Alright what do ns10s sound like?

I’m truly baffled by the notion of tagging hits with equipment? It’s rarely anything to do with makes and models. In the UK the RAK label churned out mega hits and absolute drivel to pay bills. What’s the old maxim? Rubbish in, rubbish out.
 
I've transferred some mixes recorded at RAK. There were 8 versions of one song as far as I remember which would all have been done in the same studio on the same gear. The first couple of versions were done by the writer (who was also a co-producer) and, to be honest, they sounded like demos. The next few versions were done by the engineer on the sessions and they were an improvement - sounding more like album tracks. For Version 7 Mickie Most got involved - this was the hit single. The whole mix was tighter and more focussed. Version 8 was the "lets have a play" version where they tried some more off the wall ideas while the whole mix was set up. Of course there were also TV and instrumental versions done at the same time.

None of these mix differences were down to gear - it was all dependent upon the skill of the person doing the mix.
 
yeah i somewhat agree im sure there are some good sounding translations using something else but tools that work are tools that work. if you cant moniter or mix or master properly then whats the point of there skills if they cant hear whats going wrong properly? ... thats like saying you can make anything sound like anything if your a skilled engineer or you can eq correct anything with any eq tool... thats rubish to me people idolize the hands and ears more then the tools but its takes both to make it all happen.
 
Personally I wish I was monitoring on a pair of these in the basement... B&W Nautilus 801 or 802s I think that they are among the best speakers I've ever heard, and back in the 80s I listened to a lot of really good speakers. They made good recordings sound great, and lousy recordings sounded flat and crappy.

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rob aylestone said:
Looks like I chose the right one! I think it’s just another example of why associating products to certain recordings is dangerous.
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yeah, definetly can be but not monitors ... they really do influence the final product-ion .
i know what an ns10 record sounds like and i know what and ssl record sounds like. i have pretty good ears.
will make a new post on tannoys soon.
 
With tons of respect - that's very unlikely, because when I've been in studios with multiple speakers, you flip-flop between them to check, you tweak a bass level, try the small speakers and decide nothing happened, change it then the big speakers reveal it was too much. There can be no such thing as an NS10 record, or a Tannoy, or my recent experience on Adams - they all sound different and if you really want to do a test, do a blind test between say, three different speaker mixes in the same studio - If you hear a bad mix, it's a bad mix. You can, like James said above - have good and bad mixes from the same studio and same speakers. I just cannot accept there is some kind of sonic identity to a mix. The correct/most appropriate/nice mix is balanced properly, and that can be done with any speakers and skill.
 
ahh you and your bass tweaking ;) and of course the monitors influence the final sound rob... you mix way different on an adam then you do an auratone because there almost opposite sounding..., and one more thing they were originally meant to be paired with the original yamaha amplifiers which were not very popular but were best suited for them spec wise... maybe thats another reason people didnt like them... they were using the wrong amp? but whatever no one likes them anymore more for me :-)
 
Where are you getting this stuff from? You are rewriting history! We are not hi if people. Amplifiers in the recording world do one thing, make things louder, nothing else. They simply should be transparent. speakers were not built for certain amps, ever! However, some makes were well known for both in the hifi world, Quad, for example. When NS10s came out, I was selling audio gear. Amplifiers back then ALL sounded the same, bar a few with noisy phono preamp channels, people selected them on facilities - switching in the main and output power, or two headphones sockets. Never quality. Most brands had real favourites, so Technics had a really sought after reel to reel, but their cheap cassettes were just average. They had amps, which were ok, but nobody liked their speakers. Yamaha were just boring. Then studios found the NS10, and it fitted a need. That really is it. Nothing else. No magic, no specialness, just a useful product. Amps were just amps. Nothing in an amp’s spec suggests a certain speaker. That’s actually not true to be honest as a few amps back then had very poor control of back EMF, but most were fine. It’s not that monitors influence the final sound, monitors, opposed to hifi speakers, are designed to reveal the things your system is capable of. Or, incapable of. Mixing on speakers with odd response curves means you don’t know what goes on. This is why people often have two choices. Speakers or headphones, or two different quality speakers. The absolute worst case is one less than accurate source. My favourite in ear monitors for playing are awful for listening. I know they don’t do 3-5k very well and are a bit bright above 9k, so cymbals sizzle. If I mix on them I have to deliberately make cymbals a bit too much, or for others, my mixes are dull. I have to predict and guess. So I don’t use them for that, it’s flawed.
 
