Yamaha NS-800A Bookshelf Loudspeaker Review

Yamaha NS-800A Introduction

Normally, I don’t review loudspeakers from one brand back-to-back, so when Yamaha offered to send both the NS-2000A tower speakers and the NS-800A bookshelf speaker, I just about dismissed the idea out of hand, especially since both speakers were from the same product series. I usually do not review loudspeakers from the same product series since they typically have the similar performance targets and design philosophy. However, I was given a demo of the NS-2000A and NS-800A at the 2024 AXPONA show, and I noted that they didn’t sound quite the same. I chalked the difference up to how a 3-way speaker acts versus a 2-way speaker. But was that all there was to it? That brought to mind the debate over the merits of each design, and the advantages and disadvantages of both. What can we learn from doing a comparison? With that thought, I accepted both speakers to get a better sense of the differences between them. Does the NS-800A bring anything to the table beyond what is had with the NS-2000A speakers, or are they simply scaled down versions of the same thing?And how does the NS-800A fare amongst other bookshelf speakers in its class? Let’s dive in to find out…

Yamaha NS-800A Stand-Mount Loudspeaker Appearance

Much like their larger tower brothers, the NS-800A speakers are classy yet conservatively styled, so they don’t take any risks when it comes to aesthetics. This allows them to fit in well with almost any interior decor. They have a beautiful piano gloss finish which, as with the NS-2000As, is the same application as is done with Yamaha’s gorgeous pianos. The front horizontal edges are heavily rounded. The visible components of drivers are all matte black. The paper fibers of the woofer cones are visible which gives them some texture. A gold Yamaha badge is inset in the lower edge of the front baffle. The front can be hidden by a black grille for those who want an extremely minimalist appearance, but the speaker is already so restrained that I think users will only be using the grilles to protect the drivers and not for aesthetic reasons. 

The NS-800As can be had with some optional speaker stands from Yamaha called the SPS-800A. This stand is made specifically for the NS-800As and NS-600As. It’s a very substantial-looking satin-black stand that can be used with polished brass spike feet for carpeted surfaces or black rubber feet for hard floor surfaces. Polished brass fasteners are also used to screw the speakers into the stand. The speakers and stands are an overall handsome package that looks high-end. Those seeking a luxury-class product can have it with the NS-800A speakers and SPS-800A stands.

Yamaha NS-800A Stand-Mount Loudspeaker Design Analysis

The NS-800A shares many of the same or similar components with the NS-2000A since they are from the same series, so I will simply self-plagiarize from that review where pertinent. The major difference is, as was said, the NS-800A is a 2-way standmount design whereas the NS-2000A is a 3-way floor-standing design. 

This difference is something we will get into in just a bit, but first, let’s talk about the components that comprise the NS-800A and how they all work together. Let’s start at the top of the frequency band with the tweeter.

The tweeter is a 1” dome made from a blend of materials that Yamaha calls ‘Harmonious Diaphragm’ which has the key ingredient of Zylon. Zylon is a synthetic polymer developed in the 1980s and sees use in a wide number of applications due to its high tensile strength, stiffness, low weight, and thermal stability; all qualities that make it perfect for loudspeaker diaphragms. Zylon’s elasticity properties rival that of Beryllium, so the ‘break-up’ modes that occur in driver cones will be similarly pushed into higher frequencies than typical cone materials. This allows the drivers to play over a much wider frequency band without cone resonances creeping into the reproduction thereby distorting the intended sound. Indeed, the NS-800A’s specs boast a frequency response spec out to 65kHz with a -10dB window.

Bass and midrange is produced by a 6.5” woofer that is also made from Yamaha’s Harmonious Diaphragm material. Another material used in the harmonious diaphragm composition is spruce, and we see the wood fibers in the texture of the cone. 

The tweeter crosses over to the woofer at 2.6kHz with what looks to be a second-order filter on the woofer and third-order on the tweeter. The crossover circuit uses an air-core inductor, an iron-core inductor, a large resistor, and three film capacitors including one from Mundorf. It’s a simple crossover circuit, but if the drivers are well-behaved, it’s certainly enough to get the job done.

The tweeter is enclosed by an attachment that Yamaha calls the ‘resonance suppression chamber.’ This redirects the backwave pressure of the domes in a manner that reduces model resonances on the domes of the tweeter. This is similar to what transmission lines can do but uses a smaller but more complex arrangement instead of the long tapered tubes of transmission lines. Instead of simply absorbing backwave pressure from the diaphragm by damping the pressure waves through lots of soft acoustic absorption material, the Resonance Suppression Chamber redirects the back waves through different paths that rejoin and ends up canceling out resonances. This is a clever way to deal with backwave radiation but must have involved some enormously sophisticated computational modeling.

