New 2 channel gear from Yamaha

[soundmotor]

10 pages devoted to VU meters, clipping indicators, & cost......

Am I the only one who finds it ironic that after 20 years of staking out multi-channel & DSP, Yamaha re-introduces high-end 2-channel gear?

:scratch2:

 

[bastek]

A high end stereo integrated with blue meters? How about this Cayin in current production? This monster comes into my dreams too often.

 

[restorer-john]

soundmotor, ironic not really as Yamaha has a strong two channel high end following and products in Japan- they never stopped making stereo gear. Like most intelligent Japanese companies, they make in quantity what the world wants (driven by the US demands for more or everything), sell heaps of it and keep all the best stuff for themselves. It was only a matter of time before the absurdity multichannel drove people back to minimalism and who better than Yamaha to charge twice as much for only 2 channels in a pretty box? The fact you are now seeing it means there is a slight demand for simplicity in electronics to match the furniture designs and living spaces people aspire to in this current day and the desire of the retirees to have the system they remember or couldn't afford back then. Retro is back.

 

[the-real-mandak]

And has been for some time now, but I agree with you r-j. They see a market again.

 

[YamahaFreak]

Boy, it took me long enough to find this! That is a pretty sweet-looking amplifier. Too bad it's out of my price range. :sigh: Wonder if there'll be more where that came from?

 

[Yamaha1]

soundmotor, ironic not really as Yamaha has a strong two channel high end following and products in Japan- they never stopped making stereo gear. Like most intelligent Japanese companies, they make in quantity what the world wants (driven by the US demands for more or everything), sell heaps of it and keep all the best stuff for themselves. It was only a matter of time before the absurdity multichannel drove people back to minimalism and who better than Yamaha to charge twice as much for only 2 channels in a pretty box? The fact you are now seeing it means there is a slight demand for simplicity in electronics to match the furniture designs and living spaces people aspire to in this current day and the desire of the retirees to have the system they remember or couldn't afford back then. Retro is back.

Having said that, they also made some real groundbreaking multi channel amps like the DSP-A1, RX-Z1, RXV-3500, DSP AZ9 which bought pleasure to movie watchers all over. They never compromised on sound with their multi channel amps and some of them do a fairly good job in 2 channel music mode as well.

 

[soundmotor]

soundmotor, ironic not really as Yamaha has a strong two channel high end following and products in Japan- they never stopped making stereo gear. Like most intelligent Japanese companies, they make in quantity what the world wants (driven by the US demands for more or everything), sell heaps of it and keep all the best stuff for themselves. It was only a matter of time before the absurdity multichannel drove people back to minimalism and who better than Yamaha to charge twice as much for only 2 channels in a pretty box? The fact you are now seeing it means there is a slight demand for simplicity in electronics to match the furniture designs and living spaces people aspire to in this current day and the desire of the retirees to have the system they remember or couldn't afford back then. Retro is back.

Well, I suppose the first step to recovery is accepting that you have a problem.

:thmbsp:

 

[Yamaha B-2]

My 'source' tells me that he will be offering these new Yamahas at $1600, each.

 

[Yamaha1]

At $1600 they are an excellent deal.

 

[Bigerik]

This has to be one of the silliest threads I have read on here in ages.
After years of bitching and moaning about the declining quality of new gear and the move towards home theatre vs. 2 channel audio, we actually have a major company put out an apparently high quality piece of 2 channel audio gear, and what we get is nigh onto 10 pages of bitching and moaning about why it isn't built the way it was 20 or 30 years ago.

As in everything, technology has moved on. Yamaha is one of the finest major audio engineering companies in the world. There is enough engineering power in that company to put a man on the moon. They actually decide to put out a two channel rig of decent quality, and we are complaining about what the power switch is made of????? No one here has seen one, let alone heard one running, yet instead of celebrating this as being a VERY good thing, the nit-picking starts that Yamaha is not using the right kind of components.

I am not even a solid state type of guy, and I think this is exciting as hell (of course, for me, the new Luxman gear is even more cool.). What is really sad is that if someone online does a google search on this great new gear, probably one of the first threads they will find is this one....

End of rant...

 

[Yamaha1]

Bigerik,

Couldn't have said it better myself, you have certainly hit the nail right in the middle your so called rant, we need more of rants like this. Yamaha took a very bold marketing step and it took balls of steel to offer a high end 2 channel amp with beautiful retro look to today's HT crazed market. It could be a huge marketing disaster for them but they took the risk nonetheless, hats off to Yamaha for this move.

 

[RadShak1251]

It was only a matter of time before the absurdity multichannel drove people back to minimalism.......

As a fan of multichannel movie and music systems, I have to post a rebuttal. While multichannel is more complicated than stereo, the rewards are worth it in my opinion. BUT......like so many other cool concepts, it has been added to, "enhanced" and futzed with (probably mostly by the marketing departments, not the engineers) to the point where it has become so stupidly complicated even I am getting scared of trying to set up some of my buddies' and family's surround systems.

Personally I think a quad format - two fronts & two rears - provides plenty of surround effect, and regularly tell people that is possible to do even with $X,XXX 7.1 channel surround receivers. FYI: centers, back surrounds and subs are not mandatory for a surround system.

But yea, when surround just isn't someone's bag, I quickly advise them a quality 2.0 system is still an extremely viable option. And as someone with a college degree that concentrated a lot on ergonomics, the simplicity and elegance of a stereo system is a relief after dealing with all the menus and buttons of many surround systems.

End of rebuttal.

 

[riverrat]

While multichannel is more complicated than stereo, the rewards are worth it in my opinion. BUT......like so many other cool concepts, it has been...futzed with...to the point where it has become so stupidly complicated even I am getting scared of trying to set up some of my buddies' and family's surround systems...and as someone with a college degree that concentrated a lot on ergonomics, the simplicity and elegance of a stereo system is a relief after dealing with all the menus and buttons of many surround systems.

