Yamaha - NS-5000 Speakers with Stands

Yamaha’s flagship loudspeaker, and one of the very few in the world with all three drivers made from the same material: woofer, midrange dome and tweeter dome are 100% Zylon, in a Hokkaido white-birch plywood cabinet finished like a Yamaha grand piano. Supplied as a pair with the matching SPS-5000 stands included.

Using one diaphragm material across every driver is the idea the whole speaker is built around. Mixing materials means mixing their characters — a paper woofer and a metal tweeter behave differently at their limits, and the crossover has to reconcile two different sounds. Yamaha’s answer is Zylon, a synthetic high-modulus fibre vapour-coated with a proprietary Monel alloy, used for the 12-inch woofer, the 3-1/4-inch midrange dome and the 1-1/4-inch tweeter dome alike. Yamaha’s claim for it is acoustic velocity comparable to beryllium without the sharp resonance peak a hard material brings.

Two patent-pending resonance systems sit behind the drivers. The R.S. (Resonance Suppression) Chamber is a pair of resonance tubes of differing lengths behind the tweeter and midrange that cancel the main chamber’s resonance peak. The Acoustic Absorber is a compact J-shaped tube that cancels a standing wave at a specific frequency without adding damping wadding — wadding absorbs the music as well as the problem, so removing the need for it is the point. The port is a twisted flare design.

The cabinet is laminated plywood made from Hokkaido white birch, with a 1-1/8-inch front baffle and 3/4-inch panels elsewhere, internally braced to a layout arrived at by finite-element analysis, and finished in the same gloss black piano lacquer process Yamaha uses on its grand pianos. Each speaker weighs 77.2 lb on its own. The US configuration, Yamaha’s model NS-5000PNST, includes a pair of SPS-5000 stands in the price — the stand is a real separately-modelled product but you are not asked to buy it on top here.

Two published figures deserve a note. The frequency response reads “26 Hz – 40 kHz (−10 dB), −100 kHz (−30 dB)” — the second half has no stated lower bound, and that is exactly how Yamaha prints it on the US page, the European page and in the manual alike, so it is Yamaha’s wording rather than a transcription slip. And the 88 dB sensitivity is measured at 2.83 V, the standard one-watt-into-eight-ohms reference; into this speaker’s 6-ohm nominal load that is closer to 1.33 watts, so read it as 88 dB at 2.83 V rather than 88 dB at one watt.

Features

• All three drivers use 100% Zylon diaphragms with a proprietary Monel alloy vapour coating
• 12″ Zylon cone woofer, 3-1/4″ Zylon dome midrange, 1-1/4″ Zylon dome tweeter
• R.S. (Resonance Suppression) Chamber — patent-pending twin resonance tubes cancelling the main chamber’s resonance peak
• Acoustic Absorber — patent-pending J-shaped tube cancelling standing waves without damping wadding
• Twisted flare bass-reflex port
• Laminated Hokkaido white-birch plywood cabinet, 1-1/8″ front baffle, FEM-designed internal bracing
• Gloss black piano finish applied by the same process Yamaha uses on its grand pianos
• Sold as a pair with a pair of SPS-5000 stands included (Yamaha US model NS-5000PNST)
• Nominal 200 W, maximum 600 W input power handling
• 77.2 lb per speaker
• Five-year US parts and labour warranty

Specifications

• Type: Three-way bookshelf loudspeaker, bass-reflex, non-magnetically-shielded
• Sold as: A pair, with a pair of SPS-5000 stands included. Yamaha’s US model designation for this configuration is NS-5000PNST
• Woofer: 30 cm (12″) cone, 100% Zylon with Monel alloy vapour coating
• Midrange: 8 cm (3-1/4″) dome, 100% Zylon
• Tweeter: 3 cm (1-1/4″) dome, 100% Zylon
• Crossover frequencies: 750 Hz and 4.5 kHz
• Frequency response: 26 Hz – 40 kHz (−10 dB), −100 kHz (−30 dB), quoted exactly as Yamaha publishes it. The second figure has no stated lower bound; the same wording appears on Yamaha’s US page, European page and owner’s manual, so this is Yamaha’s own phrasing rather than a transcription error
• Nominal impedance: 6 ohms, minimum 3.5 ohms
• Sensitivity: 88 dB at 2.83 V / 1 m. Note that 2.83 V is the reference for one watt into eight ohms; into this speaker’s 6-ohm nominal load it represents roughly 1.33 watts
• Input power: 200 W nominal, 600 W maximum
• Cabinet: Laminated plywood, Hokkaido white-birch core. Front baffle 1-1/8″ thick, other panels 3/4″. Internal reinforcing crosspieces designed by finite-element analysis
• Resonance control: R.S. (Resonance Suppression) Chamber and Acoustic Absorber, both patent-pending, plus a twisted flare port
• Finish: Gloss black piano finish. No alternate finish is published by Yamaha for this model
• Binding posts and bi-wiring: Not published. Yamaha’s specification and feature pages and the owner’s manual carry no input-terminal or bi-wire row for this model
• Grille: Not published in Yamaha’s specification or feature material
• Dimensions (W×H×D): 15-1/2″ × 27-1/8″ × 15″ (395 × 690 × 381 mm), including terminals, per speaker
• Weight: 77.2 lb (35.0 kg) per speaker — Yamaha labels this figure per unit, not per pair
• Driver part numbers: Tweeter JA-05K6, midrange JA-08B5, woofer JA-3132, per Yamaha’s technology page
• Country of manufacture: Not published. Neither Yamaha’s US or European pages nor the multi-language owner’s manual carries a country-of-origin statement for this speaker. The manual’s “Printed in Indonesia” line refers to the manual itself, as the document makes clear. Frequently repeated claims that the NS-5000 is made in Japan are third-party and are not corroborated by anything Yamaha publishes
• Warranty: Five years, parts and labour. This model is named individually in Yamaha’s Limited Warranty on Premium Hi-Fi Products, which supersedes the general two-year A/V Products term that covers the rest of the range. Registration is not mentioned in the document and coverage is not conditioned on it. Cover is limited to the original owner and is not transferable.