The lowest frequencies are produced by a rear-mounted port that has a swirl effect in the flaring that Yamaha calls the twisted flare port. They claim it reduces port noise, presumably by increasing laminar flow of air from a vortex-like effect.

As with the NS-2000A, the NS-800A uses Yamaha’s patented Acoustic Absorber tube to cancel out internal resonances. It’s a pipe that is carefully modeled to resonate in opposite phase of major internal modes. This should eliminate the chief source of cabinet resonance so that a ton of damping and bracing won’t be needed. Nonetheless, the enclosure is well braced and has damping material for higher-order but likely less severe resonances, so it should be very inert even at high drive levels. The cabinet feels fairly solid on a knock test.

The NS-800A has screw holes in the bottom panel for installation on the optional SPS-800A speaker stand. It does not have feet, so it also comes with four adhesive pads for setting on a surface without scuffing the finish. The grille is attached via magnets. The speaker connects to amplification by way of a pair of beefy five-way binding posts. Thankfully, Yamaha has eschewed bi-amplification and bi-wiring abilities of dual binding post pairs that plague this segment.

2-way versus 3-way designs

So how does the NS-800A compare to the recently reviewed NS-2000A? The main technical difference is how the sound is segregated between drivers, since the NS-800A is a 2-way design and the NS-2000A is a 3-way design. For novices who might not know, a 2-way speaker is a design where the playback frequency spectrum of the speaker is divided between two driver sets, usually a mid woofer and a tweeter. In a 3-way speaker, the frequency spectrum is divided between three driver sets, usually a bass driver, a midrange driver, and a tweeter. So is there any reason to prefer a 2-way speaker over a 3-way speaker? In other words, can a 2-way have any advantages over a 3-way, all other things being equal? Many people will advocate for a 3-way design over 2-way when possible, and some will argue for a 2-way over the complexity of a 3-way. I think there are reasonable arguments for both but that all cases are situational.

 

Advocates of 3-way designs will say it's much easier for drivers to have accurate playback as they are more narrowly focused on bandwidth. So, for example, if a bass driver only has to worry about bass reproduction, it’s likely better suited for that task than a driver that is trying to tackle bass and midrange duties. I would say that there is some truth to that argument, but that it is situational and only applies to certain classes of loudspeakers, mostly those that are trying to recreate deep bass. It’s less of an issue for loudspeakers that are not attempting super low frequency extension, and the reason is that the physical demands of sound reproduction increase dramatically for every octave lower that a driver is tasked with. The demands of reproducing 20Hz is far greater than 40Hz which is much greater than 80Hz. A speaker aiming for a 20Hz low-frequency extension almost requires a 3-way design, because the electromechanical properties needed to playback 20Hz versus midrange frequencies like 2,000 Hz are so disparate. However, as low-frequency extension requirements are alleviated, it becomes much easier for a loudspeaker driver to handle a wider frequency bandwidth with linearity. This applies to midrange drivers, and to a lesser extent, tweeters as well; the more of a load you can take off of them on the low-end, the better they can play everywhere else.

Advocates of 3-way designs will also argue that wider frequency bandwidths for individual drivers also create more opportunity for intermodulation distortion, and since each driver is given less spectrum in a 3-way design as opposed to a 2-way design, intermodulation distortion will be lower in a 3-way. Intermodulation distortion is amplitude byproducts of interacting signals, or, to put it another way, intermodulation distortion (IMD for short) is when elements of the playback signal interfere with each other due to some limitation of the system, and the interferences cause unwanted sounds elsewhere. As an example taken from my article on the audibility of bass distortion, a signal consisting of a 250Hz tone and a 300Hz tone might produce prominent distortion byproducts at 50Hz and 550Hz. All audio systems will produce IMD, so the key question is how much. So long as the IMD does not become audible, I don’t regard it as a problem, and here the engineering of specific drivers becomes paramount. Some drivers can be given a very wide bandwidth without generating significant IMD, so while they might technically have less IMD were they given a smaller frequency band to handle, it becomes a moot point when the IMD is inaudible in either case. So the IMD argument for 3-ways can be addressed with well-engineered drivers.

Those tend to be the main technical arguments for 3-way speakers over 2-way speakers, but what are the advantages of 2-way speakers over 3-way? The main argument has to do with how crossover filters affect the time-domain performance of drivers. When a frequency band is being filtered in a typical passive crossover circuit, the waveform of the signal necessarily becomes deformed. This deformation causes phase shifts, so the timing of the phase where the driver bandwidths meet can never be precise. The drivers may be able to be summed up for a flat frequency response, but not for the identical phase cycle. This is a form of phase distortion, and its audibility has been debated for decades amongst audiophiles. Credible research has shown that, above certain thresholds, it is subtle but can be audible. Of course, the more filters that a crossover circuit uses, the more phase distortion a loudspeaker will have, so a 3-way speaker should have more phase distortion than a 2-way speaker. For this reason, some audiophiles will make the case that less filters will offer a clearer sound with a superior transient response. For my part, I have never heard anything that I identified as phase distortion in a loudspeaker crossover, although perhaps I just may have been lucky enough to have avoided loudspeakers where that was a serious problem, or maybe I just don’t know what to listen for. I don’t believe that phase distortion is a substantial problem in any competently designed loudspeakers, so it certainly isn’t something that would sway me from purchasing a 3-way speaker in favor of a 2-way design.

