Documentos de Académico
Documentos de Profesional
Documentos de Cultura
Yamaha
NS-SW300
subwoofer
I
have a great deal of respect for Yamaha: or embracing technologies developed in the The Equipment
both for the company and for its USA, Sweden, or elsewhere in the world. The The Yamaha NS-SW300 is quite a small
products. As a company, it’s hard to go NS-SW300 that is the subject of this review is subwoofer, measuring only 350×366×420mm,
past the fact that it recently celebrated a good case in point, because it incorporates which is only a little larger than a plastic milk
its 50th anniversary, and is renowned the some unusual—and unusually useful—tech- crate.* (*Actually, plastic milk crates vary in size,
world over not only for the quality of its nological features. with the largest measuring 362×362×323mm,
audio products, but also for the quality of First and foremost of these—at least to and the smallest 305×305×310mm, so this is
its musical instruments… not to mention its my mind—is the inclusion of Yamaha’s hardly a precise descriptor…Editor.) So if this
motorcycles and outboard motors. So far as Active Servo circuitry… now in its third (I subwoofer is so small, how come Yamaha
its products are concerned, well you don’t get think) generation, and being presented as claims the frequency response extends down
to be a great company if you don’t have great ‘Advanced YST II’ where the YST stands for to 20Hz, when conventional speaker design
products, and I can say at the outset that I Yamaha Servo Technology. This isn’t a new thinking has it that a subwoofer has to be
have personally owned and enjoyed using technology, but it’s certainly a significant physically large in order to deliver low bass
Yamaha products across all four categories. technology when it comes to subwoofer frequencies?
One reason Yamaha has been so successful design (for reasons I will soon explain). The answer is that Yamaha is using a
is its ability to embrace new technologies, Another new technology incorporated in the clever trick to extract more bass than one
no matter whether the result of in-house NS-SW300 is the use of a ‘twister’ bass reflex could reasonably expect from a subwoofer
research and development at Yamaha, port, which I’ll also soon explain. this size, and that ‘trick’ is the circuit I
54 Australian
Yamaha NS-SW300 Subwoofer ON TEST
the practical result ... is a subwoofer with 90 per ‘finning’ on the rear panel suggested to me
that Yamaha was using a conventional Class
cent less cabinet volume than a conventional bass AB amplifier inside the NS-SW300, rather
reflex subwoofer while still maintaining similar bass than a Class-D switch-mode amplifier, but
according to Yamaha’s specifications, it is
characteristics. In other words: bigger bass from a using a Class-D (PWM) amplifier, which
the company rates as possessing a power
smaller box. output of 250-watts. This drives a front-firing
250mm diameter woofer—though because
referenced in the introduction to this piece: resonance frequency below which their out- this woofer is located underneath a protective
Advanced YST II. Although the ‘Advanced put falls off very quickly (at 12dB per octave grille that I could not remove, I was unable
YST II’ circuit in the NS-SW300 has benefitted when the driver is mounted in a closed box to independently confirm its dimensions…
from some recent circuit ‘tweaks’, the basic and at 18dB per octave when the driver is in particular its Thiele/Small diameter! This
idea behind it is not new. Indeed YST’s mounted in a vented enclosure, as here). driver’s voice-coil is unusual because rather
evolution can be traced all the way back here This means that the drivers will deliver bass than using wire with a circular cross-section,
to Australia and the work done in the ‘70s fairly readily down to this frequency (usu-
by the late, great Australian engineer Neville ally around 30–40Hz) after which the bass
A. Thiele (who famously teamed up with essentially ‘disappears.’ By using a ‘negative’
US engineer Dr Richard Small to develop output impedance it is possible to eliminate
Yamaha NS-SW300
the ubiquitous Thiele/Small method of the various ‘flow-on’ effects that usually
Subwoofer
speaker alignment that is now used by every result from an amplifier being connected to
Brand: Yamaha
loudspeaker manufacturer in the world.) the resistance of the loudspeaker’s voice-coil,
Model: NS-SW300
Back in the 70s, Thiele wrote a paper the practical result of which is a subwoofer
Category: Powered Subwoofer
entitled ‘Loudspeaker Circuit Stabilising with 90 per cent less cabinet volume than a
RRP: $899
Networks for Audio Amplifiers’ that contained conventional bass reflex subwoofer while still
Warranty: Two Years
some new and interesting theories about maintaining similar bass output character-
Distributor: Yamaha Music Australia
how an amplifier interacted with the speaker istics. In other words: ‘bigger bass from a
Address: Level 1. 99 Queensbridge St
it was driving. Up until the publication of smaller box.’
