About The Yamaha NS-3000 Speakers
The NS-3000 is a breakthrough in high-fidelity speaker design - fusing the latest innovation with an unparalleled musical heritage to convey the finest nuances in music.
Inheriting design philosophies from the now iconic NS-5000, the NS-3000 reflects Yamaha's unyielding pursuit of perfect musicality from a flagship speaker - now available in smaller bookshelf form. An effortless, seamless, pure presentation of music.
Emotion: When an artist creates music, they express their passion, emotion and soul to captivate the audience. It's not just the sound that moves us when experiencing a live musical performance, but the intangible human connection to the music.
It is this experience which the NS-3000 is able to convey to its audience - transporting the listener to the time and place of that seminal moment captured in the recording.
Presenting the emotional story behind the music enables a unique connection between the music and the artist, as exists in a live performance. Yamaha's design philosophy with the NS-3000 is to ensure that, as the final instrument with which the artists' voice is conveyed to the listener, the artists' emotion is accurately expressed to, and imparted on the listener.
All ZYLON™ Units for Accurate & Emotional Sound: The NS-3000 presents a seamless transition across bass, mid-range and high-end frequencies, thanks to the use of ZYLON™ in both units. A remarkable continuity in tone across frequencies delivers a distinctively accurate yet abundantly emotional sound.
FEM Analysis & Laser Measurements for Optimal Cross Piece Reinforcing: Cabinet rigidity is imperative in ensuring audio integrity. Reflecting technologies employed in the NS-5000, FEM analysis and laser measurements were used to determine optimal reinforcing of the cross piece, suppressing "box ringing" caused by delayed vibration from the six surfaces of the enclosure.
Openness: The ultimate ambition when designing a loudspeaker is to have the listener lose themselves in the music. In this moment, the audience is no longer listening to a speaker but the musical performance as if they were experiencing it first-hand.
The NS-3000 transcends music playback by expressing true musical expression as intended by the artist. Presenting the artist live in the living room is achieved through an openness in the soundstage; the equipment and room disappearing and the artist delivering an intimate performance for the listener. An open sound stage brings the artist and listener together and engages the listener in the music. Yamaha's speakers are designed to fade into the background with the artist and music front and centre.
R.S. (Resonance Suppression) Chambers to Suppress Unwanted Resonance: Demonstrating its lineage, the NS-3000 inherits the same tweeter as the NS-5000. The RS Chamber on the rear of the tweeter cancels tube resonance that can forcibly move the diaphragm and therefore impact the accuracy of the audio.
New Acoustic Absorber Optimised for NS-3000: Designed specifically for the NS-3000, the new acoustic absorber reduces the impact of internal standing waves while simultaneously reducing the need for sound absorbing material. Consequently, musical energy remains distinctly evident.
Groove: Music has the innate ability to move us. Beyond sound, rhythm and melody touches the soul and evokes a natural response which is vital to our nature.
This musicality is expertly communicated by the NS-3000 - revealing the intangible essence of the performance. Groove is a feeling from the music. Something that reaches inside the listener, capturing them and making them move. Helping them engage with the music through the rhythm. Presenting quiet subtleties are equally as important as the loud crescendo's to generate this groove with the music.
Highest-Quality Crossover Circuit Parts: Representative of the flagship series, the NS-3000 adopts the highest quality parts for the crossover circuit. The MCap® SUPREME EVO audio capacitor made by Mundorf of Germany, renowned as the pinnacle in audio-use capacitors, is used along with a huge woofer coil.
Solid Brass Speaker Terminals: Cut from pure brass, the speaker terminals undertake to deliver absolute signal integrity through a highly secure connection. Further, their shape comfortably fits with the human hand for a luxurious feel while simultaneously allowing for effortless tightening.
Winner of SoundStage Australia's Outstanding Performance Award 2021: Outstanding Performance is awarded to a fine-tuned product presenting exceptional sound quality and is among 'the best of the best'.
Optional SPS-3000 Stands: Perfectly complementing the NS-3000 are the SPS-3000 stands. Engineered to exclusively match with the NS-3000, they enable optimal speaker placement for absolute purity of sound.
Yamaha NS-3000 Review
"The NS-3000's high-frequency sound is beautifully clean and nuanced. A crisp impactful strike transient on a hi-hat was followed by a ride that had no tinny-ness whatsoever, just a beautifully true ring, finished with a lovely sizzling cut-off. Crash cymbal sonics were equally good, and perfectly imaged by the Yamahas.