 

Those are the points that I believe carry the most weight in the 2-way vs 3-way debate. There have been many more arguments for and against, but none of them were ever based on anything more than anecdotal experience and so were highly subject to expectation bias. But everyone has biases, myself included. Personally, I have heard too many designs of both types that I thought were outstanding speakers, so I don’t think I approach either design type with a favorable or unfavorable preconception. So how does that factor in when comparing the NS-800A to the NS-2000A? I would have expected them to sound largely the same, sans for the extra bass extension in the NS-2000A, but it turns out there was a greater difference then mere low-frequency extension when comparing these particular speakers. We will touch on that later, but first, let’s give the NS-800As a close listen to see how they fare on their own…

Yamaha NS-800A Stand-Mount Loudspeaker Listening Sessions

In my 24’ by 13’ (approximately) listening room, I set up the speakers a few feet off the back and side walls and with an equal distance between the speakers and the listening position. I angled the speakers to face the listening position directly, per Yamaha’s instructions. The listening distance from the speakers was about 9 feet. No room correction equalization was used. Processing was done by a Marantz 7705 and the amplification was a Monoprice Monolith 5x200 amplifier. No subwoofers were used unless noted otherwise.

Music Listening

I found a drop-dead gorgeous recording titled “Nightfall” by the British vocal ensemble Voces8. Voces8 is an octet that has achieved wide popularity in streaming media for their a cappella performances since their formation in 2003. A key to their popularity is the wide range of genres that they will perform, from early music, classical and neoclassical, jazz, pop, as well as their own compositions. The album “Nightfall” exemplifies this nicely, with performances of compositions from Sigur Ros, Max Reger, Caroline Shaw, Ludivico Einaudi, among other unusual sources. This exquisite recording was brought to us by the Decca Music Group label, and I streamed it from Qobuz in a 96kHz/24-bit resolution.

The first thing that I noted about this music on the NS-800A speakers was the soundstage. These speakers projected an enveloping soundstage that is reflective of what would be heard in a large church which is where these performances were recorded. The NS-800As captured the acoustic setting well, and if I closed my eyes, it was easy to convince myself I was seated in the nave of a sonorous church. The nature of this sound mix didn’t allow for precise imaging, but I did get a sense of the groupings of vocal range of the performers. The Voces8 singers sounded glorious, and their performance flowed through NS-800As beautifully. They were rendered with meticulous detail so that each of the eight singers could be easily identified (two sopranos, two tenors, a counter-tenor, an alto, a baritone, and a bass), yet the presentation was smooth and mellifluous. The singers are abetted by some stringed instruments such as violin, viola, and harp, and both the singers and instrumentalists sounded balanced and natural. Everything sounded great, and I’m not sure what more can be asked from a playback system. A high-fidelity recording of great artistry is a sublime experience on a high-fidelity sound system. The NS-800As proved themselves to be just that in my listening to “Nightfall,” and I think that fans of choral music will be extremely happy with these speakers.

 

For something with more emphasis on a single voice, I found a terrific blues album on Qobuz from Judith Hill titled “Letters From a Black Widow.” Hill is best known as a backup singer for some of the biggest acts in pop music, and was featured in the acclaimed documentary “20 Feet From Stardom” about backup singers. She won a grammy for the music score for that documentary and has found success as a lead artist since then. “Letters From a Black Widow” is her fifth solo album, so the compositions are entirely hers. This is on the high-energy side of blues, with plenty of funk and rock making its way into these works. Judith’s remarkable voice makes for a great demonstration of a high-performance sound system.

Right away, I noted how sharply Hill’s voice was imaged at the center of the soundstage. There was no ambiguity as to her placement, and her voice emanated from a spot smack-dab between the speakers. Instruments surrounded her with their own precisely rendered coordinates. A near-field recording of an electric guitar had an in-your-face position in the harder tracks such as “Flame.” An acoustic guitar flanked her right, and an electric organ backed her up from the rear. Funky swing dominates the track “My Whole Life is in the Wrong Key,” and bass guitars were given a surprisingly meaty low-end. Percussion was tightly laid down, and nicely exhibited the superb transient behavior of the NS-800As. Hill’s voice as well as her instrumental accompaniment were all given a balanced presentation, and I didn’t note anything emphasized or recessed. When higher-energy was called for, the NS-800As were more than willing to supply the dynamics for moments of high drama, such as the climax of the track “Black Widow,” where Judith Hill vents at the epithet given to since she was a backup singer for both Micheal Jackson and Prince when they passed away. It’s a fiery moment, and the speakers were up to the task of bringing the heat when asked. This album has a full sound with big emotions, and though the NS-800As are just a pair of normal-sized bookshelf speakers, they could scale with the sound of Hill’s intent and thus sounded much bigger than they actually were. If you are looking for a bookshelf speaker set for blues or rock, these are sure to please your ears.

