wow, so this NS-1000 Yamaha monitor speaker is vintage now...... i believe it's been manufactured since 1974...... i have a pair of this and thought of selling it here...... you may wanted to contact me for details. thanks..... just add me at fb, roger12082002@yahoo.com, thanks.

I bought this speaker second hand about 7 years ago: best buy I ever made. It sounds great, revealing, realistic and so dynamic. Good imagery and soundstage. I am using it with Yamaha M2 power amplifier and C4 preamplifier with Yamaha CDX 1110 CD and PX3 turntable. My first listen many years ago did not impress me and I did not buy the speakers new then. I cannot inderstand how I missed its incredible performance - could have been poor matching equipment. I treasure these speakers and will not change them for anything. They are a truly amazing piece of audio engineering that was way ahead of its time. I agree with all the positive reviews, this speaker is just so special. MIne are in good condition but like most Yamaha NS 1000 now over30 years old. I also have JBL L100 - its dynamic and enjoyable to listen to but lacks the clarity, detail and finesse of the Yamaha - it is in my second system and will stay there because the NS 1000M is top of the list in my home. Even my children love it

yamaha ns 1000, bought new and still enjoying them for the last 36 years. So revealing, great cable and speaker wire and equipment tester. Have a new rega turntable with a belari phono preamp and the ns 1000 absolutely loves vinyl . Sounds great with a vincent tube preamp, but the v dac mkll will sound incredible too. I have used 30 watt scott tube amps and a parasound hca 2200 that is still sounding great.These are audiophile speakers that can rock. Acoustic string music is absolutely the best and the 12 inch woofer to 40 hz. A incredible classic speaker that can show the wimpy speakers of today what real music sounds like.

I Have the original NS-1000's not as pictured on this site!
The picture shows the later model NS-1000M
I must agree with all the previous excellent reviews.

The speakers are incredibly revealing full stop!
Accurate to the original recording whether it be a good recording or not, the speakers do not cuddle a poor recording.. It is always amazing to me to listen to an old favourite track and notice a subtle breath or string noise that is never noticed on other speakers.
I must admit they are so precise they can annoy as they are so critical of a poor recording. They quite simply pick out the good the bad and the ugly.
The NS1000's and NS1000M's do exactly what an excellent speaker should do in my opinion, emit the frequencies as per the recording and nothing else.


My speakers are different in several ways to the NS-1000M shown
In the NS-1000's, The enclosures are slightly larger, have no metal grille on the woofer, no Yamaha Decals and are finnished in a dark brown wood veneer with angled edged removable grilles that neatly sit in a recessed channel.

For a perfect stereofonic effect without listening fatigue and no coloration you definively have to put off the metallic protection from the midrange speaker.The protection is responsable for for many listening troubles. Put off the black rubber around the mid, with help from a knife and a flat screwdriver and later the mettallic corb-protection and you will be able to enjoy on a stressless way the briljant musical capability from this wonderfull speaker .
Maybe also control the polarity from every speaker (bass-mid-treble)because it happened allready I bought a vintage speaker and I discovered one speaker was not good polarized and of course that caused a bad stereofonic effect.The owner before probably opened,took off a speaker etc...
I have a very good response with a leak stereo 70 amplifier= good and strong bas, neutral mid and high.And you pay not very much for a far better result than many modern amps!
One more hint; I replaced a destroyed tweeter (JA-513) with a little bigger yamaha JA-516 tweeter (little adaption needed) from the NS-500 speaker.More easy to find(?) and cheaper...

To all those who still desire or want the Yamaha NS-1000M speakers I have some interesting news for you. Currently KENRICK SOUND makes a living out of restoring Yamaha Speakers and what he has done with them will literally blow you away. Your complaints about the ugly black box, forget it check this youtube video out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jkS2eHUq7U&feature=related and they are preparing another run. The color will be polished walnut, mahogany, sapphire blue, ash gray and light pink (like Japanese cherry blossom). The price for each pair is 495,000 JPY (in US Dollars over 5 grand) check out the URL http://blog.kenricksound.com/2012/02/yamaha-ns-1000m.html. To see a close up of the Yahama in the Video use this URL http://jbl43.com/?pid=37644706 and convet your browser to english (with MS IE 9 you should see little language box top left of screen). So, the Yamaha NS-1000M speakers live on and this re-incarnated speaker not only sounds better but, looks better than new.

