Yamaha HS50M Nearfield Monitors for Home Use

Few years ago I bought a pair of Yamaha HS50M monitors to mix my music. I liked the transparent sound I get from them so much, I used them as my main speakers connected to my home audio. With good recordings, singer voices and instruments magically appear in my room. Most Hi_Fi enthusiasts never experience anything like this. Even high-end audio is not designed to be transparent. They are designed to sound big and nice. But musicians know it's artificial. You need to use transparent equipment to fully enjoy music.

 

That's quite a claim for a $399 pair of speakers. Maybe you can provide some examples of comparisons you've conducted.

 

In my mixing days I used YSM1P’s and they made for excellent speakers.

 

I don't buy that there's any kind of enormous difference between a dynamic speaker of this sort marketed to the prosumer or pro market vs. a dynamic hifi speaker. In fact, lots of classic hifi speakers -- like the old BBC monitor LS3/5a's (which, btw, I don't know if anyone would characterize as having a neutral frequency balance -- were made for the pro market while others -- like the old Yamaha NS-10 which became a ubiquitous studio monitor and which the HS50 is sort of a successor to -- were originally designed and marketed for the home market (and I gotta say, back in the day having spent many hours doing tracking sessions and listening back on those NS-10, I don't think I'd ever choose to listen to those speakers if I didn't have to, they had pretty fatiguing upper mids -- which I think were literally pushed forward in the frequency balance on those speakers).

There are certainly potential benefits of active crossovers in terms of distortion, but as with any design, there are theoretical advantages and disadvantages but then there are real world trade offs in implementing the design, especially when you're building to a price point. And those monitors I suppose became widely used because they allowed engineers and producers to develop mixes that would translate well -- especially to other similar, small, home speaker environments, but making something that sound OK on a bandwidth limited, edgy sounding typical home hifi of 20, or 30 years ago, isn't necessarily the audiophile's quest (nor does it necessarily reflect "accuracy" or "neutrality").

And I think those 5-inchers roll off severely below around 70 Hz, so most of the bottom two octaves of audible range, and the 40-80 Hz octave which has lots of bass and drum info, is pretty much MIA on those speakers unless you're pairing 'em up with a sub. And if these charts are accurate -- I don't know who made these measurements -- you can see that the HS50's are pretty recessed in the mid and lower midrange. So recessed lower mids and steep rolloff below 70 Hz is going to give you a lot off extreme clarity when it comes to certain kinds of detail which is probably very useful in mixing, but not really natural, accurate timbres and a really lean frequency balance.



I really don't think it's necessarily true that the inexpensive small monitors necessarily are delivering "transparent" "neutral" sound and some other audiophile speakers designed for the home market are designed to produced "artificial" sound.

Of course there are other monitors that personally I like a lot better than those -- like the old Genelec 1032b, but then some engineers complain that they're too "hifi." But I never left a tracking session with those thinking, "I never want to hear music again," they way I did with the NS-10s!

 

Isn't the HS50M meant to be a modern day NS10M? Wasn't what made the NS10M so popular in studios was that they sucked (as odd as that sounds)? Calling audiophile speakers artificial is a bit unfair. Look at the gear used in some the the best mastering facilities.

 

I'm not quite convinced, wholly, by the OP's opinion and take on actives, though I'd be hard pressed to return to passive speakers in a hurry, but the HS50 (and their big brothers the HS80s) are no slouches. See also Tannoy Reveal 502, Genelec's lower models (albeit typically more expensive), Mackie, Event and KRK. The Yammy's will be comparable, and more than able to hold their own against pricier separates as competition - and I'd put that in a meaningful bracket of up to £700 and maybe a little more.

Yamaha HS80 review from Sound on Sound here: Yamaha HS80M |

 

Is there a contest on to see how many blanket statements and baseless opinions presented as "facts" can be jammed into a three-line post ? What's the prize ?

D.D.

 

The issue I have with actives is most use class D amplification. I've yet to encounter a class D amp that's non-fatiguing.

 

Ah well, that is anecdotal for you. There's been a lot of work done on Class D to the point that even AVI now use it in their DM5 active. Times change!

The Quad actives I use utilise four Class AB amps.

 

True, anecdotal, as are the OP's claims and most claims made on these forums. Your experiences may have led you to to believe class D has evolved; my experiences have led me to the opposite conclusion. I believe it's a matter of whether the listener can enjoy what I perceive is analytical, fatiguing sound.
Of course, all anecdotal.

 

Exact. Fully agree.

 

I find it sort of sad that 99.8% of audiophiles and recording musicians don't understand the meaning of "transparent". Allow me to give an example to illustrate. If you dive into an ocean and you are not wearing goggles, your vision inside the water will be blurred and you won't see much. But, if you are wearing goggles, you will see the bottom of the ocean crystal clear.
How do you translate this to audio?
Allow me to give an example: For example, if you are using transparent cables and interconnects (yes, cables have their own characteristics which influence music greatly) you can see the bottom of the ocean crystal clear. I'm sincerely hoping that this will help many to understand the meaning of "transparent" in audio.