For something very different that I was very familiar with, I loaded up “Woob 1194” by Woob. This 1994 release is considered a towering classic of electronic music with its innovative use of samples, long-form compositions, non-western instruments, and evocative atmosphere. It has been slotted into the subgenre of ambient dub or ambient house in the past, but I think it is too diverse and imaginative to be neatly grouped into a genre. It is a very down-tempo and chilled-out listening experience though, so anyone looking for some dance-floor bangers would be disappointed. Its unique soundstage and experimental sound design make it a fascinating listen on a high-fidelity sound system. This album has long been one of my all-time favorites since I discovered it in the mid-90s, so I know it well.

The first track, a 30-minute excursion in the deeper reaches of the human psyche titled “On Earth,” was brilliantly reproduced by the NS-800As on account of their wide and expansive soundstage. It’s a psychedelic trip that is given a palpable realism by the speakers. A variety of percussion instruments from around the world are accompanied by choral synths and spaced-out samples that all lead up to the end-times. While I have listened to this trance-inducing epic countless times, the NS-800As delivered a depth and width of soundstage that lent it a new dimension. The second track, “Odonna,” is an ethereal ascent after the descending darkness of “On Earth.” The celestial soundstage projected by the NS-800As stretched well beyond the expanse of the physical locations of the speakers. “Wuub,” a journey into the night, recently given new life by Gemini Home Entertainment’s analog horror short “Our Solar System,” was gorgeously reproduced by the NS-800As. Indian percussion rides over an otherworldly synthesizer soundscape with a haunting woodwind on top of it all. The speakers combined these elements into a vivid soundstage and delivered a more lucid presentation of this track than I have heard before. “Strange Air” may be the most far-out track on this album, and the NS-800As materialized the spacey synths to form a nebula out of strands of cosmic dust. This album is probably mostly heard as a headphone experience, but loudspeakers can give it a greater sense of immersion and realism, provided the speakers are good enough. The NS-800As certainly are good enough, and I would encourage any listeners with a set of these speakers and an open mind to give “Woob 1194” a listen.

 

For something to see how the NS-800A’s reacts to being pushed hard, I queued up “Driven to Madness” by Dance With The Dead. Dance With The Dead is the duo of Justin Pointer and Tony Kim who fuse heavy metal and synthwave into one intense banger after another. Electric guitars and vintage synths compete with pounding percussion to see what can cause tinnitus the quickest at high loudness levels. Heavy bass and distorted guitars max out the digital full scale, and it will easily stress any loudspeaker with enough wattage sending the signal. I also streamed this album from Qobuz.

“Driven to Madness” doesn’t waste any time getting to the loud stuff, but elevated loudness levels didn’t seem to bother the speakers. The bass that the NS-800A could produce was impressive for bookshelf speakers. They could get by without a sub, even for this type of music. A subwoofer would have been a bit beefier in the lowest octave, but these speakers still had some real grunt down there. Taking the system a bit louder did seem to bring the woofer to its maximum limits, and the bass driver’s excursion was clearly visible. Past a certain point, it didn’t want to get much louder in the low end, but this was at a point that no normal person would ever listen to or should expect a pair of bookshelf speakers to operate at, and I could only tolerate such loudness levels for a few moments. The NS-800As could keep their composure at unexpectedly high loudness levels. They probably wouldn’t be enough for loud listening in a large room, but they have enough dynamic range to rock a medium size room for sure. High-pass filtering the NS-800As to a subwoofer might give them a couple extra decibels of dynamic range, but a dome tweeter and 6.5” woofer can only handle so much wattage, so I wouldn’t use these to try to drive a house party. “Driven to Madness” is a fun album to listen to, but as an endurance test for loud listening, I was glad when it was over. My experience listening to this album with the NS-800As showed me that they are certainly game for higher-energy music, whether it be electronic music or rock, so don’t be fooled by their polite and polished exterior.

Movie Watching

To see what the NS-800As could do for a big budget Hollywood film, I watched “In The Heart of the Sea,” a 2015 maritime period drama based on events that supposedly inspired the book “Moby Dick.” This movie is set in 1820 and is about a whaling ship that becomes crippled and adrift in the high seas after an enormous whale attacks it. The surviving crew members struggle to survive after running low on supplies and no way to control their life boats. With an all-star cast including Chris Hemsworth, Cillian Murphy, and Tom Holland, with Ron Howard directing, this looked like it could have a rich sound mix that could show off a sound system’s abilities. I hadn’t seen it yet but was looking forward to it.

