Yamaha NS-10M Final Thoughts

My last pair of Yamaha NS-10M's are maybe going to a new home later today. I've got them hooked up for the last time to listen for as long as I can. There is no question they are detailed to a fault. Even at low volume, the upper mids and highs are noticeably bright, which I suppose is good for near field mixing. Very few details escape the NS-10M except for bass below 60 Hz. However, the brightness is piercing, kind of like horns on a fast solid state amp. There seems to be a HF component that makes my ears ring and that makes for fatigue. I haven't tried to tissue paper the tweeters but I think the flaws go much deeper than that. I think the plane paper woofers contribute to some of the brightness.

Sam, I read a detailed article and in-depth interview with Yamaha and one of the bigwigs- perhaps the designer of the NS-10, who mirrored your comments.

Indeed these are not what they consider an audiophile speaker- in fact saying they did not work well at all in that application- but indeed designed as a tool for mixing, to allow the mixeer to "see" into the music, every nook and cranny, even at low volume.

I cannot remember what was discussed about the bass response though.

The crossover is at 2 kHz so a good portion of the upper mids is shuttled to the tweeter, which has to be boosted to get any resemblance of balance.

My buyer, who is an amatuer mixer was over today and we did some near field style listening. He also listened to my NS-200M's and NS-100X speakers. The detailing of the 10M is greater and I can understand why these are the industry choice. At a lazy 75 dB, all details are revealed. HOWEVER, my ears are still ringing and that only happens with bad horns and the NS-10M!!!

This post has been edited by socal sam on June 05, 2009 03:25 pm

Yesh- a good tool to work with, but not a practical audiophile speaker.

reminds me of the goshawful three-way, horn midrange/tweeter JENSENs i used to have. both on my PIONEER receiver, and my mother's YAMAHA, they sounded shrill and rather destroyed the musical experience for me. i did not even realize what i was living with until my mother got these early 80's three-way ONKYO OEMed RCA DIMENSIAs. now THAT is the way a speaker should sound!! i then found the four-way PIONEER CS-G503s that i currently use. still, i'll never truly be satisfied until i find a pair of PIONEER DSS-9...




This post has been edited by MacGyver on June 06, 2009 06:03 am

Just looking at your old Jensens makes me cringe! I suppose the horns are good for breaking through crowd noise!!

let's not even get into the ringing resonance that came from those woofer grilles!!

This post has been edited by MacGyver on June 07, 2009 08:20 am

The NS-10M's are now gone. I can't say I will miss them. I kept them for the collection and never listened to them and for good reason. Anyways, the proceeds will go into something truly interesting but what I do not know yet.

They sound a lot like the Wharfedale E30s. Extremely detailed, on the bright side. But sometimes, with certain amps and musical sources and styles, the clarity is literally brilliant, and I'm not always listening for the absolute flat, colorless interpretation of the music. The Wharfedales are also excellent in the bedroom, where I can hear a lot of detail at low volumes.

Yes, I think that is the key to the NS-10M. They seem to "open up" at much lower volume so that at even 75 dB or less, I can hear all the details that would not show up on others.

I picked up another pair of NS-10M's at a thrift this afternoon for $33. (This is one score that eluded Hakka26 but I think he would have passed on anything over $5!)

I've got them playing on my Yamaha PC2002M. They are still bright as heck but I'm glad to have them back in the fold.