Southbank VIC 3006
Thiele’s paper, both amplifier designers and As you’ve probably guessed from the
1300 739 411
speaker designers had operated under the photograph accompanying this review, the
(03) 9693 5111
premise that they were ‘stuck’ with having Yamaha NS-SW300 has many more controls
(03) 9699 2332
to deal with fixed sets of constants when than the volume control and power switch
au.yamaha.com
designing their products. Amplifier designers, that are visible on the front panel. Look
for example, had to assume that their around the back and you’ll find a mains
amplifiers would be connected to speakers power switch (the one on the front is actually
with an impedance of between 4Ω and 8Ω, a standby power switch), a three-position • Great bass for size
for example. Thiele proposed a circuit that automatic standby slider switch (Off/Low/ • Front controls
could ‘trick’ an amplifier into thinking it was High), a two-position phase slider switch • Multiple inputs
connected to a loudspeaker with different (Normal/Reverse), a rotary high-cut control
electrical parameters than it actually had. (40–140Hz) and a two-position B.A.S.S.
This would then enable amplifier designers slider switch (Music/Movies). B.A.S.S. is a • Non-detachable
to do things they’d previously thought to be manufactured acronym that stands for ‘Bass 240V mains cable
impossible. Action Selector System’: it’s really just an
Thiele’s paper inspired speaker and equaliser that lets you choose between two
amplifier designers around the world to different EQ settings, depending on whether
realise the impossible and develop such you’re watching a movie or listening to
circuits, and one such designer was Katsuo
Nagi in Japan, who named his circuit ‘AST’
music.
Also on the back panel are gold-plated
LAB REPORT
Readers interested in a full technical
(Active Servo Technology) and assigned his RCA phono inputs for line-level inputs,
appraisal of the performance of the
patent to Yamaha, which marketed it as ‘AST’ with the left-channel input being the one
Yamaha NS-SW300 Subwoofer should
when it was used in its full-range speaker to use if you have only a single subwoofer
continue on and read the LABORATORY
designs and ‘YST’ when it was used in its output on your amplifier or AV receiver,
REPORT published on page 57. Readers
subwoofers. (A young Swedish electronics plus a gold-plated LFE phono input which
should note that the results mentioned
designer, Erik Stahl, also developed a version you’d use if your AV receiver has an LFE
in the report, tabulated in performance
of the circuit, but he opted for the descriptor output. There’s also a set of high-level inputs
charts and/or displayed using graphs
‘ACE-Bass’.) and output terminals (multi-way banana
and/or photographs should
To understand how YST works, you need types) for those who prefer (or
be construed as applying only
to understand that the difficulty of extract- by design are forced) to connect
to the specific sample tested.
ing deep bass from a conventional dynamic their subwoofer to their amplifier’s
driver is that they all have a fundamental speaker terminals. The extensive
avhub.com.au 55
ON TEST Yamaha NS-SW300 Subwoofer
56 Australian
Yamaha NS-SW300 Subwoofer LAB REPORT
dBSPL
110
Newport Test Labs
Laboratory 105
frequency response for the
Test Results 100
140Hz setting is about 45Hz
Newport Test Labs measured 95 to 180Hz ±3dB, which is an
the frequency response 90 excellent result. The black
of the Yamaha NS-SW300 85 trace shows the frequency
subwoofer at a distance 80
response of the NS-SW300
of two metres, using a when the high-cut is set to
75
pink noise stimulus. Figure 40Hz, and with this setting
70
1 shows the resulting of the control, the subwoof-
65
responses after they’d er’s frequency response was
been smoothed via third- 60
measured as 23Hz to 120Hz
octave filtering. You can 55 ±3dB. In this setting, the
see that the LFE input of 50 subwoofer’s output peaks at
20 Hz 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 200 300 400 500
the SW300 bypasses the around 50Hz.
Figure 1: Pink noise frequency responses (smoothed) at 2.0 metres. LFE input (black
subwoofer’s inbuilt high- trace); x/o at 140Hz (green trace) and at 40Hz (red trace). [Yamaha NS-SW300] Perhaps more importantly,
cut filter, so if you use the the frequency response is
LFE input, you will need to do any filtering control, the NS-SW300’s output peaks at most linear at this setting, extending from
using your AV receiver’s crossover circuitry. 90Hz, rolling off shallowly above this via the 30Hz to 80Hz ±1.2dB. Overall, the Yamaha
You can see that for both the LFE input and LFE input (black trace) and a little faster for NS-SW300 shows exemplary performance for
the 140Hz setting of the Yamaha’s high-cut the 140Hz setting (green trace). The overall a subwoofer of its size. Steve Holding
avhub.com.au 57
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