“In the Heat of the Sea” didn’t have wall-to-wall dynamic extremes in sound, but it did have its crescendos of sound design, and the NS-800As gave a surprisingly full presentation to the sound mix. There was undoubtedly some deep bass that it wasn’t able to capture, but I didn’t miss it, and there was enough bass to give the movie a good low-frequency foundation. The speakers delivered enough of a full listening experience that I could get absorbed in the story and not become distracted by any low-frequency limitations of the sound system. Some scenes had some real volatility in the sound mix, such as when our protagonist’s ship sailed into a fierce storm. This foolish decision by a novice captain caused havoc aboard the ship, and the realistic reproduction by the speakers helped to make the mayhem as panic-inducing as it was for the crew for a greater sense of immersion. The whale attack also allowed the speakers to shine, and the crashing and diving by a monstrous sperm whale was depicted with zeal by the speakers. To be sure, a larger and more powerful system might have brought more thunder and sizzle, but what these two average-sized bookshelf speakers were able to do was remarkable. Furthermore, I never had a problem understanding dialogue despite the cast affecting a 19th-century New England accent. The music score by Roque Banos was also given a lively account by the NS-800As, and it reminded me of the propulsive scores by Hans Zimmer. In the end, I enjoyed “In the Heart of the Sea.” It was a straightforward and almost old-fashioned film the likes of which don’t really receive big budgets anymore, and it benefits from being seen with a capable sound system like with what I experienced.

 

Another film that I watched was 2024’s “The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare,” a Guy Ritchie movie set in WW2 about a British plot to destroy an Italian ship that carried vital components for Germany’s u-boats fleet. This is a big-budget action-comedy starring Henry Cavill and looked like a blast. Ritchie’s movies tend to be a lot of fun, so I had high expectations going into this one, even though it was a major bomb at the box office. Ritchie’s elaborate dialogue would surely make it a great test of a sound system’s dialogue intelligibility.

“The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare” turned out to be a load of fun, and the NS-800As had more than enough verve to make for an enjoyable viewing and listening experience. There was a lot of action, but much of it was done using stealth, so it wasn’t a deafening explosion-fest. Explosions and shoot-outs did come eventually, but mostly at the film’s climax, and the speakers acquitted themselves well for that segment. The beginning also had a great explosion as a Nazi warship was blown up, and the speakers let out a resonant kaboom at the ship’s sudden demise. The most notable aural attribute of the movie was its score by Christopher Benstead which was greatly influenced by Ennio Marricone, from both his western scores and jazz scores. It was a perfect match for the movie by its almost contradictory combination of light-hearted buoyancy and gripping tension. It sounded terrific on the Yamaha speaker’s crisp and clear presentation. The movie itself had a breezy attitude, which was a curious approach considering the subject matter. Dialogue intelligibility was all excellent even with the many accents involved in this international caper. The movie’s dialogue wasn’t as intricate as I had expected, but I think that Guy Ritchie might have left that staple behind him for these massive studio movies. Those looking for a serious war movie would surely be disappointed by “The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare,” but those who want a gleeful action movie are sure to be pleased, and it deserves to be seen with speakers as good as the NS-800As.

Yamaha NS-800A Bookshelf Loudspeakers Measurements and Analysis

 

The Yamaha NS-800A speakers were measured in free air at a height of 7.5 feet at a 1-meter distance from the microphone, and the measurements were gated at an 11-millisecond delay. In this time window, some resolution is lost below 250 Hz and accuracy is completely lost below 110 Hz. Measurements have been smoothed at a 1/24 octave resolution.

 

The above graph shows the direct-axis frequency response and other curves that describe the NS-800A’s amplitude response in a number of ways. For more information about the meaning of these curves, please refer to our article Understanding Loudspeaker Measurements Part 1. The NS-800A has a fairly flat response over most of its range until it spikes in upper treble. At a quick glance that might appear like it would be troubling, but a closer look shows it to be in very high treble and is unlikely to be intrusive. The spike starts to rise at 12kHz and is centered at 16kHz. There is not much content that has spectral energy in that range nor do many adults have great hearing in that range. Many older adult males have lost a significant amount of sensitivity at such high frequencies. An elevated response in that range might translate into a sense of ‘air’ in recordings that actually have stuff in such high frequencies. It wouldn’t even heighten ‘detail’ as is sometimes done with elevated treble, since the raised bandwidth is just too high in frequency. In other words, the difference would be subtle. We also saw this treble spike in the NS-2000A speakers, and as I said in that review, I think this elevated treble is deliberate for an atmospheric effect for those who retain some hearing in that range.

