Yamaha NS 1000m

Hi, Any one out there, can give me advice, or join me in a project to see if the Yamaha NS 1000m can be enhanced to become a world beater?. Is it possible . Currently stripped down to cabinets, crossovers, wiring and speaker cones. Was looking to possibly relaminate cabinets in cherry. cabinets currently sanded to bare wood finish. Any suggestions. Or am i nuts.
Why is life such a challenge. (Wife included).
Evangelist on a mission.

 

Hello John,

I used to think that re- building the Yamaha NS1000 or ATC SCM 50 with an open baffle for the mid and treble would be a good idea, simple to execute, and targets the shortgivings which I have read regarding wide baffle's and imaging.

I always thought the easiest way was to experiment using the current cabs, removing all drivers and crossovers, and making a square panel with routed edges which goes from edge to edge and covers the mid treble section of the cab, using the driver fixing holes to attach this panel to the cab, and having mdf circles to make up the mid and treble driver space. And turn the cab upside down so the bass driver is at the top, saving the need for stands maybe.

Fit the woofer as normal, and have it wired to the speaker terminals instead of the crossover.

Build a B/BB grade ply or MDF open baffle head assembly, can be made substantial by layering and glueing and sculpting and such if required, make a three point cup and cone fixing for this so it can sit on the top of the now upside down cab.

Keeping your crossover external while you experiment makes it easier to wire up drivers and not make holes and such in the cab, it's a lot simpler to wire the woofer to the existing terminal direct, and fit the crossover into its own box with its own terminal and wiring to the mid and treble. You can also experiment with crossover mods, should you wish.

The good thing is that all the above is reversable, should one not like what they hear.

 

It's already a world-beater, there's little you could do that would improve it, but plenty of things that could screw it up.
If you must make changes, two things you might think about are making a new external xover and putting the mid- and high-frequency drivers in a new, much larger cab with, say, a 15" LF driver.
The xover would allow you to byaps the L-pads. Frankly I don't see the point, but audiophiles seem to have a hard time with useful and practical things like this. An xover would also allow you to trim the bass roll-off. This is an important feature of the NS1000s that doesn't seem to be very well understood. They are designed with a rolloff from 100Hz down. This (and the massive cabinet) are what allows them to be placed near rear walls. It's a form of passive EQ, and one that works. FWIW, the reason Yamaha designed them like this is to work in small Japanese rooms, typically made of concrete and with lots of room gain as a result.
A much bigger cab with larger bass drivers is something that's in my mind to do for the future. Building a cab of sufficient quality is an issue, though.
Again, it's pretty easy to change the sound, much less so to make improvements to what is a world class speaker (and it is, even after all these years).

The wide baffle is one of the fundamental reasons the NS1000s work so well, and work particularly well in small rooms, too.
Narrow baffles suck.
For an open baffle design, I'd rather go with a coax driver to try and replicate the best speakers of this type that I've heard (8" Siemens). The cheap, modern, Chinese built Altec coax drivers would be good for this.

 

Sorry, my own preference, even in small rooms, is for head arrangements or open baffle's with mid and treble drivers decoupled from the bass cab.

I find even in small rooms, it can be beneficial, you can also rotate the mid/treble arrangement and bass cab independently for bass tuning.

I guess I have been converted into this due to extensive use of speakers of this ilk, way back to the original Nightingale TL's and my own conversions of Leak sandwich with the treble in an open baffle with the bass driver in a large TL, plus Kef 105 and such, in large and small, solid and lightweight rooms

Items such as Rogers Studio Monitors, Cambridge R50, big B&O, and various home made with 12" bass, also the Big Cerwin Vegas and such have not been as good.

Plenty of articles appear regarding wide baffles as poor? From Hi Fi Choice and News to World regarding Tannoy ATC Yamaha etc etc?

To me narrow baffles only suck if they have an array of small drivers in them? Or if it has been designed for high WAF. For what reasons do you feel they suck?

