally more correct and more pleasant to listen to. Then we do exclude the factor of five in price increase in this consideration….
Measurements
The Yamaha NS-3000 measures very well. Not a complete ruler like the Sopra No1, but extremely straight and even. Distortion is particularly low. Certainly at a level of this price range. From about 50 Hz it dives below 1 percent and there it remains with a midrange that is really incredibly clean. And you hear that.
What the measurements show is that a little toe-in works best. Then the ‘high-bump’ straightens out so that the speaker is in fact straight from about 80 Hz. Don’t listen on-axis or with a lot of toe-in, because then it gets a little too bright. The mids have been reduced a notch (less than 1 dB in practice we estimate), which is nice for a lot of listeners.
