Review: Yamaha NS-600A Speakers

The bright bounce of a Yamaha grand piano holds a special place in the soundtrack of my youth. As a young performer and singer, I spent countless grade school hours listening to the sunny tones of an obsidian Yamaha grand in our local performance hall. So it was probably inevitable that Yamaha’s gorgeous new NS-600A speakers, inspired by the brand’s instrumental legacy from design to tonal delivery, would evoke some visceral nostalgia.

You’ll find plenty of Yamaha’s signature sound in the NS-600A, with sparkling articulation and clarity, a wide and dimensional soundstage, and stirringly dynamic bass. Their premium price further rewards buyers with a posh design, embodied in elegant angular cabinets with a marbled piano gloss finish that oozes luxury.

For all their spoils, the NS-600A's brighter tonal flavor can sometimes evoke more bite in the upper register than some of my favorite speakers at their lofty price point. That’s more personal preference than gospel, though, and the speakers mostly delight across content. Listeners with a massive budget who favor acute clarity over tonal subtlety may well find the NS-600A hit all the right notes.

Concert-Hall Class

Photograph: Ryan Waniata

Pulling the speakers from their individually packed boxes, you can’t deny their dashing good looks. Rounded corners at the front fade toward the back panel in angled lines, making the cabinets seem to lean toward the listening position ready to spring. The glossy finish looks as stunning as Yamaha’s top pianos, and each speaker’s hefty weight of just under 22 pounds lets you know there’s stout bracing and high-end components within.

At the back of each speaker panel, ergonomic binding posts rest below a beveled bass port, designed to minimize port whistle when the bass ramps up. Even the magnetic acoustic grilles flex some floss, with a sympathetic curve that hugs each speaker’s rounded top, leaving the front face’s gold logo exposed below.

Photograph: Ryan Waniata

Yamaha says its engineers utilized the same acoustic principles for sound absorption and vibration suppression found in its musical instruments to optimize the NS-600A’s internal cabinet design. The speakers use Yamaha’s patented “Absorber” tube to minimize standing waves, while a specialized Resonance Suppression chamber sits behind each tweeter, both aimed at preserving the character and tone of instruments and vocals.

Each speaker boasts a 1¼-inch tweeter set above a 5⅛-inch woofer with Yamaha’s new “Harmonious Diaphragm” made from a blend of spruce and the synthetic polymer Zylon. The woofer is relatively small for a speaker that stands over 15 inches high, but it’s got more punch than you might expect, helping the speakers reach a claimed frequency response of 47 Hz-65 kHz. The NS-600A’s 6-ohm nominal impedance rating means you’ll need an amplifier rated for a 6-ohm or 4-ohm load, with at least 40 watts of power per channel.

Bright and Burly

Rushing clarity is the order of the day in the NS-600A, springing forth like glacial falls. Their bright tonal color is immediate, and with it comes purposeful delineation of instrumental textures and spacing alongside deep and wide stereo imaging. The crisp and forward attack is often layered with a supple touch of elegance, especially from the middle register, down where the speakers do some of their best work.

Photograph: Ryan Waniata

The 600A are brilliant at setting up a scene, whether rendering complexly mixed electronic tracks or compelling action flicks. I pegged their bass response as resigned at first, but it’s anything but. They handle upper bass demurely, but those modestly sized woofers are capable of remarkable power in the nether regions, commanding a broad and dynamic foundation from which the rest of the soundstage expands.

I first noticed the bass letting loose during the bonkers new Netflix sci-fi series, 3 Body Problem. As Benedict Wong’s detective character investigates the first crime scene (no spoilers), the show provides a hefty pulsating backdrop of bass to raise the emotional stakes. The pumping beat was fantastically musical through the NS-600A, with a rigid yet buoyant thump that allowed the crunchy effects above to expand with impressive dynamics.

I fell in love with the effortless lower register then and there, letting my ears wander to the other tonal colors. The NS-600A’s soundstage is vividly immersive, eagerly revealing instruments and effects along both the horizontal and vertical planes. Sound seems to sweep across the stereo image in broad waves, from cars swooshing by in TV scenes to panned stereo synths in songs like Radiohead’s “Everything in Its Right Place.” The speakers’ fantastic instrumental separation makes sure everything always is, with thorough precision.

Watching one of my go-to test films, Skyfall, I felt almost wholly immersed in Bond’s world from the moment he slips his Walther PK from its sheath. As he trains in the new MI6 HQ, the ominous roll of the trains overhead was so stealthy and well constructed that I had to go back twice to ensure it wasn’t a plane buzzing over my house. Even just the crack of thunder as M types up Bond’s obituary seems almost viscerally real in its articulation.

That articulate delivery was never more obvious than in Caroline Polachek’s 2023 pop masterpiece, Desire, I Want to Turn Into You. The percussive synth effects in the album’s first song seemed to illuminate like an LED light show, each synth pulsing from within the mix with beaded vibrancy. It was also here, in Polachek’s virtuosic soprano intro, that the NS-600A’s tendency to get a touch aggressive at the attack became most apparent. It never turned to all-out sharpness, but the speakers are more abrasive at times than some of my favorites approaching their price point, like KEF’s musical yet laidback R3 Meta (9/10, WIRED Recommends).

Moving on to Bruebeck’s "Take Five" on vinyl, the NS-600A showed an unsurprising talent for rendering realistic piano, and it steals the show here amidst tough competition from the lively drum textures and breathy sax. Every so often in Brubeck’s piano runs, a note or two again stuck out with more bite than expected. Even colors like the powder-puff cymbals and sultry sax lines shed some of their usual smokey saturation, traded for advanced precision. The record was still a fabulous ride, and I noticed these moments were less frequent or apparent when switching from my Uniti Atom amplifier to Rotel’s slightly smoother and more powerful RAS-5000 (7/10, WIRED Recommends).

The 600A’s sticker-shocking price and forward flavor won’t be a good fit for all listeners, but their powerful, articulate, and expressive sound embodies the best of Yamaha’s storied musical legacy. And damn if they aren’t lovely to gaze upon.