I do not understand why my idea of removing the mid and treble from a wide resonant front baffle and decoupling them in their own small head with minimum diffraction would be such a bad idea?

Anyway, I am not that clued up on the ins and outs of speaker design, only what I like.

Of course this may also depend on your partner! My wife has decided against my Cerwin Vega's, which honest, were "for the workplace".
She thinks they are ugly, and does not like the sound of a larger sealed 25mm ply bass cab with a veneered finish and the 12 alloy Wok horn/treble unit in a sand filled head assembly on top Wimmen eh!

Back to the Yamaha, as I pointed out, the mods I have said are not tested, but they can be tried and dismissed at little cost and no damage to the speaker. Which is why I sudgested them, I like the Yamaha myself, but would not want to modify one unless it was in a messed up cab and not working in its chosen room.
For instance a couple of the rooms I have used benefit from the bass driver firing staight on, but this affects depth and imaging, by using a head arrangement I can rotate the head for the best of both worlds so to speak, and either cross the axis in front of or behind the head, and in another pair alter the up down direction of the mid and treble. Handy and fun.

 

Sorry, I don't quit get this part. Are you saying there are plenty of articles that explain why wide baffles on these speakers are bad?

The wide baffle actually reduces edge diffraction effects (at least if the mid- and treble drivers are off-center, apparently something to do with chaotic wave motion or something like that ) and also acts as a wave guide. The wave guide part is really important, as this helps manage the proportion of reflected vs direct sound. To my mind, this is critical to getting good sound in real, especially small, rooms. You need to limit first reflections and the place to start is the baffle (or horn, of course).
There's much more to it of course...
My guru in these matters is REG. here's a link to a pdf on his site you may find interesting
Audio in modern times
you may well disagree with much of what he says, but his logic is very strong and his arguments well made. suffice to say that REG is not hugely popular with much of the high-end "community" who regard him, bizarrely, as a bit of a crank.

This is also where I'm coming from, as I'm no expert either. However, the speakers that I like tend to have certain characteristics in common; large(ish) drivers and wide baffles being two (not to say that having these ensures success of course). Hence my interest in these things.

I get away with having, frankly, huge Yamahas in my room because I can put them close to the rear wall, and despite being wide they are not all that deep. This is a really sensible real-world design approach, but fashion gives us narrow and very deep speakers that don't work well in real rooms. Strange.

 

Hello Joel,

In answer to your first question, I have read that wide baffles can be undesirable in a number of magazines, though I have to say I have also read a couple of comments in these magazines regarding the wide baffles also, though not much springs to memory, but as you say, they can be placed nearer walls etc.

My early Nightingales had a B139 in a wide baffle TL cab, with the mid and treble placed side by side on open baffles on top. Most of the speakers with 12" and 15" drivers I had in my early years also had wide baffles and were not that deep. Speakers such as early 104 etc spring to mind also.

Most of the articles/comments I have read in the HiFi comics have said large panels resonate, and as such colour sound. Depending on cabinet bracing and room furnishings I guess no matter what shape the cabinet, if it has large panels it will make sound? But as Kef point out with their early reference range etc, a narrow baffle was desirable. And in a three way design can be very effective, a few manufacturers went down this route and gave valid reasons for leaving wide baffles behind. B&W 801 etc. (I should make clear I am not a fan of small bass drivers, by narrow baffles I do mean for the Mid and treble and bass relitive to their size!

I think Tannoy lancasters and such are great, but the shallow cabinets on these was as much to do with fitting them in the domestic enviroment also was it not? there is also the detrimental effect which had been brought up in the early years of rear reflections on shallow cabinets?