rob aylestone said:
Where are you getting this stuff from? You are rewriting history! We are not hi if people. Amplifiers in the recording world do one thing, make things louder, nothing else. They simply should be transparent. speakers were not built for certain amps, ever! However, some makes were well known for both in the hifi world, Quad, for example. When NS10s came out, I was selling audio gear. Amplifiers back then ALL sounded the same, bar a few with noisy phono preamp channels, people selected them on facilities - switching in the main and output power, or two headphones sockets. Never quality. Most brands had real favourites, so Technics had a really sought after reel to reel, but their cheap cassettes were just average. They had amps, which were ok, but nobody liked their speakers. Yamaha were just boring. Then studios found the NS10, and it fitted a need. That really is it. Nothing else. No magic, no specialness, just a useful product. Amps were just amps. Nothing in an amp’s spec suggests a certain speaker. That’s actually not true to be honest as a few amps back then had very poor control of back EMF, but most were fine. It’s not that monitors influence the final sound, monitors, opposed to hifi speakers, are designed to reveal the things your system is capable of. Or, incapable of. Mixing on speakers with odd response curves means you don’t know what goes on. This is why people often have two choices. Speakers or headphones, or two different quality speakers. The absolute worst case is one less than accurate source. My favourite in ear monitors for playing are awful for listening. I know they don’t do 3-5k very well and are a bit bright above 9k, so cymbals sizzle. If I mix on them I have to deliberately make cymbals a bit too much, or for others, my mixes are dull. I have to predict and guess. So I don’t use them for that, it’s flawed.
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there you go again calling me out on nothing specific again... getting what from ? be more specific please
 
They were not meant to be paired with an amp. Yamaha sold amps. People chose amps for different reasons back then. You post inaccurate and poorly researched stuff as facts, and produce all sorts of conclusions. It is fine to like something others don’t. It’s dangerous to promote items using flawed and poorly understood historical data. I bought my first pair of NS10s because the budget meant they were the only choice. Not because they were good. A speaker that people had to stick toilet paper on the tweeter? Really? You want to mix on them? They were a tool for a certain job, not great speakers. You have discounted the negatives and constantly want to equate hit recordings with the speakers they had in the studio, that may actually never have been switched on? A great mix or a poor mix can’t be linked to equipment. It’s what people do with it that counts.

i genuinely hope you’re happy with yours, and you love them. That’s fine. Just don’t keep trying to tell everyone they’re the best speakers, because studios used them in a period when using them had a sensible point.

On the quality front, mics, speakers, some processors make big differences, amps don’t. Unless they distort. We want distorting guitar amps, but clean studio amps. You seem to blur all these differences. I cannot convince you. I just have to correct you when you accidentally get the wrong end of the stick. To not do this means in twenty years the archive from this period would bring up NS10 speakers with the wrong data, again.
 
Unfortunately, I never encountered the NS10s. They came along when I was pretty much out of the game. The first 2 studios that I ever visited had JBL L100s for their studio monitors. LIkewise, Tannoys are very rare in my part of the world. I came across them at a music store about 15 years ago, and they sounded fine, but I really didn't have anything to compare, so it's hard to really say much.

As for speakers needing to be paired with a particular amp, that's rubbish. Unless you have a poorly designed amp with lousy damping, underpowered, or susceptible to an unusual load from speakers like electrostatics, they are among the least variable parts of the chain. I've run the same speakers via a 30 watt receiver, a 50 watt high end amp, and a 350W/Channel amp used to drive PA speakers, and at typical small room volumes, they were indistinguishable.

I've said before that transducers vary drastically in comparison to most electronic devices. Converting a physical condition (sound pressure) to an electrical signal and vice versa is tricky.
 
rob aylestone said:
They were not meant to be paired with an amp. Yamaha sold amps. People chose amps for different reasons back then. You post inaccurate and poorly researched stuff as facts, and produce all sorts of conclusions. It is fine to like something others don’t. It’s dangerous to promote items using flawed and poorly understood historical data. I bought my first pair of NS10s because the budget meant they were the only choice. Not because they were good. A speaker that people had to stick toilet paper on the tweeter? Really? You want to mix on them? They were a tool for a certain job, not great speakers. You have discounted the negatives and constantly want to equate hit recordings with the speakers they had in the studio, that may actually never have been switched on? A great mix or a poor mix can’t be linked to equipment. It’s what people do with it that counts.

i genuinely hope you’re happy with yours, and you love them. That’s fine. Just don’t keep trying to tell everyone they’re the best speakers, because studios used them in a period when using them had a sensible point.

