
The Yamaha NS10 Story – How a Hi-Fi Speaker Conquered the Studio World (2008) - snthd
https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/yamaha-ns10-story
======
ninjakeyboard
I have two creative passions in life - code and producing music. First, I'm
surprised to see this on hackernews.

The love/hate of the speaker are really irrelevant factors for the product
produced by an audio engineer. There are a couple things that really matter in
terms of their 'efficiency': 1) the flat frequency response; and 2) Knowing
the qualities of the monitor. If you have a decently treated room and you are
somewhat accustomed to working with the NS10s, any engineer worth their salt
could produce decent sounds on them.

The article is old so it foregoes the fact that Yamaha have actually tried to
profit from the legacy of the NS10 - they produce new more expensive variants
with similar design in the crowded studio monitor market. They fit into the
space with the typical 5, 6 and 8 inch woofer-standard market with the HS7s
for example. [https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/yamaha-
hs7-hs8s](https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/yamaha-hs7-hs8s)

The end result is more important than the gear. These will do alright even if
they aren't as "pleasing" as something like the Adam series'.

~~~
smegel
I'm amazed that for almost every "special interest" post here on HN there are
at least a couple of people who know exactly what it's about.

~~~
ninjakeyboard
hey cheers. here is my music too :)
[https://soundcloud.com/decklyn](https://soundcloud.com/decklyn)

------
danbmil99
As a working sound engineer in the 80s, I depended on the NS 10 to give me a
sense of the room, as a standard reference or metric. I would play something
like Steely Dan's Babylon sisters, which I knew intimately, and how it sounded
on the NS10 would tell me something about the accoustics of the studio I was
in.

It probably could have been any other speaker of the time, what was critical
was the fact that it was in every single studio without fail. It was a
constant variable in an equation where every other variable was in flux.

~~~
foobarge
Which source did you use for Babylon Sisters?

------
AceyMan
For folks who like this kind of stuff but aren't audiophiles, may I suggest
the history of the LS3/5a loudspeaker as a fun read. The LS3/5a was chosen as
the reference small monitor by the BBC then the design was licensed out to
various OEMs over the course of its time as the standard. Modern high-end
clones are still available.

I'm a big fan of ATC loudspeakers (a UK firm, btw), which are quite popular in
studios and performance halls¹. Example: The Walt Disney Concert Hall — that
wavy, stainless Frank Gehry building here in LA — is outfitted with custom ATC
cabinets as the house PA (last I know of, at least).

ATC's powered monitors are freakishly overbuilt and can play to stupendous
SPLs. I've got dreams of someday having my own set of the active SCM20, which
are the perfect size for small living spaces, but they make powered units as
big as 150 litres per cabinet². Whoa.

My last set of high-end speakers is their SCM11, about the same size. Key
house feature: they design(make?) their own bass/mid drivers which are rugged
af, and feature monster magnets for their size.

Back to TFA; I've never heard the NS-10, but I have always heard they kind of
suck. And the reasoning never held water IMHO; it stands to reason that you'd
end up EQing the mix to make it sound good on the NS-10, but that would in
turn make the mix all out of whack on proper equipment.

It's like trying to design the next Corvette with the prototypes running on
175/70R13 tires; how you could tune the system under test (here: the music
being mastered/mixed) with such a floppy foundation is beyond me.

\-- ¹—[http://atcloudspeakers.co.uk/studios-
soundstages](http://atcloudspeakers.co.uk/studios-soundstages)
²—[http://atcloudspeakers.co.uk/professional/loudspeakers/scm11...](http://atcloudspeakers.co.uk/professional/loudspeakers/scm110asl-
pro)

