Natural Sounds
Yamaha makes one key claim to its position within the original Golden Age of post-war audio, when the very concept of “high fidelity” was first being established through a string of technological and material advances in the late 1940s and into the 1950s. In 1954 it released the ‘Yamaha HiFi Player’, believed to be the world’s first audio component bearing the word ‘HiFi’ in its name. It’s remembered by the company as delivering “sure sound and durability”.
But by 1954 Yamaha had already been in existence more than half a century, with its roots firmly planted in musical territory. The founder was Torakusu Yamaha, who built the first reed organ in Japan after learning how to repair a broken one, and founded the company as a manufacturer of reed organs and pianos at the end of the 19th century. The company’s logo still reflects these origins, with its crossed tuning forks, although the original was somewhat more florid, with a Chinese phoenix holding the tuning fork in its mouth; the current trademark was registered in 1916.
A hand-wound gramophone was among Yamaha’s releases in 1922, while the mid-1950s brought those ‘HiFi’ products, but after that Yamaha sidelined its hi-fi in favour of electronic organ production, and also motorcycles, which separated into a separate company. Only in 1967 did Yamaha return to home audio, taking the ‘Natural Sound’ speaker from that Electone organ series and repurposing it for use as a hi-fi speaker. The JA6002 and 5002 woofer units (pictured overleaf, the JA6002 measuring 35 inches across) were used in these first NS-30 and NS-20 speakers, designed to incorporate the principles of a grand piano soundboard to produce greater sound dispersion from these enormous woofers.
Then came audio systems more or less as we know them today, starting with the first generation of component stereo in 1972, the 700 Series, with YP-700 record deck, the CT-700 tuner, TB-700 cassette deck and the star of the series, the CA-700 amplifier. A less expensive pairing of YP-500 record player and CA-500 amplifier were also available.
The 700 Series amplifier was fully equipped with separate MM and MC phono inputs, and a stereo microphone input on the front panel with volume adjustment, so that these products found their way beyond the home into education, shop environments and other semi-pro uses. They also introduced what would become a Yamaha staple, the NF tone control, known as the “Yamaha method”.
In 1973 came the 1000 Series, from which the CA-1000 amplifier was a Yamaha classic, cementing the sleek industrial design style developed with GK Design for a white wood cabinet with single-sheet aluminium front panel — you might easily let it pass among a current set of Yamaha separates. As well as switching up on style, the CA-1000 could switch its modes of amplification — the power amp section had a world-first switch to go from low-distortion, sound-priority Class A to high-power party-mode Class B, resourced by two 18,000 F block aluminium electrolytic capacitors, huge by the standards of the day.
Three years later the CA-2000 made signal to noise improvement its theme, with Yamaha developing in-house silicon to achieve it.
It’s no coincidence that ‘1000’ and ‘2000’ are numbers that continue to recur in Yamaha’s hi-fi range today. These 1970s’ products defined both the company’s look, and its sound philosophy.
From home to the studio
Launched in 1978, the Yamaha NS-10M was a surprise market-jumper, designed as a hi-fi speaker but finding greater success in an effective but inexpensive nearfield monitor for pro sound freelancer producers. Like the NS-1000 it was designed by Akira Nakamura but was relatively unremarkable in its specifications and technologies, and it didn’t receive particular acclaim for its domestic market. Bob Clearmountain is credited as one early producer who began using the NS-10 when he needed easily-portable speakers to carry from studio to studio as a fixed reference for mixing (he is also credited for the use of tissue paper over their tweeters to dull the bright sound). As the word spread in the early 1980s, studios began buying NS10s in their hundreds, then thousands, though it took nearly a decade for a version badged ‘NS10M Studio’ to appear, reinforced to handle more power — and with reduced high frequency response, no tissue paper required. You can read a whole research paper on the NS10M’s delights via avhub.com.au/ns10m.
Meanwhile Yamaha’s PX-1 turntable did find domestic hi-fi fans, released the same
year (1978) with its symmetrical linear arm and electronic control reducing tracking errors to prevent unbalanced stress on the sound groove under any conditions, while aiming to eliminate vibration and noise associated with the movement of the arm.
Four years later, as CD was making its debut. Yamaha delivered the GT-2000, a large heavyweight vinyl player 55cm wide (the GT stood for ‘Gigantic and Tremendous’), achieving playback from overengineered bearings and motor, and a more conventional S-shaped long arm.
Going digital
Yamaha quickly innovated with the new-fangled CD players, too, releasing its first player, the CD-1, in 1982, and just a year later the CD-X1, integrating the discrete and dispersed electronic functions of control and signal processing into just two groups of LSI chips developed and manufactured in-house (the YM3511 for servo-control, and the YM2201 for digital signal demodulation and processing). These enabled far simpler and lower-cost CD players — and the technology was widely supplied to other makers, and so significantly contributed to the spread of the CD in general. Yamaha’s processing skills continued, with its Digital Sound field Processing (DSP) introduced in 1986 and going on to become a crucial element of surround sound as Yamaha led in the use of expanded multichannel sound fields.
In 1988 came the company’s Active Servo Technology, which was developed to expand the lowfrequency limits of hi-fi speakers. Now called YST (Yamaha Active Servo Technology), the method involves two technologies — the Air Woofer, which uses an optimised cabinet volume and port structure to turn small back-waves within the cabinet into large waves from the port, and Negative Impedance Drive, which drives the speaker to cancel the apparent impedance of the voice coil. This smart operation required a dedicated amplifier, and the first combo out in 1989 — the AST-1, which comprised the AST-S1 speaker and AST-A10 amplifier.