As for the midrange, just listen to Mount Eerie (Phil Elverum) on his album A Crow Looked At Me. If you can get over the tragic lyric of every single song on this album (written shortly after the death of his wife, Canadian cartoonist and musician Geneviève Castrée, of pancreatic cancer, aged 35) you'll be able to marvel at the intimacy with which the Yamaha NS-3000s deliver his tribute to her. The speakers position his voice perfectly wherever he is in the room (and he moves around a bit!) and deliver the tonality of his voice with true-to-life accuracy (particularly in My Chasm). Then, on When I Take Out The Garbage at Night, the acoustic guitar seems right there in the room with you.
Listen to the string scrapes, to the microphone rustles, to the plaintive sparse piano. It's a rough recording, and you can hear all the mistakes when listening via the NS-3000s – they're revealing speakers, and they don't pull any punches. You're with him there, in the room in which she died, as he plays the instruments she left behind, and the Yamaha NS-3000s transmit all that raw emotion viscerally.
These are small speakers but Green Light from the Lorde album Melodrama was the first of many that proved how these little speakers punch well above their weight in the bass department, both for extension and in the feeling of weight they can attach to kick drums, bass guitars and other low-pitched instruments.
Yamaha is the only Japanese company that's world famous for the quality of its loudspeakers. The NS-3000 shows why, with impressive handling of the entire frequency spectrum – clean treble, intimate midrange and solid bass, and we loved them." What Hi-Fi?
Our Take
Hands up who remembers the legendary NS-1000 from the 70's? I was one who owned those speakers and while they were always exciting to listen to and rocked like few others they were also a little 'difficult' in the higher frequencies. Never a relaxing listen. My next speaker was the original Quad ESL, quite a contrast. The NS-3000 was originally loaned to us by Yamaha Australia and to be blunt we weren't expecting this rather diminutive stand mount to justify the rather hefty price tag. Boy, were we wrong. We often 'run in' speakers in our main showroom for a few days playing Chilltrax through a Sonos Amp. Remarkably, even on internet radio through a $1K streamer amp we could clearly hear the NS-3000's potential, and when we got around to hooking them up to something serious from Auralic and Parasound we were flat out floored by what we heard. How could this small speaker produce so much rich, dynamic, deep (!) bass and how on earth had they been able to get them to produce seamless top to bottom neutral tonal colours with no hint of a peak anywhere and one of the kindest, sweetest, airiest trebles we have ever encountered. If you have a look at a few of the technical bits and pieces above you might begin to get an idea as to the lengths the Yamaha design team went to, to achieve all this audible brilliance and then suddenly you're thinking the asking price is completely justified. So, naturally we bought a new pair from Yamaha and have now thoroughly run them in so you can experience the same stunning sonics that wowed us so completely. Come on in and experience the Yamaha NS-3000 speakers for yourself.
Main Features & Specifications
- Design: 2-Way Stand Mount Loudspeaker
- ZYLON™ drivers boast a sound velocity comparable to beryllium yet possessing the characteristic softness of textiles
- New 16 cm woofer paired with NS-5000 tweeter
- R.S. (Resonance Suppression) Chamber to suppress unwanted resonance
- New acoustic absorber optimised for the NS-3000
- Crossover circuit using the highest-quality components including the MCap® SUPREME EVO audio capacitor made by Mundorf of Germany
- Enclosure Type: Bass-Reflex – Rear Ported
- Woofer: 165 mm (6½") ZYLON Cone
- Tweeter: 30 mm (1¼") ZYLON Dome
- Frequency Response: 39 Hz-60 kHz (-10 dB), -100 kHz (-30 dB)
- Nominal Input Power: 60 Watts
- Maximum Input Power: 120 Watts
- Sensitivity: 87 dB / 2.83 V / 1 m
- Impedance: 6 Ohms (Minimum 4.6 Ohms)
- Crossover Frequency: 2.8 kHz
- Optional Stands: Yamaha SPS-3000 Speaker Stands – available separately
- Included Accessories: 8 x Flat Rubber Feet (for attaching to the bottom of the speakers), 2 x Foam Bungs (used in the rear ports when placing the speakers close to a wall)
- Grilles: No Grilles are supplied with the NS-3000
- Finish: Piano Gloss Black
- Dimensions (WxHxD): 244 x 394 x 326mm
- Weight: 13.1 kg each
- Manufacturer's Warranty: 5 Years
Note: Features & Specifications Subject To Change Without Notice. E&OE