 

"I find it sort of sad that 99.8% of audiophiles and recording musicians don't understand the meaning of "transparent"."

On what do you base this assertion?

If everything in the chain, including cables, impacts the sound to some degree, then everyone is "wearing goggles" to some extent. By this logic, the sound became colored as soon as the mic converted it to an electric signal for the recording.

Perception of transparency is all a matter of exposure. If one's experiences are limited to cheap studio monitors, Bose cubes, or Bluetooth speakers, that will be their reference for transparent playback.

 

I don't think you can really tell anything about "transparency" or "neutrality" by listening. Too many variables. We don't even really know what the source sounded like in the room at the time of recording. Maybe if you're using your own recordings, maybe.

I think with a small, brightish studio monitor -- with recessed energy in the midrange from an octave below middle C to an octave above middle C, and virtually no bottom octave output -- there's a kind of brightness and emphasis on upper frequency transient information and high harmonics and a de-emphasis on midrange richness, (which is where a lot of the body and warmth of acoustic instrument timbres might come from but which mask fast HF info) that creates an extreme sense of clarity. It's not, to my ears, a very "realistic" sound in that it doesn't get the timbre or weight or scale of instruments right. But that sense of clarity that comes with that low mid/upper bass suck out and absence of boomy bottom in a room (because most of our home listening environments, below 80 Hz, get pretty boomy and these little monitors don't excite the room in those frequencies), is easily perceived by people as a sort of see-thru or see-into kind of "transparent" quality. You want that out of a different set of speakers? Dial in a 2 octave 3 or 4 dB cut centered at around 200 Hz, roll off the bass with a steep cut after 70 or 80 Hz, and whatever speaker you're listening to is going to deliver more apparent clarity than it did before....but is that clarity transparent -- ie, are you looking more clearly at the source signal?

 

Dear chervokas, with all due respect I think you need to give up numbers when you are dealing with audio. It's so 70s. We all have been there. Just relax and listen to the music.
Regarding the "transparency" issue: It's subjective as you can't measure it. But, and this is extremely important but, I know what is transparent when I hear it, with my 40 years experience dealing with audio.
Back to the HS50Ms: I will give you some examples. If you own these monitors you can try them at home.
I'm sure everybody sometime in their life listened to Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here. Did you know that it was captured in the recording that, David Gilmour, before he starts his infamous guitar solo, coughs very softly and clears his throat, then starts playing? I only recently noticed them on HS50Ms. What is more important: Yamms placed the invisible chest of David Gilmour in my room between the speakers, I could stand up and almost touch it. This is true "transparency" my friend. I'm sure you have never heard this before from anybody else. Which brings me back to my 99.8% claim.

 

Apparently my cell phone and Bluetooth speakers are quite transparent

 

That's what I heard years ago (and again quite recently). If anything sounds half decent on them, it'll sound great on pretty much any other speaker.

 

i heard the yamaha monitors a few years ago at a local music store and i get what you mean. they sound extremely transparent, more so than any home audio speaker i have heard.
i just wonder how pleasing they would sound in the long term in the home environment. not saying they wouldnt work, just that they might not.

 

I have had them for couple of years. They work for me. It's fun to find transparent CDs and hear the musicians perform live in my room, without being physically present. Hi, Norah Jones
Another amazing thing about the Yamms that they lock on to the bass lines and never let them go, even with double bass which can go very deep.
Since you live in the USA, I recommend you buy them to try. If you don't like them you can return.

 

Can't vouch for the speakers, but, depending on your phone and headphones, that is entirely feasible. Good choice you!!

 

Since when was true high end audio *not* designed to be transparent?

 

If I bite my tongue any harder, I'll need to add a needle and thread to my list for Santa...

 

Studio monitors are for work. Audiophile speakers are for listening to that completed work.

As a long-time professional who has both, I would kill myself if all I had were near field monitors to listen to music on!

While those Yammies are definitely ‘okay’ tracking monitors, they are on the low end of the spectrum when it comes to speakers I would use for mixing .

Mastering? Forget about it.

So...

 

So speakers that actually go low can't be transparent?

 

As I wrote before, I find it sad that most audiophiles and recording professionals don't understand the meaning of "transparent". I'm a 40+ years audiophile and a recording musician. I sell my music on various platforms including iTunes and Spotify. I've also developed audio related apps which I sell on various platforms.
So, been there done that.
To give you an idea why recording engineers don't have a clue about music, I would give the example of the genius who decided that he can cover the tweeters on Yamaha NS10s with paper tissue. Other engineers copied his invention(!). As a result, the engineers weren't hearing the treble response properly to mix them right. Hence the over bright recordings from the 70s and 80s. The Eagles's music is a notorious example. The bright overall balance and backing vocals are just irritating.
Oh, and a final note: during the development of the audio software I wrote, I became friendly with a well known mastering engineer who tests audio products for major manufacturers and audio software companies. He offered to master my music. I asked him to send me his best example. The music he sent me just sounded awful, with distortion all over the place. I never mentioned him about it again.