In my own view and my own preference, well designed big cabs such as the B&W 801 highlight my preference. Big speakers such as the PMC BB5 still to my ears seem to have a little cabinet colouration in comparison. Though both are rather narrow as the cabs are just wide enough as needed to accomodate the 15" drivers, I feel the wider panel area around the BB5 mid and treble is slightly bettered by B&W's head arangement. Though this is only my un-educated opinion and only going on what I have heard

My own 105.4 and 107 were not designed in such a manner as to be desirable. Not all narrow baffles are bad

Your explanation of the Yamaha baffle is not something I have heard before, and thank you for the link, looks like interesting reading (at a glance), I am sure the PMC models are engineered with the baffle in mind when tuned to certain room locations?

To be honest though, as any large panel may exite an edge, true diffraction is better solved with decent cabinet design and routing I guess, but any panel resonance on the same plane as the treble unit seems undesirable, its the reason some big companies dampen tweeter front plates and surrounding panels is it not?
I myself have yet to hear a dome tweeter on a large baffle sound as open as it can in a small head unit. Though it does lead to more room interaction I guess!

Edit; I should add, my 107's are reasonably narrow, as are my 105.4, both these have worked well in a variety of rooms, by comparison my Cerwin Vega V-152 which have a 15" bass driver and 12" wok tweeter and my Rogers Studio 1 which only has an 8" driver but a lot of baffle, are more problematic. I guess it does depend on speaker design and such.

 

I guess I also read to many magazines..............

 

Hi Satus,
I think we'll just keep on disagreeing here
If you read to the end of REG's PDF, he provides a fairly concise explanation of why exactly narrow baffles don't work. Again you may not agree with him, but it is worth reading what he writes, as he knows his stuff and puts out arguments that are different from what is found the rags (despite writing for the Absolute Sound himself!).
As far as edge diffraction goes, the maths show the correct approach (apparently) and it isn't narrow, but it is off-centre and slightly rounded at the edge

 

I leave well alone, with good reason they are a classic which when placed against a rear wall leave very little to be desired IMHO.If you were replacing the baffle with something much thicker I'd radius the edges@20mm but thats all.

 

Hello Satus, joel and cooky
Thank you for your most interesting and potentially useful comments. Can any one send me drawings of your suggestions, as trying to get my head round what you are saying. Thanks again and keep on rocking

 

Fascinating reading Joel - thanks for the link.

I've long been a fan of wide baffles and had come to a very similar conclusion to REG idependently - that the baffle step is crucial in that it needs to be as low as possible. My new design has gone for 28" baffles and you will note than many of Kinoshita's are wider than that - with horizontally extended versions of well known horns to match.

Experimentation with Tact ( Peter was involved with Project Eureka) showed that if you could effectively force frequencies below 350hz forwards by corner mounting bass units digitally time aligned to the satellites, the whole frequency range grows solidity and palpability. It undoubtedly works and presents a very good case for soffits and corner mounts. I keep harping on - but the return of the digitally EQ'ed active corner horn is nigh

 

I don't think it is disagreeing, as I don't really understand everything, nor do I believe any aproach is superior, due to the amount of variables in speaker design. I am therefor not in a position to disagree or be correct!

I have read briefly the PDF, and have to say it seems a little simplistic?, by looking at the graph it is clear both narrow and wide have shortcomings, but is then explained away by how we hear things? What were the driver sizes? one or two way? Crossover points? driver height from floor?

I am not dismissing the idea, I am sure I am not quite getting it, but it looks no more correct than the plotted graph and technical explanation one would expect from the likes of B&W regarding the sitting of the mid and treble in a seperate enclosure above a 15" driver. And quite cleary items such as the Kef R-107 behave quite differently to the designs he is talking about, as the only drives noticable are in a small rounded head assembly high up from the floor, with two drivers in a coupled cavity. Boston Lynfield had a similar design, I do not remember reading about such flaws in frequency and such. Does this mean they are comletely flawed?