Nie polecam tych kolumn ze wzgledu na slaba neutralnosc i powazne problemy ze sterofonia. Niskie czestotliwosci o slabym impulsie i nie adekwatnej wielkosci w stosunku do wielkosci przetwornikow. Cena z kosmosu. Obecny model bardzo popularnego podstawkowca ns-100 po zmianie zwrotnicy pod wieloma wzgledami przewyzsza flagowy ale juz niestety stary co w moim przypadku objawialo sie delikatnymi znieksztalceniami zawieszen i byc moze membran. Przypadkiem w rece wpadly mi monitorki Avance alpha 220 i w porownaniu do ns-1000 byl to odpoczynek dla uszu. Avance pokazaly tak neutralnie i dynamicznie rozne dzwieki ze yamaha grala przy nich jak tanie magnaty.

I used to be a long-term electrostatic enthusiast, have been listening to a Martin Logan Scenario speakers for a few years and recently, after rebuilding my home audio setup I came across these. I actually bought them just after reading many rave reviews and not listening prior to purchase.

The first thing that you notice with these is that they are, in fact, a non-audiophile speaker. Let me briefly explain this: they simply do not color the sound. What comes in, comes out. This can be troublesome for people who do not know how to properly set-up a system as a whole. For example, they like clean sounding amplifiers and they really shine with hi-res chain. This is also a speaker for someone who knows the innate workings of a careful system-matching. The usage of the same dome shape and beryllium for midrange and tweeter results in an unprecedented clarity, cohesion and transient response. For example, typical Mmd of a midrange driver in many hi-end speakers is around 10 grams. In NS-1000M it is... 0.6 grams. Many sound engineers and more advanced DIY'ers know the ATC SM75-150S, which is regarded as best midrange (dome) driver ever. They are used in PMC, ProAc higher-end, and often ridiculously expensive studio monitors. I can't resist the temptation to say that the beryllium dome in Yamahas are better than SM75-150S. But there's more to it - the fact that they also use beryllium tweeter and good paper cone in - what's important - a sealed box results in a sound that you consider as a whole. It's not just a beryllium speakers. It's not a speaker that excels in one, two fields and fails in others. On a scale 1-10 they have all 8-9 and 10 in speed, resolution, accuracy, lack of compression while having 8-9 in others. This is something VERY rare for a speakers costing as much as 10-20k USD.

Yes, they sound harsh. With bad amplification.
Yes, they can sound bass-shy. As above, with bad placement.
Yes, they are not the last word in soundstage. MBL are better. ESL's ale... different, but NOT beeter.

No, they will not make poor recording sound good.
No, they will not color the midrange and add 'magic'. Actually, they as much magic as a loudspeaker can be, just because there's no coloration across the entire frequency spectrum. The interesting fact is that in the THD graph of the beryllium dome there is a spike of 2nd order harmonic around 2KHz (while this spike is still much lower that the monotonic distortion graphs of the vast majority of designs) and this, possibly is the source of the so called "NS-1000M magic". The midrange is startingly clear, precise. The tweeter is on-par with the ones used in JMLab Utopia Be series and I think this speaks for itself. The bass, with proper amplification (clear sounding solid state like Lavardin IT or IS Reference) is clear, uncolored, dynamic.

Image accurancy is out-of this world. These speakers just throw a soundstage around and between the speakers (room treatment is obviously recomended, due to the wide dispersion) - pure silver/teflon insulated cables recommended here. Line conditioning also recommended (because on speakers like these you can easily hear the power supply line quality). Hi-res sources (like good turntables or DPA Reference SX512 DAC/dCS DACs) will be a perfect match.

