Yamaha NS 5000

The LA dealer is 75 miles from me. MusicDirect.com is MSRP but allows for a 2 month trial.

I went and demoed the Yamaha NS 5000 with the 5000 series Yamaha preamp and amp (so $35K of Yamaha gear + Linn streamer + wire).

It was a huge disappointment to see the room the Yamaha was setup in. It was a conference room a little bigger than my 12x11x9 home office. I think the demo room was 16’L x 14W’ x 9H’. The NS 5000 was about 2 feet in front of the short wall. In-between the speakers was a short large cabinet where the gear was placed (not a good acoustic setup). There was a large OLED TV hung in-between the speakers. The room also contained various Magnapan speakers (I counted 3). It also had some Steinway Lyngdorf speaker lying around along with some separate speaker drivers. There was a huge fake wood conference desk in the middle of the room and 6 office chairs. There was a glass wall behind me and a full wall side sliding glass wall to enter this conference room. So basically as acoustically bad as it could get.

Nevertheless, I said let’s make lemonade out of this and I thought my room is small so there will some benefit to demoing here. My current speaker search is for my 12x11x9 (https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/7605 ) office. The finalists are the following, in no particular order (the first 3 listed have been demoed at a store and are audiophile awesome):

TAD ME1
Paradigm Persona 3F
Vivid Kaya 45
Yamaha NS 5000
Vimberg Amea (I may consider this one with ceramic drivers not diamond)

The Yamaha sounded not so special in some audiophile sense, it did not have great imaging (though rather good) and it did not have that excitement factor that I get from music. However, I could sense that all the pieces were there it was just the room that was the wet blanket on the musical enjoyment. So I decided to focus on the tone of the sound instead of things like soundstage, imaging, seperation or layering. These aspects were all there but not to the awesome degree I heard on the first 3 speakers on my list.

So I played some piano, Bob Marley (I like his voice), and my current favorite female singer Karen O (Lux Prima disk). The tone coming from this music was the best I have ever heard. I though that the Paradigm Persona was better than the Magico A3 because I felt the top and mid-range sounded more coherent with the Persona. Well I think the Yamaha sounds even more coherent than the Persona, maybe because all 3 drivers are made from a material that is supposed to compete with the BE material of the Persona. I can see why people have said that the Yamaha sounds like real instruments.

I demoed for about 2.5 hours and listened at both low and mostly loud levels. I did not have a problem with my ears or head while demoing (which was shocking since I am sensitive to bad setups). However, as I was driving home I realized I was playing the music too loud and felt the fatigue (it was that room). I was wondering why I did not have a headache while listening. I figured out it was not too much bass that gave me a headache, it was a bad top end. They Yamaha was awesome in the top end. One or 2 reviews have said a little recessed but I did not get that impression. I listened to some Neil Peart on drums and the cymbals sounded good as did When the Levee Breaks by Zeppelin.

There is nothing more to really describe about the demo sound wise other than to say that the Yamaha did the best at reproducing instruments that I have ever heard. I would love to hear a musician comment on the sound of these.

So I have a choice to make. Get the following:

Luxman c900 preamp
Luxman m900u amp

and 1 of TAD ME1 || Paradigm Persona 3F || Vivid Kaya 45

OR

Lyngdorf 3400 integrated with ROOM PERFECT DSP
Luxman m900u amp
and Yamaha NS 5000

I still have some time to decide since I am waiting on a stock investment to blow up before I go shopping, https://stocktwits.com/symbol/ISR

Until then I will let the gears in my head spin to figure out the way I go. At the moment I am leaning towards the Yamaha.

BTW - The store carries Anthem STR (with ARC) || Lyngdorf (with ROOM PERFECT) || Linn (with SPACE OPTIMIZATION). The guy working there said he liked the Lyngdorf and Linn better and told me why from a design perspective they would sound better (his opinion I am not stating this as a fact). I like the microphone based DSP approach because I am lazy.

Thanks for taking the time for the write up. Yamaha must be trying to control the pricing uf the speakers by selling at big box stores. Shame since there's usually very little to compare to and those half glass rooms just suck for demoing music playback.

This was not a big bx store, I do not think they sell the 5000 series at these big stores. Shelley’ s in Los Angeles area, where I went, is a super high end store.

http://www.shelleysstereo.com/

The other stores in the USA that have them are also high end stores. There is of course the online sellers.

www.musicdirect.com

https://www.abt.com/product/140313/Yamaha-NS-5000-Black-Bookshelf-Speakers-With-Stands-NS5000PNST.html?utm_source=connexity&utm_medium=cse&utm_campaign=NS-5000PNST#

The reason the Yamaha was placed in this room was they had the other rooms occupied with their existing gear. They did not buy the Yamaha system and are displaying this as a favor to Yamaha. In fact, I brought up the NS 5000 11 months ago to them when I audition the Paradigm Persona. They were not too interested nor that familiar in the NS 5000. I can understand their view since Yamaha does not have the rarefied audio reputation today as other brands. I think Techinics is in the same boat today, I believe Luxman had that perception a decade prior.

Saying all of that I think a purchase of the NS 5000 speaker will happen for me. I went back and read some reviews and they also stated the beautiful sound or tone aspect of the NS5000’s, that I clearly heard. They also complimented the speaker for things like imaging, size of soundstage, and placement of sound (instruments, singers). Things I thought were their but were obscured by the room.

I was thinking of even buying the Yamaha M-5000 and C-5000 amp and pre because the connectivity and output options to the speaker(s) is better than the Luxman gear I have in mind. However, the Luxman gear seemed to sound better when I auditioned but again the room comes into play. I am pretty sure I will stick with the Luxman’s.

I was reading that insertion of the foam plug into the back of the speaker will move the low frequency to 49 Hz from 26 Hz. That may be OK for me to try sans DSP and use only the Tone controls of the preamp, it is worth a try. Otherwise, the Lyngdorf 2170 or 3400 will be used. If I get the NS 5000 I will also keep my KEF LS50’s in the same room and have them hooked up.

http://www.livingsound.com.au/2017/01/yamaha-ns-5000/

@steve59 See my post from November 1.  Distribution initially will be very limited and through a handful of stores selected by Yamaha.  How those stores demo the speakers is obviously less carefully curated by Yamaha.