~~~
bluedino
Actually, the base model Corvette does come with some very mediocre tires.
I’ve heard that’s done because owners will end up replacing them with the
cheapest option at their local tire dealer, and this way there’s not much of a
performance downgrade.

~~~
seanp2k2
Huh? Pilot Super Sports (standard on MY2014 Vettes) are some of the best
street tires that you can buy. They’re basically the standard for high-
performance street cars. The Ferrari 458 comes with them. They’re stock on the
BMW M3, M5, and M6. You can get optional Sport Cup 2s on some Corvette models,
but they wear out a lot faster.

Src: [http://www.chevrolet.com/performance/corvette-stingray-
sport...](http://www.chevrolet.com/performance/corvette-stingray-sports-car)

“”” Standard Brembo® brakes provide ample stopping power at a variety of
speeds. Standard 19" front and 20" wheels come wrapped in Michelin® Pilot®
Super Sport ZP summer-only tires† for incredible grip and precision control.
“””

The C5s had not-the-best tires, but they were still developed for the car:
[https://www.thoughtco.com/best-replacement-tires-
for-c6-corv...](https://www.thoughtco.com/best-replacement-tires-
for-c6-corvette-916402)

------
georgeecollins
When I used to develop console games (old ones) I would always demo the game
to the team on a bad TV in a well lit room. Our artists would want great
monitors and dim light. The points was.. this is how our audience will
experience our product.

~~~
KozmoNau7
A lot of games still seem to expect high-quality TVs in darkened rooms. In a
normally lit room, you basically lose all detail in the dark parts of the
image.

Games used to let you tweak everything (Half-Life was particularly good about
it), but today we're lucky to get a brightness/gamma slider.

------
baldfat
> Love or hate the Yamaha NS10, this unassuming little speaker has found a
> place in the studios of many of the world's top producers. We trace its
> history, and investigate why a monitor whose sound has been described as
> "horrible" became an industry standard.

I see people use this all the time as their main speaker? I usually ask why
and if they say because it is a standard I stop talking music production. If
they say they use them because they use it to hear the sound distorted then I
am 100% in the conversation. These are used to hear what the "real world"
crappy speaker system would sound like. Problem is EVERY speaker made the last
20 years is better than these speakers. The main response to why they use a
NS-10 is "If it sounds good on NS10s then it'll sound good on anything."

I HATE HATE HATE the NS10 speaker. It was used because it was such a BAD
speaker. In front of me I have Genelec speakers. They sound so good and clear.
NS 10 sound like a brown paper bag with foam is covering the speaker and all
low end and high end sounds were scooped out and I have my hands covering my
ears!

~~~
abtinf
Is there a speaker equivalent of Sony pro headphones like the MDR-7506?
Something that produces high quality, accurate, flat response at a relatively
inexpensive price point?

~~~
secabeen
Do you have an amplifier, or do you need internally-amped speakers?

~~~
matwood
I have some fairly old paradigm floor speakers. I’d like to move to some
decent bookshelf’s. I have an amp. Any suggestions? I use them for music, TV,
and movies.

~~~
PascLeRasc
What's the amp? There's a lot of info on /r/zeos for the best speakers at each
price point.

~~~
matwood
I have a decent Yamaha home stereo receiver. Nothing crazy, but I don't need
powered speakers.

I actually still like the sound of my Paradigms, but something came loose in
one of them during a move so now it crackles on low base notes.

------
borne0
How do Radio Shack Realistic Minimus 7's compare to these?

[http://tapeop.com/reviews/gear/14/minimus-7-speakers/](http://tapeop.com/reviews/gear/14/minimus-7-speakers/)

~~~
shmageggy
I worked in a studio that had both, and the Minimus did much the same job as
the NS10s, namely spot checking mixes. I found the Minimus even more
unpleasant to listen to (even more bandwidth limited), but I wasn't listening
to them for pleasure or for extended periods of time. I just wanted to zoom in
on the midrange to make sure that crucial area was actually as in balance as I
thought it was, and they served that purpose well enough.

------
SwellJoe
I went to college for audio engineering in the 90s, during the undisputed
reign of the NS10. Literally, every studio I worked in had a pair. I've done
quite a bit of recording, mixing and mastering on NS10s.

Don't believe the hype; they weren't terrible speakers. They weren't _good_
speakers, but they weren't terrible, either.

The context that gets lost, I think, in a conversation today is that you could
easily find worse speakers in the same price range, from similarly respected
brands, back then. NS10 was a reliably consistent speaker available in every
market at a price that was good for the time. The consumer and prosumer audio
revolution was just starting to ramp up, so getting clearly better quality had
a very high price back then.