The remainder of the response adheres to a pretty tight window. Overall, the NS-800A is a very neutral loudspeaker. The directivity indexes show a fairly even level of energy projected at much wider angles, so this speaker should sound alike on and off-axis.

The above graphs depict the Yamaha NS-800A’s direct-axis and horizontal dispersion out to a 90-degree angle in five-degree increments. Information on how to interpret these graphs can be read in this article: Understanding Loudspeaker Review Measurements Part II.

Here we get a closer look at how the off-axis responses compare to the on-axis response, and we can see that there is good correspondence. We can also see that the big spike in upper treble goes way down in level, insofar that it matters. With such good correspondence for all angles, the NS-800A should be very amenable to room EQ programs like Audyssey or Dirac. The problem is that with such a natively flat response, there is not much for auto EQ programs to do above the room’s transition frequency. Were I running an auto-EQ routine, I would just limit it to maybe 500Hz or below so that the program doesn’t try to ‘fix’ the speaker and only addresses acoustic problems with the room. This speaker is accurate for the most part, and it will yield a balanced presentation like I had heard in my own listening.

One curious aspect of these responses is how much they differ from that of the NS-2000A. The NS-2000A has a recessed midrange, but here, the midrange is flat. It’s not too easy to tell where the crossover frequency is in these particular graphs, meaning it is fairly  well executed. I don’t understand why there is a different voicing for speakers within the same product line. Perhaps Yamaha felt the midrange was too aggressive with a flat voicing in the NS-2000As in a way that didn’t occur with the NS-800A.

 

The above polar map shows the same information as the preceding graphs but depicts it in a way that can offer new insight regarding these speakers’ behavior. Instead of using individual raised lines to illustrate amplitude, polar maps use color to portray amplitude, and this allows the use of a purely angle/frequency axis perspective. The advantage of these graphs is they can let us see broader trends of the speaker’s dispersion behavior more easily. More information about interpreting this graph can be read in this article: Understanding Loudspeaker Measurements Part II.

The polar map of the NS-800A shows it to be a very wide dispersion speaker. In this graph, we do see a little bit of evidence of the crossover circuit manifesting as some waistbanding between 1kHz and 2kHz, but it is pretty mild. The speaker’s dispersion pattern radiates out to about 70 degrees fairly evenly. This speaker will have similar tonality on or off-axis. Sidewall reflections will have similar tonality as well, so there is benefit to a wide and even response like this even if you are a solitary listener just listening at an on-axis angle. Experimenting with toe-in may change the nature of the soundstage but it’s not going to affect tonality very much since this speaker sounds so much alike over such a broad angle.

 

The above graph shows the NS-800A’s response behavior along its vertical axis where zero degrees is directly in front of the tweeter, negative degree values are below the tweeter, and positive degree values are above the tweeter. By having the tweeter mounted so far away from the woofer, it does limit the breadth of vertical dispersion before crossover nulls start digging into the response. This speaker should not be listened to outside of a +/-10-degree angle, although I doubt many listeners will have their ear height outside of that range. The lesson here is, as with so many other speakers of this type, listeners should try to keep their ears at or close to the tweeter’s height.

 

The above graph shows the NS-800A’s low-frequency response captured using ground plane measurements (where the speaker and microphone are on the ground at a 2-meter distance in a wide-open area). The NS-800A has a fairly smooth response with some tapering of the port output. Port tuning looks to be 40Hz, and port output looks to be around four to five decibels shy of the woofer’s output. The NS-2000A had a greater port damping, likely because its port was next to the floor which would give it more boundary gain, and Yamaha might have factored that in the design. The NS-800A doesn’t lessen port output very much in comparison. In my own room, I had a strong bass sound well below 40Hz. That is pretty good for a bookshelf speaker of the NS-800A’s size. Any deeper bass that that would have come at tremendous cost of sensitivity. The NS-800A has enough low-frequency extension to cover almost all acoustic recordings and quite a few non-acoustic recordings as well. Bassheads will want to add a subwoofer for the lowest octave, but I think most listeners will get by just fine without a sub unless they want to crank the speaker hard.

 

The above graph shows the electrical behavior of the NS-800As. Yamaha specifies these speakers to be a 6-ohm speaker with a 3.8-ohm minima. That is almost too conservative. If Yamaha called this an 8-ohm nominal speaker, I wouldn’t have fought them too hard on that. As for the minima, in my measurement it doesn’t even reach below 4-ohms unless that occurs above 20kHz where it doesn’t matter. Either way, this is a very benign electrical load and any amplifier should be able to drive it with ease. We can see from the dip in the low-frequency saddle that the port tuning frequency is almost smack-dab at 40Hz.