On the quality front, mics, speakers, some processors make big differences, amps don’t. Unless they distort. We want distorting guitar amps, but clean studio amps. You seem to blur all these differences. I cannot convince you. I just have to correct you when you accidentally get the wrong end of the stick. To not do this means in twenty years the archive from this period would bring up NS10 speakers with the wrong data, again.
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there go again putting words in my mouth about promoting them and saying there the best lol i never said any of those words...
and no bob clear mountain didnt use tissue paper on the tweeters he even said he didnt and he preffered the old ones... it was an experiment he tried and somehow it caught on and it became a big myth.

and im very happy with them except one problem... too much bass and lower midrange in my mixes and listening to non-vinyl records
they sounded nice and balanced until i unhooked my record player and now using my computer with them
different amps have different sound rob just like a guitar amp the power amp has a huge part in the foundation of the sound not just loudness
and whether or not your a hi fi person it doesnt matter the amp still affects the sound...
 
TalismanRich said:
Unfortunately, I never encountered the NS10s. They came along when I was pretty much out of the game. The first 2 studios that I ever visited had JBL L100s for their studio monitors. LIkewise, Tannoys are very rare in my part of the world. I came across them at a music store about 15 years ago, and they sounded fine, but I really didn't have anything to compare, so it's hard to really say much.

As for speakers needing to be paired with a particular amp, that's rubbish. Unless you have a poorly designed amp with lousy damping, underpowered, or susceptible to an unusual load from speakers like electrostatics, they are among the least variable parts of the chain. I've run the same speakers via a 30 watt receiver, a 50 watt high end amp, and a 350W/Channel amp used to drive PA speakers, and at typical small room volumes, they were indistinguishable.

I've said before that transducers vary drastically in comparison to most electronic devices. Converting a physical condition (sound pressure) to an electrical signal and vice versa is tricky.
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its true that yamaha made these certain amps with themand yes it was made for them originally but they have an updated version that is supposedly the best match for them to make them sound just right . i know for a fact amps make a difference in sound theres no argumnet there i have used my ears well if i get a yamaha amp ill do an update to see
 
So what are you mixing for? Mr Bloggs, or people with specific gear? Only they get the benefit. Please - read the posts carefully. I never even mentioned Bob Clearmountain. Maybe he did or didn't use toilet paper, but here in England, it was a talking point. Look - let's drop this. I know what I know, and you've read a great deal. Some you got spot on. Some you've got the wrong end of the stick.

We buy different mics because they sound different. So do speakers. Rooms sound different too. Further down the scale are things like a Neve Pre vs an old MCI. Some folk can even detect frequencies above those that they can hear. Then we get to amps. Poor amps can colour the sound - people speak about Class A, B and D, and discuss the benefits of crossover distortion, or not - or switch mode artefacts, but the point is that amps that colour the sound are tone controls, or if they do it intentionally, they're processors, not just amps. So many great tests since the 1970s where the hifi folk made themselves look foolish by testing regimes where they knew an amp was two grand and another was two hundred, but failed in a double blind test. The Yamaha Corporation were not slow to market amps that gave NS10s a bit of punch - but that's just because NS10 speakers sound much more impressive loud - another indication that they are not very linear.

You have some NS10s. You like them. Let's just get on shall we? You'll never convince me, and clearly you don't believe me. That too is cool with me. You won't convince the masses of recording folk that hate AKG C1000 mics that they're good, and those that have lovely old analogue gear know that they're not exactly the best thing we have available now in recording technology, they're however, very nice. I still have one of Yamaha's first digital reverbs, and I like it a lot - especially Munster Cathedral program. However, as a reverb it's 30 years old with 30 years old artefacts.

In recording and audio - I've learned that so many people have beliefs about the subject based on no real science. It's best to let them spend their money on gold plated connectors, Platinum IEC connectors and loudspeaker cables with arrows to show which direction to use them. A little bit of physics goes a very long way. The Internet is full of NS10 owners at the moment who are arguing like mad about which amp to drive them with. In my video studio, the RCF 5" monitors are connected to a rack mount amp, that says 2600W on the front. The reason was simple - it was top of the pile when I needed an amp. I couldn't care less about the spec, I've never even bothered to look. It's an amp.
 
I would have to say that some amps do have a sound. Unfortunately the first amp that we used the NS10s with in the studio, a Teac AX75 had a slightly bright sound that made the NS10s sound even worse than they really were. The amp and speakers came as part of a recording package from Thatched Cottage Audio - a well known home studio supplier at the time.

