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I know a guy :-) who is selling a pair of NS-1000M speakers.
The NS-1000 family, of course, has a good reputation -- but truth be told, I never paid much attention to them. Theey're certainly attractive and purposeful looking (and expensive).
Given my adult tastes for the Altec sound, I am a bit more disposed towards the Japanese re-imaginings of the classic "West Coast" loudspeaker sound than I used to be -- plus, given the other Yamaha stuff cluttering the house, I probably SHOULD have a decent pair of Yamaha speakers.
So -- I'd really appreciate a smattering of informed opinions about the sound of these loudspeakers.
Thanks as always.
all the best,
mrh
Follow Ups:
Went head to head with B&W, McIntosh, JBL, and others in our store. We sold quite a few. They work best with the McIntosh Amps we offered - also paired well with the first Adcom amp (A bargain powerhouse).
"The hardest thing of all is to find a black cat in a dark room, especially if there is no cat" - Confucius
You must have been selling gear at the same time I did. I remember the Adcom GFA-555. I even took one home to test, but wound up with a VSP trade in amp. The 555 takes a lot of abuse on the asylum, but I liked it, but you had to match it with the rest of the system. It did not work in all situations. The 555 got all the attention but I thought that the 535 was the best sounding amp of the Adcom line.
Dave
I have owned my pair since 1984, and I intend to keep them until I die.
I like them best with a tube amp. I have heard a lot of speakers that sound different, but none that I truly like better.
I am a trombone player, and the NS1000's make brass instruments sound more realistic than any other speaker I have heard.
Thom T.
Rational Insanity and Controlled Chaos!
Music is life, and life is music.
I have been listening to Yamaha NS1000M for about 10 years, and would not change them for any other speaker. They are one of those special pieces of equipment, totally transparent, yet musical, coherent and very dynamic.They require heavy and inert stands to reach full potential, especially in the bass region. Also, some minor tweaks that you can find here or elsewhere on internet can help further improve some aspects of the sound. They do not require a very powerful amp, I use 30W tube amp which is more then sufficient. Also tried 10-15W tube and transistor amps with no problems.
Edits: 03/27/15
The NS1000 was considered one of the great speakers by the British in a land where at the time the BBC sound ruled. It's still considered a marvelous speaker by many even today. I suspect it's a keeper.
Well, you should do what I do. I have my Altec 604E's in my main listening area in the finished basement and my Yamaha NS-1000's in my living room. :)
I first acquired a pair of NS-690's which are essentially the same with silk rather than beryllium domes. My son has them and absolutely loves them. He is a pretty good jazz musician and is very demanding of his audio system. I think my NS-1000's are fantastic driven by a Grace F8L cartridge on a Kyocera 601 TT into a modest Luxman L-400 Integrated. It is my all Japanese system and I like it. I have never compared the Yamaha's directly to the Altecs. My very subjective gut feel is they have different strengths, dynamics for the Altecs, accuracy/transparency for the Yamaha's. I did directly compare the Yamaha's to KEF 105's and original B&W 801's. I still own only the NS1000's even though both of the other speakers had slightly more bottom ends.
Disclaimer. I managed to get my pair of NS-1000's very cheap but one of the tweeters was bad. I'm much too cheap to spend $200 on a tweeter so I purchased a pair of NS-690 tweeters from the bay. I first replaced the one bad tweeter and then compared the two speakers. The silk dome was 1db less efficient but I was able to correct using L-pad. I did frequency sweeps separately, then jointly to see if the sound stayed centered at all frequencies, and I also compared them back and forth using mono music. My at the time 55 year old ears could not really tell the difference.I installed the other 690 tweeter and have the beryllium one saved. So I don't exactly have true NS-1000's.
Hope this helps,
Gary
Yes, it helps a lot -- 'specially in the context (ahem) of the 604Es:-)
Based on Yamaha's own ad copy, it sounds like the major strength (so to speak) of the use of Be to fabricate driver domes is that the metal enabled a larger midrange dome that's still pistonic -- I guess I'd expect less incremental benefit in the tweeter (again, based on no more than Yamaha's own hype).
Truth be told, I think the best case for me would be to stumble on a pair of NS-690s... I am just not sure I can justify the outlay for a pair of the NS-1000s, which would most likely become just shelf queens.
Are your Duplexes not transparent? What crossovers are you using (and what flavor of amplification)? I have no complaints vis-a-vis transparency of mine :-P
Thanks again!
all the best,
mrh
Yes, implying the 604e's are not transparent is not what I intended. I was trying to mentally compare two extremely good speakers that are in two different rooms with different set-ups. I probably should have just said they are both great.
If you do go after NS-690's the very first version had cloth surrounds. Later versions had foam surrounds. Also later versions can have the woofer magnets shift which is a real pain to fix. If you get a good pair I would use a liberal amount of epoxy on the magnet assemblies as a preventative measure. I just fixed a pair of NS-890's that are 4-way's, cone lower mid, smaller Be upper mid,and Be Tweeter. They also sound very good but I haven't tried to compare them yet.
Otherwise they are great speakers.
Critics and recording engineers like to know everything that is wrong: melomanes not so much.
We had these in the showroom. With their beryllium mid an tweeter, they are a very detailed speaker. They might be two detailed for you liking. They can be threadbare. I wouldn't call them west cost sound. When dialed in to be so, they are neutral but very transparent, and ruthlessly revealing of the flaws in equipment and recordings. They do get used as studio monitors.
Not surprisingly they work well with Yamaha amps. I have read that a lot of Japanese audiophiles diver them with tubes. I would thing PP UL or triode KT88/6550 would be the right power range, but you could probably get away with EL34's. PP EL84 or anything single ended, unless it was a transmitting tube, would not have enough juice (IMO. YMMV).
There are some frequency response measurements in the link.
Dave
was impressed with the NS-2000 {bigger carbpn woofer, same design} while stationed in Germany but in the end opted for Infinity RS 4 ... the early ones with no bass reflex hole... just the passive radiator.
The Mind has No Firewall~ U.S. Army War College.
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