As for the amps - there are two choices - SET or hi-end (not necessarily expensive) solid-state like above-mentioned Lavardin, digital amps like TACT Millenium will be also a good choice. Steer clear of harsh sounding solid state as well as of some poorer quality valve amps.

As for the power requirements - they are actually efficient speakers. Around 90dB @ 2.83V and 8 Ohms nominal impedance should not cause problems, but beware - they need a clear sounding amp, which does not mean "lots of current". I cannot emphasise how important this is. Even some valve amps can sound harsh with NS-1000M. Technically speaking they need an amplification with low thermal-induced TIM (Transient Induced Intermodulation distiortion), because they "show" the time-domain based change of the THD spectrum (you can't actually hear this, but you more "feel" it - some solid-state amps just sound good, bacause they have no 'thermal distortion', for example Lavardin, YBA, some digital amps, vast majority of tube amps).

They can sound good with SET amps (2A3, 300B, some 6C33S designs too), they will sound stellar with higher-end Audio Research tube power-plants as well as with modest YBA Integre solid-state and even more transparent Lavardin IT/MAP amps. But... there's one amp that will do the justice and this is probalby the ultimate match for Yamahas: Pass Labs Aleph Series. You will get Single-Ended-Triode transparency, with the transformer-less accurancy of the Nelson Pass designs and the visceral bass impact of these Class-A SE transistor designs (btw. Alephs DO NOT sound bass-shy compared to Krell power amps, they are in fact, different, because SE will always sound different to push-pull designs. In P-P you will have less even-orded harmonics, always one - be it even or odd - harmonic less than SE but even orded will always sound better, even if the THD spectrum is higher. Moreover the SE operation entails class A operation as well and in it's better because the power supply sees the almost constant power requirement).

To sum it up...

WEAKNESSES:

1. I need to say this: they are not an audiophile "color-the sound"/"emphasise one frequency spectrum to avoid showing the deficiencies in other" kind of speaker.
2. They WILL relentless show problems in the chain if such problems occur.
3. They WILL NOT correct poor recoring.
4. Yes, MBL 111A soundstaging is better. BUT MBL has a reputation of a best-imaging speaker in the world. Nothing comes close to them. Not even Avalon Eidolons, ML Statements, B&W Nautilius and (many) others.
5. YES, Avangade Acoustics Ion tweeters are better. But, as WITH MBLs, nothing comes close to them.
6. YES, TAD R-1 is probably the NS-1000M squared. But at what cost?
7. YES, they do not have the JMLab or Thiel or other do-me-good honey logo on them.

STRENGHTS:

1. NOTHING comes close to them for a low-level midrange micro/macro dynamics, reverberation, clarity, precision of the beryllium midrange unit. Not even Accuton long-gap/short-coil ceramic midrange unit. Not ATC mid unit. Think of it as a real-world STAX Lambda Pro in a speaker-world equivalent. I personally thing that the STAX Lambda Pro is THE LAST WORLD in what we can accomplish using a non-military technology (everyone who's heard Lamba and compared them to, say, Sennheise HD800, AKG K-1000, Ultrasone Edition 9 etc. will agree here).

2. They are three-way desing, but the midrange/tweeter sounds as it were one unit. Cohesion across midrange and treble.

3. Speed, transient response is alarmingly startling.

4. Clarity, lack of coloration. Un-boxiness. I personally feel that some ESL's can sound colored compared to Yamahas.

5. Bass precision, ability to discern bass between recordings.

6. Soundstage - as one reviewer here mentioned "locked phase response between channes", nothing floats, it simply "hangs" it the air. The image size is... natural and depends on the source material.

7. Once again: MIDRANGE: clarity, accuracy through precision.

Also, last, but not least and all the above virtues can bee seen on the graphs: the measured distrion of there speakers put to shame most, if not almost all, modern designs.

The NS-1000M is a funny high end speaker, its the one speaker I've never once thought about selling and it's stayed with me over the past decade. The sound is accurate and uncolored and the neutrality/sheer unchanged resolution have yet to be outperformed by anything I've owned. It's not the most musical speaker, it doesn't fluff up the music or make gold from grain like soft kevlar and poly speakers that put their sound on music. I've actually been very unimpressed with some music through this speaker and I think I know why, I was so used to enhancement. The 1000Ms only represents it as it is. It gives a unique sense of depth and space, and imaging has no wander from side to side like other speakers. The bass is fast and very clean, a 15" subwoofer sounds loud and impressive at first but turns like wob-brrrrm, droning harmonic mud when compared to the NS-1000Ms' very accurate rendition of the deep bass. Like the reviewers before me, I agree the NS-1000M is particularly special and at home with movies, documentaries and ambient life sounds. My NS-1000Ms are rolled down on both ends, a pity but after adjusting to this change from previously referencing via a set of bipole transmission line Mirage floor standers (which were very musical by the way), it was easy to see what I was missing and how colored my Mirage and JBL L-300s were. The NS-1000M was like opening a window. I'd say they a bit forward depending on the gear and room, but it never screams or induces discomfort, like many other speakers do in the mid treble region. Instead, I might suggest the NS-1000Ms are well behaved, no sibilance or ringing like ribbon tweeters. No color compared to many British speakers, yet oddly the NS-1000M goes far deeper into the recording.

So...
Good gear and room are must-haves. It reaches down to 30Hz in a good room, or deeper with great resolution. It puts a subwoofer to shame in terms of quality. Not much going on in the highest treble, but below this it sounds like voices or sounds come from thin air.

I bought my pair of NS-1000Ms about 2 years ago. I've owned quite a number of speakers ranging from the Magnepan 3.5, Thiel, Vandersteen, Martin Logan Monolith to Quad ESL-57s. I bought this speaker out of curiosity as there is much discussion about it. My room is treated with 2" thick 2x4' panels and two that are 3" thick suspended off the rear wall 3", they are the reason we can hear the speaker instead of the rooms obscuring the rendition of what the speaker does. The speakers are on stands 20" off the floor and their axis merge less thana foot behind my head. I've tried them in 4 completely different rooms of friends, in a squarish room and untreated long room open on one far side, it could only be described as a form of torture. The dedicated treated golden ratio listening room here downstairs being the obvious one that worked. Whether or not that matters, you've already made up your mind.

So far the NS-1000M is one of only two speakers I've found capable of Quad-like ESL sound, ie the sound of a live performance whne called upon by material. Want to hear something remarkable? Listen to the mid range without and other drivers or crossover- it sounds like a Quad stat panel!!!! Now the whole speaker together, it not 100% the same sound obviously, so don't let me mislead you in that context. The integration of the woofer to mid is really good but its not perfect. However, depending on the abatement of your hearing, you may not notice. The problem seems to be the crossover because when I pull it, the mid driver sounds pristine. The lowest octave is excellent, its clean, tight and impact.

The NS-1000M doesn't have the major drawbacks of other speakers or the panels either. "Panels aren't for headbanging or concert levels dynamics" and we already that's audiophile lore, it always has been. Dynamic range is not loudness, its the *difference* between quiet and loud passages and is already in the recording. I used to have a pair of Acoustat Spectra 4400, squashed dynamics and colored the sound. They were flattering but when something like voice was used, all I could hear was the speaker. I do want to say that regardless of how loud you play, dynamics are important because they are a major component in natural sounds, and failure to reproduce the largest portion of it as in the studio is just adding more distortion and covering it up by calling it "smooth". Any change, even response variations are in actuality distortion. Horns are quoted as having low distortion, they don't. If you hear that "horn sound", its distortion but you wont find that in a low res harmonic test.

