The Yamaha Ns-10 – Old Faithful Redicovered
Near-field studio monitors, as opposed to consumer speakers, are designed to present a reliable and unflattering playback of music. They should also reveal the inherent problems of an audio recording and assist the recording engineer in creating a predictable translation to a diverse world of audio systems. Dominating the last three decades atop meter bridges of mixing consoles, in recording studios around the world, are the Yamaha NS-10 near-field monitors. While consumer speakers are designed to make sound as desirable as possible the NS-10’s are generally considered to sound unflattering, even “horrible” to many critics. All the more interesting that they rose to such prominence in the recording industry during their 23 years of production. The Yamaha NS-10 are still an industry standard and a tool that, despite it’s faults, gets the job done. NS-10 production was halted in 2001 but no replacement has been found… until now!
Among practiced song mixers, it is arguably more important to have a predictable monitor rather than a neutral one. Almost every studio engineer is familiar with Yamaha Ns-10 studio monitors, so they serve as a perfect standard that everyone understands how to work with. Because engineers usually work in multiple studios, this is important so they have some regularity. If everyone has different recording methods with alternative studio monitors, this makes the job of engineers that much more difficult. That is why this predictable monitor model is a good reference.
For professional song mixers, it is arguably more important to have a predictable monitor rather than a neutral one. The Ns-10’s are far from “flat” in their frequency response. They have a pronounced mid-range and an unflattering bass response that almost every studio engineer is familiar with. These “inaccuracies” serve to create a telling sounding board that is beneficial to mix translation. Because engineers usually work in multiple studios this is important for keeping one’s bearings. An engineer’s job becomes that much more difficult with the myriad of recording methods used with diverse studio monitors. A predictable monitor, like the Ns-10, is good litmus test.
Yamaha Ns-10’s are called nearfield monitors because eliminate the room as a variable in the sound while mixing. Placing the monitors three to four feet from your ears with no boundaries between you and the audio achieves minimal room distortion. Recordings you make in a room can be altered by reflections from walls and floor coverings. The more direct the sound is, as opposed to reflected sound, the better it is for good song mixing. With nearfield monitors, the biggest variances in sound come with different models. This is why standardization of monitoring is so effective.
This Yamaha Ns-10 was discontinued in 2001 because of the inability to obtain the wood pulp used in constructing the familiar white woofer cone, and the audio industry’s workhorse speaker was phased out of production. But the torch has been passed on! White Lines Audio, a speaker company based in Chicago, Illinois, found a way to reproduce the reliable translation of the Ns-10 without the obvious upper midrange problems. The White Lines Audio Model K studio monitor was designed and built as a drop-in replacement for the Ns-10. A protection circuit was also added to protect the tweeter from damaging transient signals. A pleasant upgrade as blown tweeters are always an annoying and costly problem with the Ns-10’s. Yamaha has never able to reproduce the Ns-10’s sound but White Lines Audio has succeeded, creating in the Model K studio monitor a new standard among song mixers.
Eddie Gizzardo is a longtime user of the Yamaha Ns-10 studio monitor. He now chooses White Lines Audio monitors for his mixing and mastering speakers.