Yamaha NS-1000M


Let me know if you have or have listened to these speakers. I have owned a pair for the past 2-3 months and they are really nice. I own a pair of Pinnacle Aerogels that don't have quite the detail or quickness in the midrange and tweeter. I have not heard speakers this nice under $2-2,500. Really unbelievable!
japosey
The common wisdom calls for these speakers to be used with tube amps to minimise the "brightness" and give them more "life" than with ss. They have always been an exceptional speaker and I still enjoy them at a friends house. They are certainly the equal of anything anywhere near there price. There is also a slight improvement if you bypass the mid & high speaker controls. Also sound a little less harsh if you use silver wire to the tweeters. Enjoy them.
Here goes again.
Speakers that use dome midranges do not image well.It took me some years of building speakers to realise this.I have built and owned several speakers with dome mids and have listened closely to both the Yamaha NS1000 and NS1200 speakers.This is not just room reflections/acoustics because even outside they still don't image precisely.
A friend with NS1200s has replaced the mid dome with a Fostex cone mid because they were not imaging properly.Now they do.
Good imaging means that you should not be able to discern that the soundstage is coming from the speakers.Voices for example should sound quite narrow and sound that they are hanging in air between the speakers.The NS1000s don't do this.Voices are very wide and vague and you hear that they are coming from both speakers.
When you think about it this makes perfect sense.A cone shape will focus sound whereas a dome will just spread it.
Really good speakers regardless of type should image properly.Otherwise we might as well all listen in mono to Bose 901s.

JT
I don't know about that. I do get a pretty solid image. Maybe not as pinpoint as other speakers, but pretty good still.

Imaging has more to do with time alignment then dome vs. cone and to a lesser extent, intensity. The one thing domes do, is that they increase the area of the sweetspot. That is why most tweeters are domes. Producing high frequencies off axis is difficult, especially outside of 30 degrees. By using a dome, the window is widened. With a normal speaker you can clearly distinguish when you move a foot or two to oneside of the sweetspot. The image begins to collapse.
Japosey,
You are right when you say that domes provide you with a wider sweet spot but you get a bigger sweet spot of lesser quality.
I built some speakers using Cabasse DOM 12 midranges.These sound superb but simply don't image, even when time aligned.I have spent hundreds of hours working with dome mids,crossovers,time alignment,different driver confgurations etc etc and gave up in frustration.The only way I could get them to image precisely is to use them in an Edgar mid horn which of course changes their dispersion pattern.I have used domes from Dynaudio and other less well known makers and they are all the same in this regard.
I have since had it explained to me that dome mids interacting with other drivers create phasing problems and this is why they don't work as they should in theory.
This is the sonic equivilent of sitting front row centre at the cinema.There is plenty off stuff going on but you keep shifting your head from side to side to try to take it all in, and what is dead in front is not quite in focus.
As for domes in general have you noticed how few manufacturers use them now?There is even a big move away from dome tweeters.Focal/JM lab and Accuton both have opted for cones and many others are now using ring radiators or ribbons.

JT
I can see how phase issues can be a problem. Yeah, JM Lab has used that inverted tweeter for awhile. I really enjoyed a pair that I had awhile back. If there was a perfect answer we wouldn't be having this discussion now. That's what makes this hobby so unique. As soon as you get used to one thing, you hear something a little different and you perceive it more pleasing. Whether or not one is better than the other is up for debate. Especially when you get to a certain point. There are trade-offs for everything when it comes to audio. FUN, FUN, FUN!!!