Of all the speakers I've owned, this is a keeper. Piano sounds remarkable, voice is clear, timbre in instruments like wood and brass are all there. If your amp is shy on the bottom octaves or loses definition, you will hear that since there is no mud. If your preamp does the same, you'll hear it. I've tried a about a dozen amps, some of which I suspected were not so great on the low end and on the NS-1000M it was plainly confirmed. I've listened to many moving coil speakers and I like what some do, but many miss that cleanliness in the midrange, muddy the bass or turn the treble into pink noise and just sound aweful. At first I didn't know what to think, the NS-1000M is differing, not flattering or musically caramelizing the signal to be something it's not, nor does it sound like a box and "distortion drivers". On lesser CD players and some media, the speaker sounds essentially rough, and on other media like DVDs and (hold your breath) well produced video games soundtracks, it sounds real and as smooth as butter. Ambient sounds are well reproduced and easy to dissect. In Siri's Svale Band's "You Make Me Fell Like a Natural Woman", this speaker perfectly reproduces a number of challanging lines that normally only Quads can achieve with satisfactory results.

On some sources its clear the NS-1000M is another league over what monitors were used in producing and mastering final reocrdings, if there is and microphone discontinuity you pick up on it, and if there is digital compression, you hear it as aliasing or slur. In some of Tina Turner's recordings you can tell someone was playing with the equalizer and on their monitors it all sounded fine for the final production but on the NS-1000M, you hear their mistakes!

It's not all it can be, there is room for improvement such as impulse time alignment and phase correction, and maybe a fourth small woofer to merge the larger woofer to the dome mid. But that would have pushed this speaker into a new price bracket. I can only wonder and try to fathom where Yamaha could have taken this design concept of "Beginning of the End Of The Weakest Link" if they had stayed on the forefront of inventive driver technology to this day.


The Good:
-The NS-1000Ms image stability is second to none, which means the response and phase are locked identical between both channels.
-The bass is tight and tuneful, and reaches deep in my treated room. The bass is almost visceral, its like an addiction.
-The midrange is very clear and intelligent, and that is damn rare. This is the star of the show, probably the best mid driver ever designed.
-Treble is good, its better than flagship danish DIY tweeters or Harbeth's SEAS drivers by far.
-Tonal balance is cool, but not bright as a Harbeth M30 or 7-ES3.
-Resolution, Accuracy

The Bad:
-The center phantom image isn't absolutely defined the way an MBL 111A omni does, this means that while the response and phase is identical between channels, it's power response (polar off axis response) isn't smooth and really that has a lot to do with not being phase or impulse aligned (this affects stereo image in a room environment).
-More bass on the deepest end would be desirable. In an untreated or poorly treated room, there is no point, this will hamper the speakers performance.
-There is a slight slower settling spot in the mid-bass, presumably the woofer's mid end because when the mid range plays on its own, the slow goes away. This must be kept in context; I've never heard so little of it in such an old speaker other then the NS-625.
-Treble could be better, so far it doesn't seem to be the tweeter that's at fault and it's identical in impulse to the Dynaudio Esotar (new version is the Esotar2, no comparison tests yet) and identical CSD to my Scanspeak's Revelator R2904/7000 ring tweeters to 11kHz, but the NS-1000 tweeter is hellovalot cleaner above this point. I point blame to the crossover because the tweeter has no hash, and I'm being critical, I'm comparing the highs to that of a Dynaudio that costs as much as a car.
-Balance can still mislead a listener in a bad room into thinking the speakers is bright. The NS-1000M is in actuality, flat. I have had no problems in this regard.

Associated Gear:
Mark Levinson 383 and 333 power amps
Quad 606
Custom built 300B/2A3 monoblocks
Custom built SS single ended FET preamp
Electro Research EK-1 line preamp
Lightspeed Passive Attenuator
Decware Zen Triode CSP2+ tube preamp
Bluenote Bellavista table
Sonus Veritas phono stage
Pathos Endorphin CDP
Acoustic Research Pro II Interconnects (what can I say, it sounds good)
Shunyata Research Hydra V-Ray II power conditioner
AKG 240DF headphones
Auralex sound panels and corner traps
A load of more gear and speakers.