Even at the time, every experienced engineer acknowledged that the NS10 had
some flaws; they were a bit tiring to listen to for long hours. There were
harsh especially in the upper mid-range, and brittle in the high end. But, you
could hear everything in the mix pretty accurately, and you could estimate
what it would sound like on the average home or car stereo system, once you'd
spent some time mixing on them.

It's also worth mentioning that NS10 isn't the only cargo-culted speaker (and
this article briefly mentions Aurotones, which also were in several of the
studios I worked in, to provide a "car stereo" simulation) or product. The
audio industry is _all about_ cargo cults. Specific compressors, microphones,
reverbs, preamps, and these days plugins, have "can do no wrong" products that
everyone covets; often despite some obvious flaws.

When you have an industry that rides the line between science and art so
closely, and that has extremely unpredictable trends, you'll find an almost
religious zeal around the tools. NS10s were king because they were used on
some famous records and showed up in some famous studios at the right time.

Sometimes the cargo cult gets attached to something that is really,
demonstrably, good (Neve preamp channels or even the entire console in which
they live, Neumann microphones, etc.), but at any given time there are
probably several comparably good products that don't get the industry nod
because they don't have the right connections at the right time, or the
records they appear on have the poor luck to go unnoticed by the listening
public due to shifts in taste, etc.

The cargo cult had its uses. It allowed people in a low-information, high-
expense, industry to make reasonable choices just by talking to other
engineers. You wouldn't kill your studio by choosing NS10s back in 1990. But,
these days, the cargo cult is silly, and counter-productive. We have an
embarrassment of riches in terms of high-quality low-cost equipment, test
tools are available on a tiny budget so you can literally know exactly what
you've got with some time and knowledge about how to use the tools. There are
high-quality reviews of every product going back decades on the web so you can
choose between new and used with confidence.

Nobody buys a product like an NS10 for the exact reasons people bought the
NS10 in the 80s (cost+proven+available+good enough+cargo cult approved),
anymore. And, there are few products exactly like the NS10, anymore. The mid-
range, where the NS10 lived, is dominated by very high quality products today
from a dozen different manufacturers (including Yamaha, who have produced a
very good series of "sequels" to the NS10). The low-end has plenty of
stinkers, still, but they're _cheap as hell_.

It's a different world, though the audio engineering cargo cult lives on.

~~~
Florin_Andrei
> _they were a bit tiring to listen to for long hours. There were harsh
> especially in the upper mid-range, and brittle in the high end. But, you
> could hear everything in the mix pretty accurately_

The exact same would apply to Grado headphones. Pretty terrible to use long-
term, but act like magnifiers for flaws in the mixing process.

I had an interesting experience using my Grados to play Ratchet & Clank on the
Playstation. They made it easy to distinguish small details in the tornado of
sounds during the big battles, enabling me to literally "play by ear", but in
a good way.

But yes, tiring.

I like the planar magnetic cans a lot more.

~~~
mark-r
I'm listening to Grado SR80's right now. I bought them after I fell in love
with the SR60's, which I now keep at work. I've never found them tiring, but I
probably don't listen for more than an hour at a time.

------
puranjay
I've recently started producing music after a lifetime of playing guitar.

As I've been building out my home studio, I've been constantly surprised by
how old most popular studio equipment is.

For instance, one of the most popular microphones - Shure SM58 - was
originally launched in 1966 and has remained unchanged since. It is still the
industry standard, especially for touring

The pro audio industry is strange in that it doesn't seem to embrace change.
You could pick up a producer from the 1980s and drop him into a modern studio,
and he'd still end up using a lot of the same equipment

~~~
timrichard
Hmm, not sure about that.

So many places have switched over to mixing and recording "in the box".

I think the 80's producer would be familiar with any outboard gear, as you
say, but be completely flummoxed that the computer is King, and that so much
is virtualised into DAW plugins. He/she would also be baffled by the idea of
"unlimited audio tracks", for starters... I remember starting with a DOS-based
sequencer called Voyetra in the 80's.