At the time, the only other amp I had, a Tensai 2020, went too far the other way and lost a bit too much detail. I later bought a Quad 405 which was much better. Even the cheap JVC micro hifi that we had in our kitchen was better than the Teac. I'm now using a Hypex amp to drive the big Tannoys and the Quad to drive the secondary monitors - which could be NS10s or LS3/5as, depending on whether I'm using the LS3/5as in my home setup.

and im very happy with them except one problem... too much bass and lower midrange in my mixes
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This tells me that you haven't learned to use the NS10s properly. You can't treat them like normal monitors - you have to understand their shortcomings and learn what mixes should sound like on them. You also have to use your eyes as well as your ears with them. There is no point using them if you don't understand how to use them properly. You are making the typical mistakes that inexperienced people make with NS10s. Have you read Phil Ward's article on them?
 
Wow 6 pages on a Yamaha speaker.

I had a pair of them in the early 90's. They were OK.

To answer your question, 'how did they sound?'

They sounded 'OK'. They are small little speakers, so not sure what exactly people expect out of them. They had a reasonably
flat response, but outside of that, nothing astonishing about them. Did the mixes I make magically translate to every other sound system in the world?
No, they did not. That was one of the big selling points of them, at least when I bought them, back in the day.

They are an antiquated product, with a lot of intersting history. It was a good choice 30 years ago, because we didn't have as many choices back then.

You'd do better off with some of the speakers from Amazon in the $100 - $200 range. Bookshelf speakers with a flat character.

EL
 
jamesperrett said:
I would have to say that some amps do have a sound. Unfortunately the first amp that we used the NS10s with in the studio, a Teac AX75 had a slightly bright sound that made the NS10s sound even worse than they really were. The amp and speakers came as part of a recording package from Thatched Cottage Audio - a well known home studio supplier at the time.

At the time, the only other amp I had, a Tensai 2020, went too far the other way and lost a bit too much detail. I later bought a Quad 405 which was much better. Even the cheap JVC micro hifi that we had in our kitchen was better than the Teac. I'm now using a Hypex amp to drive the big Tannoys and the Quad to drive the secondary monitors - which could be NS10s or LS3/5as, depending on whether I'm using the LS3/5as in my home setup.



This tells me that you haven't learned to use the NS10s properly. You can't treat them like normal monitors - you have to understand their shortcomings and learn what mixes should sound like on them. You also have to use your eyes as well as your ears with them. There is no point using them if you don't understand how to use them properly. You are making the typical mistakes that inexperienced people make with NS10s. Have you read Phil Ward's article on them?
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Personally I think the amp they’re paired with does make a difference.

Way back I had the supposed ‘holy grail’ Yamaha power amp. (On extended loan) It was actually a very good amp.

When that had to be returned I tried various different amps. I settled on two favorites.

One was, believe it or not, a home stereo receiver which was excellent. A 79 Kenwood KR 9400 @120 watts RMS per channel. I’d just set everything flat and it was great. Still have it.

The other is a Bryston 3B which is a great amp that I’m still using to this day with the NS10s.

I could be wrong, but I think the Yammies do best paired with an amp that has tons of headroom.

I also think if one is going to use them, it’s crucial to listen to a lot of excellently recoded, mixed and mastered CDs through them. One of my favorites is Tom Petty’s wildflowers.

With someone unfamiliar with them, not being able to hear the bass properly will lead to turning it up. And then anywhere else you’ll have too much.

Again, get to know them with good well done material.
 
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jamesperrett said:
I would have to say that some amps do have a sound. Unfortunately the first amp that we used the NS10s with in the studio, a Teac AX75 had a slightly bright sound that made the NS10s sound even worse than they really were. The amp and speakers came as part of a recording package from Thatched Cottage Audio - a well known home studio supplier at the time.

At the time, the only other amp I had, a Tensai 2020, went too far the other way and lost a bit too much detail. I later bought a Quad 405 which was much better. Even the cheap JVC micro hifi that we had in our kitchen was better than the Teac. I'm now using a Hypex amp to drive the big Tannoys and the Quad to drive the secondary monitors - which could be NS10s or LS3/5as, depending on whether I'm using the LS3/5as in my home setup.



This tells me that you haven't learned to use the NS10s properly. You can't treat them like normal monitors - you have to understand their shortcomings and learn what mixes should sound like on them. You also have to use your eyes as well as your ears with them. There is no point using them if you don't understand how to use them properly. You are making the typical mistakes that inexperienced people make with NS10s. Have you read Phil Ward's article on them?
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yeah ive read it good article
its my amp most likely it colors too much its meant to be for listening not monitering its a rega brio
 
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