The idea that human hearing sorts out the balance below 300hz does not explain the claims of wide panels affecting imaging and such, nor does having a "transparent" speaker negate it to the bad books. In my view there is nothing lightweight about the sound of the 105 or 107, and some of what he is describing can be as easily explained as an effect caused by small drivers in narrow baffles? Is it now a case of large speakers need larger baffles?

By the way he describes the large electrostatic and such I am unsure if this is based on conjecture, personal experience, preference or what? Should this be interpeted as the B&W 801 would have been much more musical if its midrange and tweeter were put on a large front baffle with the bass driver? Instead of a fashionable pod?

And what about the effets of the cabinet itself, speakers with thin wall construction versus thick chipboard, or MDF, bracing, high mass etc etc, a 15mm chipboard cab with plastic veneer and a wide front baffle, will this be the same as 25mm braced birch ply?

"As a result of the wide cabinet, the speaker starts to direct its radiation forward at around 300hz, instead of the 800hz of the minimonitor, the baffle step from omni to forward is essentially an octave lower*
This sounds like the cabinet is adding to the drivers forward responce? Does the same effect happen in a three way with 160hz and 2500hz crossover points? If the forward direction is flawed is it not due to a speaker design flaw and does it mean all speakers can be tarred with the same brush?
Is this due to reflections from the midrange off the baffle? Or due to cone size and crossover point differences between a large speaker and a small speaker? Did the speaker design and crossover tuning take these into acount? Does this mean that one can use a smaller radiating cone if opting for a large baffle, and should use a larger radiating cone in a narrow baffle?

I am not getting the disagreement? My opinion was that de-coupling drivers works, and that you want sound from drivers, not cabinets I doubt companies such as B&W and KEF thought "fancy heads, that will sell, and I am quite sure the radiation and frequency responce would have been looked at?
Here we have one website discussing the subject, which seems fine to me, only driver size and such, speaker model and other variables seem vague?

My own idea of experimenting by re-locating the mid and treble does not change the cabinet or driver size, so may well be a usable example of what goes on with cabinet artifacts, and added coloration?

What about ported wide baffles and such?

I have to say much of what has been explained seems no different than the comparison and argument for using a big driver in a small room, and the effect of a large driver versus a small driver in such a room. Or the benefits of using a larger midrange with a lower crosover point?

Does it all mean my Kef and Rogers are rubbish and should be burned

Anyway keep up the discussion, I am keen on more opinion regarding th ewide baffles, and opinion on small baffles, even if I am unsure of agreeing that large drivers in narrow cabs are as bad as small drivers in narrow cabs

PS; Dont get me wrong, I am not meaning to disagree or argue here, or cause trouble!

 

:duck:

 

In order to get an understanding of this, you need to look at the overall power response of the loudspeaker and it's directivity characteristics. There are various approaches to loudspeaker design - none neccessarily correct.

To me it makes sense that an ideal loudspeaker will have near constant directivity throughout the audible frequency range. In practice this is a near impossible goal but a valid one all the same. What I personally want to achieve is for a speaker to maintain a 2 pi hemisperical radiation pattern for as long as possible - thus cutting down room interaction. Wide baffles help here.

If you take a dynamic transducer, it's radiation pattern will vary with frequency. When the length of the wave is the same as the diameter of the drive unit, the transducer will exhibit something like a 90 deg. dispersion pattern - imagine it firing sound at you through a 90 degree cone or horn. When the wavelength is twice the diameter of the drive unit, the radiation pattern is near 180 deg and below this point, the baffle acts as a waveguide, ensuring that all of the output is projected forwards rather than some of it curling round the cabinet and bouncing off the rear wall.

For example a 10" drive unit will give 180 deg dispersion around 675 hz, anything below that will lose some of it's output backwards UNLESS you have a baffle wider than 20" to guide the sound forwards.