~~~
puranjay
I meant that the recording equipment itself would be familiar to any producer
from the 80s.

I last played around with recording software back in 2004 or 05. I think it
was Cubase. I don't remember it being a particularly pleasant experience.

Moving from that to Ableton has been a revelation. Modern software synths like
Serum are absolutely mind blowing in what they can do.

------
squarefoot
When I first saw the NS10 it was in the mid-late 80s when small studio
monitors usually meant a pair of nearfield Auratone cubes, so they were
something new at least to me. Not a professional in the field here, but I knew
some people and recall that nearly all of them said about the NS10 that
they're from OK to bad, but they're the standard and you must keep them in the
control room because any engineer coming from $BIG_STUDIO would want them for
being a de facto reference.

I'm very happy with my pair of small KRK Rokit at home, how would you compare
the two?

------
sundvor
Interesting; made me think of the ATH-M50x headphones - they're just about
everywhere! The reviews are a fair bit more favourable than for the NS10s
though.

~~~
DiabloD3
They're also horrifically bad sounding and have essentially become meme
status. They're _also_ studio monitors, they're not meant for home users,
they're not meant to sound good. Sadly, they're not even good as studio
monitors, but hey, when you've reached meme status, you don't HAVE to be good.

~~~
sundvor
I only really discovered their popularity (meme, really?) after I bought them
for my wife; I was primarily searching for a set of decent cans at a low price
point. The ATH-M50x certainly did fulfill those criteria.

~~~
DiabloD3
Ironically, if you were enamored with that series of cans, the ATH-M40x would
have actually been a better set of headphones.

But for the $150-200 range, MSR7s are a much better pair of headphones, and
usually go for about $175.

~~~
sundvor
Interesting, thanks. I ended up with the MSR7NC at home, which I really like.
The NC isn't anywhere strong enough for the office, however at home it works
great. I love how detailed they are primarily.

------
fb03
I have a pair of HS8's. They have provided me with a good and cheap starting
set of listening gear for my amateur music endeavours. I know there is a lot
of better gear out there but for starting out, Yamaha gear is usually pretty
on point.

I wish I could test a pair of NS10's against the HS8's.

~~~
KozmoNau7
It doesn't really matter which product segment you're looking at, it's really
hard to go wrong with Yamaha.

They may not be the outright best value for money when it comes to features
and buzzwords, and they certainly don't have the cachet of more boutique
brands, but they always deliver a solid good quality product.

As an example from a completely different segment, I used to ride a Yamaha
XT660X motorcycle. If you read reviews and bike forums, sports bike riders
would decry it for being too slow, dual-sport riders would decry it for not
being a BMW GS-series, and supermoto riders would decry it for being too
heavy.

None of that mattered, because I found it to be the most enjoyable bike I've
ever ridden. Just enough power to get into trouble, great handling to get you
out of trouble again, extremely comfortable and not so light that every gust
of wind would blow you around. It may not be the best at anything, but it
absolutely excels as an all-round bike for ordinary people like me, and during
the time I had it, it was completely flawless, no issues at all (some people
would find that boring, I guess).

~~~
fb03
You are absolutely right about Yamaha, man! Dang, even their Flutes are great.

My HS8's are interfaced via a Yamaha AG06 sound card btw. balanced outputs
perfect for the monitors, stable as fuck and also I can get pretty decent
latency with it (about 2-3ms @ 44100hz on a 9 year old core i7!!)

o/

~~~
KozmoNau7
> Yamaha AG06

The little USB mixer? I love those things, I just wish I could get one with
more stereo inputs, a single RCA stereo in and one aux in (with no volume
adjustment) isn't really enough. Though I guess an external RCA switch could
take care of that.

------
newman314
I’ve got an old (mid 90s vintage) pair of Acoustic Research speakers. Not
being an audiophile or having very good hearing, how do they rate these days?

------
matthoiland
They are a perfect blend of terrible sounding, but consistently terrible
sounding. Any set, in any studio would sound the same.

~~~
stephengillie
In the Business World, this homogeneity is often referred to as "Quality".

