Almost good enough to make Keanu sound like he has a personality.
Written: Nov 11 '03 (Updated Nov 11 '03)
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Pros: Perfect pitch, good all around sound, cheap
Cons: Heavy, big, do you really NEED 6 speakers?
The Bottom Line: They're very nice speakers, but do you really need 6 speakers?" The answer for most people is no...but if you really want 6 speakers, they're a good bet!
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| zoogelsnof's Full Review: Yamaha NS-P236 Speaker System |
Overview
the name Yamaha has always meant something really special: Namely a word that is really funny to pronounce. However to those who play piano, or listen to high-end musical equipment, it also means high quality craftsmanship and a company that knows a thing or two about tone.
Every Yamaha product I’ve ever listened to, regardless of price, size, or style, has always had a nearly perfect tone, simply scaled to the quality of the specific system. Yamaha home theater, such as this one, puts you into the midst of exploding buildings and small, stifled sobs from brokenhearted girlfriends.
I have never reviewed a 6.1 system before, (5 satellite speakers, one center, one sub) so forgive me if I have a difficult time, "scaling" some of my comments, I’ll do my best.
As a critical side note that I need to add: This review is strictly to get you on the right track to what kind of speakers you might want to look at within the 1000’s of available choices. YouMUST hear speakers before you can buy them!!! Everybody hears sounds in different ways! I just put this in because I got a rather nasty e-mail from a fellow who disagreed with one of my headphone reviews after he bought a pair without trying them out first.
Real World Experience
I saw these on the shelf wandering around the other day, and since things were slow decided it was playtime! I hooked them into our display television and put on first, Bad Boys and then The Matrix in order to test them. For those who are wondering, no, even with good sound Keanu Reeves still sucks. The listening environment is a little bit different in a big retail store, less confined area, and more ambient noise, just things to take into consideration.
Sound Quality
In this price range you will find yourself hard pressed (in my opinion)to find something that sounds this well balance and, 'nice' in overall tone.
The bass on these is very natural and nice, never overpowering it shades a touch towards a lower mid then a true bass at times. The subwoofer tends to produce a, “softer” base then I’m used to, but still a potent one. I believe part of the problem might have been that the subwoofer was not in a corner, a trick used to increase base response and quality, so perhaps having it in the open air changed the quality of its sound. However, regardless of its location, it was easy to tell that they had managed to build a 100-watt, 6 inch driven subwoofer that produced a very soothing level of response. It also does gunshots really, really well, so its, “POP” base is very strong.
The mids were very normal. They sounded pretty good, but not amazing. About the same quality as I’d expect out of something in this price range. Once again the tone is very soft, it’s hard to qualify exactly what it is that’s different about the overall tonal quality of the speakers, except to say that I’ve listened to a lot of sound and these are just somehow in better tune with how the world should sound.
The highs are insane, they can shriek like nothing I’ve heard in home audio in a long time. I mean, of course, as a compliment. During a moment of increasing tension in Bad Boys, when they play that spooky music that slowly gets higher and higher in tone, and then a gun shot goes off, I nearly jumped out of my chair. The piercing evil sounding highs followed by the full smack of the subwoofer was an intensely good moment for these speakers. It’s strange how the bass and the highs tend towards being more moderate, except at those times when extremity is called for, I really haven’t the foggiest idea how they do that to be honest, but they’re very good at it.
The surround works fantastically, but that’s more a function of what its plugged into then the speakers themselves. The frequency response on these is really intense, they go from 30-25,000 Hz a range that I’ve heard few speakers duplicate. Satellite and center speakers have 2 inch drivers, 6 ohm impedance, and 86dB sensitivity.(Random bits from yamaha's website)
Aesthetic
As for looks they’re extremely normal. They are a bit larger then I’m used to from satellites, weighing in at 2 pounds apiece and nearly 7 inches tall and 2 inches wide, I could imagine they’d be hard to hide and slip into 5 good places around a TV set. The center is even larger at nearly 3 pounds and a foot long. The subwoofer is also a bit larger then normal at 7-7/8" x 14-3/8" x1 4-3/4" and 19 pounds.
The black plastic case with cloth front cover is pretty much the standard look in speakers these days, nothing really all that special. They seem fairly solidly built, a speaker could fall off a low shelf and be okay, but I wouldn’t play catch with them.
Random Bits:
All the speakers are magnetically shielded so they can be placed near electronic devices without interfering with anything.
Once again I can’t help but say you must go listen to them in person to understand what I’m saying about how the tone of the speakers is generally softer and nicer to listen to then the average speaker. It’s really something that is hard to comprehend in words, but if you listen to a Yamaha product will suddenly make sense.
Installation
Simple, plug A into B, B into C, C into D, etc. Anybody of average intelligence and of average electronics skill should be able to install these.
Bottom Line (Note this is compared to other things in this price, so it’s sound compared to other $200 speakers, not to every speaker ever made)
Sound Quality: A-
Ease of Install: A
Physical Look: B
Durability:B
Brand Name:A
Overall: A-
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 199
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Epinions.com ID:
zoogelsnof
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Member: Zac Cramer
Location: Boston, Mass.
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