Not really sure you provided a "rebuttal" so much as some qualifications.

I've been defeated by the obtuse and phenomenally counter-intuitive "instruction" manual and even more by all those g*dd*mn MENUS for my Onkyo 5 channel receiver (already superceded, as you note, by even more complex systems) so I could not agree more with some of your conclusions. I'm just happy that sound comes out ANY of my HT speakers (2 of them at this point). I tried to set it up without a center channel, using my old Speakerlab S3's and a pair of el cheapo small Sony speakers with two "fronts" and two "rears", but could not get it to work. The Speakerlabs are currently serving simply as stands for the Sony's.

My father came up with, or at least passed on, a term for this trend: "Feature Bloat". It is becoming ubiquitous in modern gadgets, from cell phones to clock radios, microwaves, cameras, to our cars. Even my d*mn REFRIGERATOR has a bunch of settings that I have to choose!

I realize I'm a bit of a Luddite, but I find it very telling that someone who is apparently quite a bit more technology savvy than I has reached the point of crying "Uncle". Someone needs to give designers of HT receivers some serious training on ergonomics!

Back on topic: I recall that Onkyo introduced some nice 2-channel gear not long ago as well. RE the new Yamaha stuff that started this thread- nice to see them introduce it, but for those prices I'll stick to vintage, pass some of the savings on to dr*audio, quadbob, or EW and spend the rest on new music and speakers.

 

[restorer-john]

Bigerik, great rant.... Bowing down at the mighty Yamaha altar might get you a free unit if the Yamaha people read this, but I will stand by my comments as certainly not 'silly'. The unit is a token effort- that's all. Technology may have moved on, but there are very few people who would say the general standard of 'hifi' equipment at competitive prices is anything less than junk these days. Bear in mind we had top quality gear, manufactured to a WAY better standard at REASONABLE prices- we no longer have that. That amplifier is nothing special. Build quality and performance are everything and that unit does not impress me.

 

[RadShak1251]

I realize I'm a bit of a Luddite,

As much as I like this stuff, you're not alone.

I am hoping simple-but-quality gear like this Yamaha and recent similar offerings from Onkyo and Pioneer will help get "Regular Joes" re-interested in decent sound at home i.e. the same people buying plastic docking stations for their iPods & who think such things are high fidelity devices. Same thing for all the younger people who grew up without ever hearing anything more than a 128kbps MP3 file via a pair of $5 earbuds or a computer's twenty dollar plastic speakers.

If anything just from a marketing point of view this very nice Yamaha could help sales of stereo gear in general because of its snob appeal (ad people sometimes call this the "halo effect", like what the Corvette does for the rest of Chevy's lineup): 'Wow, if this expensive stuff only has two channels and no computer parts in it, then maybe I'll check out the cheaper stereo equipment from Sony." (or Denon, Sherwood, AudioSource, Onkyo's non-Integra series, etc)

 

[RaymondLeggs]

I sure Hope that they make an Digital tuner with an analogue readout too!

 

[Yamaha B-2]

If they do, that will force my hand. :yes: At the moment I'm forced to suffer with my 7-gang T-2. An analog tuner with a digital readout to go with it. Recapped, aligned, etc., etc. One terrific tuner.

 

[YamahaFreak]

This has to be one of the silliest threads I have read on here in ages.
After years of bitching and moaning about the declining quality of new gear and the move towards home theatre vs. 2 channel audio, we actually have a major company put out an apparently high quality piece of 2 channel audio gear, and what we get is nigh onto 10 pages of bitching and moaning about why it isn't built the way it was 20 or 30 years ago.

As in everything, technology has moved on. Yamaha is one of the finest major audio engineering companies in the world. There is enough engineering power in that company to put a man on the moon. They actually decide to put out a two channel rig of decent quality, and we are complaining about what the power switch is made of????? No one here has seen one, let alone heard one running, yet instead of celebrating this as being a VERY good thing, the nit-picking starts that Yamaha is not using the right kind of components.

I am not even a solid state type of guy, and I think this is exciting as hell (of course, for me, the new Luxman gear is even more cool.). What is really sad is that if someone online does a google search on this great new gear, probably one of the first threads they will find is this one....

End of rant...

This is one of the very few times a rant has made me happy. Agreed with everything. It isn't fair that a company such as Yamaha releases a super-nice piece of gear by today's lowered standards and it gets ridiculed by the very folks it's targeted at. I just wish so much that I had $2,400 right now.:yes:

And you are correct about the engineering behind the company. According to various sources, the company was founded/started in 1887, they were the first to use the term 'Hi-Fi', and they build/have built some of the best speaker systems available, such as the NS-1000 and NS-10. Yamaha is quite possibly the oldest name in audio. :yes: Anybody wanna get those guys some moon rockets? :huge:

 

[Yamaha1]

Yamaha's audio division came from their need for superior electronics and speakers for their electronic musical instruments like synths, organs etc. They were not satisfied with the quality of products from outside sources and therefore decided to make them in house, rest is history and we are all but thankful for that.

 

[Dogman]

So - anyone hear one yet?

The acid test is how the new Yamaha gear looks and sounds in person vs. the conjecture and speculation on this post. I believe that the new units were to be available in stores by mid-December, so we should have some "real" information soon.

In my view, I would rather spend $500 or so on a very well preserved AX-2000 or AX-2000A then $1600 on this new gear. But, it's all in the listening, and until we have some real experience, it remains conjecture and speculation.

If all of these new offerings are well received, might that take some of the steam out of the ever rising vintage market? :thmbsp: