Congrats on your purchase Phil.
I'd be interested to hear how you think they compare to your old Chatsworths (of which I'm now the happy owner). I doubt I'll be swopping any time soon but like you I've been intrigued by the Yamahas for a while...
They live up to all the hype , bass , detail , dynamics , musicality , it's all there . I'm smitten .
As a Yamaha amp devotee and Tannoy speaker owner, and having never heard any Yamaha speakers, I too would be very interested to read comparative thoughts of the NS1000/M -vs- vintage Tannoy Golds or HPDs...
Given the proximity of the side walls, I’d recommend switching them over to have tweeter/mids on the inside. Or at least try and see what you think.
p.s. “smitten” is how I’d describe my reaction to mine! Congratulations.
I got a solid four hours listening last night , here are my thoughts .
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Both are great speakers that have different strengths .
Tried this and they sound much better with the tweeters on the outside , there seems to be very little to no interaction with the side wall . They maybe the least position fussy speaker I have had.
My tweeters are on the outside.
The designer, John Westlake, finds the monoblock (8200mb) highs screechy. Not admirable, but not bland either. I have both the maligned Audiolab monoblocks AND the Mdac, and have no complaints about blandness or screech. One can't believe anything.Yep, Audiolab amplification is exceedingly bland.
I got a solid four hours listening last night , here are my thoughts .
The Tannoy’s I had were “Chatsworths” with 12” Monitor Gold drivers . In comparison with the NS1000’s the Tannoy’s reached lower into the bass frequencies but with softer/looser sound .
The mids lack the NS’s detail and macro dynamics , the leading edge of notes/strikes on the Yamaha’s is something magical . However the Tannoy’s convey a greater sense of texture through the mids .
The higher end is more extended and balanced on the NS1000’s .
The Yamaha’s sound faster than the Tannoy’s , this isn’t a slight on the Tannoy’s . I’ll bet the Yams sound quicker than most speakers .
The Chatsworth’s had a warm easy going nature , nothing ever sounded bad through them . Whereas the Yams highlight everything recorded , good and bad .
Both speakers have lots of presence , the sound is fired forward in a bold fashion and share a similar soundstage , which I would describe as a “wall of sound” , both image well but don’t offer the holographic three dimensional soundstage that some speakers can deliver . All room dependant I know but a pair of Sonus Fabers in the same room produce an open , airy , 3D “filigree” soundstage that neither the Tannoy or the Yamaha’s can match .
The Tannoy’s trump card is the cohesiveness of its sound , it is seamless from top to bottom . The Yamaha’s can’t match this and sound a little bit disjointed although this may improve when I get them at the correct height ( and maybe replace the crossover caps ), the NS’s aren’t bad but the Tannoy DC’s are a hard act to follow in this department .
Both are great speakers that have different strengths .
Can we trust that Troels'...?
FWIW many folk report that ESL 63s have poor HF extension. This is what my ears told me when I first listened to them, however when I actually measured them I was surprised to find that they extend out very close to 20kHz without significant rolloff. I therefore suspect that listeners are perhaps being tricked into thinking that certain speakers have poor HF extension when in reality they have an emphasis somewhere lower in the frequency range which masks the ear's (or brain's) ability to hear the frequencies above this peak as clearly as it would do if the peak wasn't there. In the case of the ESL 63 I find it is the slightly accentuated midband that dominates the top octave, but only slightly.
The thing with ESL63 is the very poor vetical dispertion. I personally find this very obtrusive, in that the top half of the room seems to lack treble energy, which I find most unnatural sounding. Oher people seem completely oblivious/happy with this. I guess it also deends on room and positioning.
Anyway, my point is that subjective frequency balance is about more than frequency response at one point... it's about power response (in the room).
I'm sure I've seen NS1000/M graphs showing better HF extension than that
I did all of Troels' mods to my DIY Proac R2.5s. I realise that this was a long time ago and he has huge experience and that measurements ought to be right.
Was that after you'd built them and found yourself underwhelmed by the result?
I used REW at the weekend to measure mine. Essentially flat up to 18khz (I didn’t both measuring above that).
I didn’t save the output, but happy to do the test again this weekend (I have a new amp, so interested anyway).
I'd appreciate that, Whaleblue, if it's not too much trouble. I'm particularly interested to see the nearfield response so if you could measure the speaker at 1m distance with the microphone on-axis with the tweeter that would be great, thanks.