Basically, the larger the baffle and the larger the drive unit, the more direct sound will arrive at the listening position. With regards to tweeters, a 3khz wavelength is only around 4 inches - so provided the baffle is wider than 2 inches it will maintain controlled directivity above that. You therefore don't need a wide baffle for a tweeter. For a midrange unit however, that might crossover at say 350hz, the wider the baffle the more controlled the dispersion. And of course the same applies to bass units.

The trade off is that the transition from 2 pi to 4 pi is not a smooth one in most cases as the abruptness of the baffle causes a series of frequency abherrations as the output gradually reduces with frequency.

Now what B&W do is to trade the 2 pi radiation for a smooth transition in the case of the midrange and tweeter. But from the bottom up to 6khz, the 801D speaker does not appear to offer controlled directivity, meaning more sound is bounced off the walls and the room's acoustic becomes a larger part of the perceived sound. It's a wide dispersion design and is more room dependent because of this.

The opposite end of the scale is a horn loudspeaker, where the radiation pattern is controlled - for example my midrange offers just 30 degrees vertical dispersion. This means you hear a larger ratio of direct sound to reflections- one of the reasons these designs are easier to position and work well in the farfield.

Subjectively there is no one right way. The pseudo omni/wide dispersion approach can result in a really enveloping experience - driving and energising the room. The controlled directivity one a quite often a more faithful one but somewhat more detatched if you like - it's like listening in the nearfield.

All speakers are a compromise - just find the compromise you like best and enjoy.

 

I have been reading about open baffles, 2pi and such, also the benefits of sofit mounting.

I am starting to get a better picture here, I am starting to wonder if room location and the end use is also as important, or what has indeed led to current trend.

I was starting to think along the lines of rquirement for monitoring and production versus musical enjoyment at home, but there seems no valid or logical direction in this area either if places like Abbey road use B&W and others prefer soffit, which from what I can see does make more sense in a production enviroment.

The more of these discussions I read, the more I want to try Tact EQ with my Kef R-107.

 

Sensible advice IMHO.
Funnily enough, Yamaha's mid-80s replacement for the 1000M, the 1000x, has a thicker, wider baffle with radiused edges (and center aligned drivers for some reason).
Corner woofs and digital xover / eq are certainly worth investigation whatever speakers you use.
Something else for the To Do list.

 

I agree with these guys, I've had every single one of the beryllium Yamaha NS series:

NS1000
NS1000M
NS1000X
NS2000
NSX-10000

Ok, its a good speaker and you can have excellent clarity given the age. But it's not worht messing about with.

The drivers are 'excellent' but have since been eclipsed by some modern day speakers. The NSX and NS2000 were marvellous speakers.

 

Hi
Thankyou for your reply. Not heard NSX or Ns2000 what size drivers and cabinet did they use. where could I purchae . What modern speakers you mention. What makes and models are superior. Would you think focal etc etc? I have podium one speakers also panel type speaker not electrostatiic or ribbon. Spin off fronm NXt brm. Your comments will be very appreciated
Keep on rocking
John (uk)

 

Hi John

I'm an importer of used and vintage audio and sell on ebay. That admission out the way I can say that you would find it extremely difficult to find a pair of NSX-10000's. However they could become available but in 6years I've only had one pair and they sold eventually for £6500.

The 2000's are larger than the 1000M's, heavier with better cabs, go deeper in the bass, have a carbon fibre woofer and have a larger tweeter.

These upper models give more of the NS sound.

My personal faves (which I still own) are Merlin VSM MXE speakers in the USA...after that better still and what I currently own, TAD 2402 studio monitors.

The Dynaudio Esotar driver completely outclasses the driver in the yamaha in my opinion (this is in the Merlin speaker, not the TAD). However it took this long for a company to do that..which shows how far Yamaha were ahead of their time.

The TAD's are fantastic speakers but hens teeth rare and very expensive...and HUGE.

 

Hi,
Thanks for your advice. Sorry do not know your name so could not reply in person. How much are the Merlin speakers to purchase. i.e the ones you mention and Tads.

John