I measured the NS-800A’s sensitivity to be 86.2dB for 1 meter at 2.83v, and this is pretty close to Yamaha’s own spec of 86.5dB for 1 meter at 2.83v. This is not unusual for a bookshelf speaker of this size. I wouldn’t use a low-wattage amp with these, but they don’t need a powerhouse either, not that they could handle tons of wattage with a 120-watt maximum input specification. With a 120-watt maximum input spec and an 86dB sensitivity, these speakers won’t be able to get super loud, although they certainly got loud enough for my tastes. As was stated before, they are best used in medium to smaller rooms. Those who want greater dynamic range should give the NS-2000As a look.

Listening Comparisons NS-2000A vs NS-800A

With the NS-2000As in-house at the same time as the NS-800As, I decided to do a listening comparison to hear what differences they might have had in sound character if there were any audible differences at all. The measurements suggested that they would sound different, but how would that translate into real-world listening? In my experience, some blatant things in measurement graphs aren’t all that audible in practice, but some things can be heard that wouldn’t show up on traditional graphs at all. Let’s do some A/B listening tests to find out how these speakers differ…

 

Firing up some jazz vocals with tracks from Youn Sun Nah, Diana Krall, and Laufey, the most obvious difference was the bass. The NS-2000As had deeper bass and more prominent bass. While I knew that the NS-2000As was going to dig deeper with a 30Hz extension versus the NS-800A’s 40Hz extension, the 2000A’s bass was not just deeper but more prominent. This is slightly unexpected given that the shape of the low-end response of these speakers are a lot alike, so I attributed this to room gain from the lower extension of the 2000As. The 2000As also had a bit crisper treble. The NS-2000A was a tad more sibilant, although I wouldn’t characterize it as an especially sibilant speaker. Cymbals were a bit more elevated on the NS-2000As. Given the NS-2000A’s somewhat recessed midrange, this isn’t surprising. It wasn’t a massive difference, but it was unmistakable.

Queuing up some orchestral music, the trends I heard from comparing speakers in jazz recordings largely followed but not quite so distinctly. I listened to some tracks from Christopher Young’s outstanding new score for “Nosferatu” as well as some Vaughan Williams and Max Richter. Strings seem to shimmer a bit more on the NS-2000As, and the timpanis had more authority. Both speakers sounded great, but the NS-2000As sounded a bit more vibrant. What is ‘better’ is purely a matter of taste; the NS-800As had a more balanced sound but the NS-2000As had a more lively sound. As for myself, I enjoyed both and could happily live with either, so I don’t really have a strong preference for either one or at least my preference would depend on the content.

Now that I knew where the NS-800As stood with respect to the NS-2000A, I then compared the NS-800As to my reference pair of speakers that we have informally called the 1802G, a custom design by Dennis Murphy and Jim Salk with port tuning help from Paul Kittenger. These speakers are based on the acclaimed Ellis 1801 speakers. This is an improved design over the original 1801s that uses an advanced graphene cone woofer and a new and improved crossover by renowned loudspeaker engineer Dennis Murphy. It has a ruler flat response from top to bottom of its frequency band and is an extremely accurate loudspeaker. The NS-800A is a relatively accurate loudspeaker in its frequency response, but how does it compare to something that is the loudspeaker equivalent of a world-class sharpshooter? 

 

Starting with jazz vocals, it did take a few switches between these speakers for differences to become clear. Firstly, the NS-800As had a bit more midbass which added extra weight to the double bass and bass drum. The vocals were a tad more forward, with slightly more accentuated treble. The hi-hats had a bit more air in the top end. The 1802Gs had a bit more laid back presentation. They also imaged wider, but that might have been due to their outer placement, so I can’t be sure of that, although they do have a wider dispersion. To be sure, these differences were noticeable but not blatant.

Moving on to some orchestral music with “John Williams in Tokyo,” the same story is told. Strings and higher-pitched woodwinds are a bit more pronounced on the NS-800As as are timpanis. The NS-800As are a tad more ‘exciting,’ but not enormously so. For electronic music, I queued up the great bass music album “Beyond the Veil” by Fearful and Mtown. While the NS-800As had a somewhat beefier bass, the 1802Gs could dig a bit deeper. The NS-800As were a more forward speaker although the differences were not major. This is a comparison of two loudspeakers that are both fairly linear, so while there are definitely differences, they were not stark ones. Again, I enjoyed both speakers, and I can see equal numbers of listeners preferring one over the other, but I can’t imagine anyone objecting to the sound that either produces. The fact that the NS-800As can keep up with such an exacting loudspeaker as the 1802Gs is a laudable attribute indeed.

Conclusion

Before bringing this review to an end, I will briefly go over the strengths and weaknesses of the product under evaluation, and, as always, I will start with the weaknesses. The Yamaha NS-800A doesn’t really have any significant weaknesses in my opinion. The only thing I might nitpick it for is that $4.8k/pair is a lot of money for a speaker that is a bit limited in dynamic range. To be sure, it can get louder than I would have expected for a relatively simple pair of bookshelf speakers, but if you are looking for something that can fill a large room effortlessly, these are not for you. Then again, no speaker of its size and class would do that without giving up a lot of low-frequency extension. Headbangers might want to look at other speakers unless you are listening at a relatively close proximity. This isn’t really a fair criticism since the speaker that could get that loud in its size would necessarily be a different kind of speaker, so it’s more like a caveat.

Since I don’t have any substantive criticisms of the NS-800A, let’s talk about its strengths, the first of which is its sound. The NS-800As have a nicely balanced and surprisingly full sound. Instrumentals and vocals sounded natural and clean, and dialogue intelligibility was always crystal clear. The soundstage was wide, yet imaging was precise. They had extension down to 40Hz which is very good for standmount speakers of their size. I don’t think many users will feel the need to add a subwoofer to these unless they want more rumble for home theater applications or more punch for electronic music. The NS-800As’ dynamic range is pretty good for their type of speaker. As I said before, I wouldn’t look to them as a solution for a large room, but for medium to small rooms, they would excel. They handled all genres of music equanimously, so I think most listeners will really like them no matter what their taste in music may be.  

Beyond the NS-800A’s terrific sound quality, we have its high-end appearance and build quality. The NS-800As is one of the nicest-looking bookshelf speakers around, and it has a piano gloss finish that is among the best in the industry. It’s a hefty and well-built unit too. Users looking for a true luxury item have it in the NS-800A. It could fit in well with any interior decor, no matter how upscale. A pair would make a fine match for Yamaha’s own R-N2000A receiver, another item with a very premium look and feel.

Yamaha NS-800A vs the Competition

So yes, the NS-800A is a terrific speaker, but what else is out there in the same class and price range that competes with it? There is the new Arendal Sound 1528 Bookshelf 8 speaker which Gene DellaSala absolutely loves. It has deeper low-frequency extension and wider dynamic range - if you give it enough amplification. However, it is much larger and heavier, and its finish is not on the level of the Yamahas. There are the Revel PerformaBe M126Be bookshelf speakers that we very positively reviewed about five years ago. The M126Be should have a wider dynamic range, but its build quality and finish are not quite on the level of the Yamahas. The Yamahas will also have deeper bass extension. There is the Perlisten R5b, a premium bookshelf speaker of about the same size, but it isn’t totally comparable to the NS-800As since it is expected to be used with a subwoofer and doesn’t try to do deep bass at all. It would have a very substantial dynamic range advantage over the NS-800As. Some other speakers that compete directly with the NS-800As are the Aerial Acoustics 5T bookshelf speakers, Bowers & Wilkins 705 Signatures, Dali Rubikore 2, and Monitor Audio Gold 100 6G speakers. I don’t have much experience with those speakers and can’t speak about how they compare, but they all look like competent designs on the surface, so readers will need to look deeper into those to see how they compare.

I enjoyed my time with the Yamaha NS-800A speakers. They sound as gorgeous as they look. They are not cheap, but as truly high-end loudspeakers, I do think they are priced fairly. They can be treated as an heirloom item, because, If they are cared for, they can last many decades, much like a finely-crafted musical instrument from Yamaha. It’s hard for me to imagine anyone giving them a chance and not enjoying them. Yamaha enthusiasts will definitely love them, and those just looking for a solid, high-end bookshelf speaker are sure to be delighted as well. I would love to see a similar design using the same technologies in a more affordable if perhaps less luxurious loudspeaker from Yamaha in the future. That may be the ticket towards getting Yamaha to be as pervasive of a home audio loudspeaker brand as they once were. But if that never happens, Yamaha has still achieved remarkable success with the NS-800A, and audiophiles have a great option in these speakers. 

The Score Card

The scoring below is based on each piece of equipment doing the duty it is designed for. The numbers are weighed heavily with respect to the individual cost of each unit, thus giving a rating roughly equal to:

Performance × Price Factor/Value = Rating

Audioholics.com note: The ratings indicated below are based on subjective listening and objective testing of the product in question. The rating scale is based on performance/value ratio. If you notice better performing products in future reviews that have lower numbers in certain areas, be aware that the value factor is most likely the culprit. Other Audioholics reviewers may rate products solely based on performance, and each reviewer has his/her own system for ratings.

Audioholics Rating Scale

• — Excellent
• — Very Good
• — Good
• — Fair
• — Poor

Metric	Rating
Build Quality
Appearance
Treble Extension
Treble Smoothness
Midrange Accuracy
Bass Extension
Bass Accuracy
Imaging
Dynamic Range
Fit and Finish
Performance
Value