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Hello everyone! This is Yagi from Hi-Fi Do Repair Department Kyoto. It is so hot and humid here in Kyoto now! The other day, I went to an aquarium in Osaka and we waited for 20 minutes only to buy tickets. It was so hot that we all nearly got heat stroke... The next thing waiting for us was too cold air-conditioning inside which cooled our sweat very rapidly. I thought we were catching cold but it seems my kids were much stronger. Their attentions are on huge whale sharks. They were clinging to the water tank for long time!

In this newsletter, let me introduce my beloved speakers, Yamaha NS-10M.

Yamaha NS-10M is compact 2 way bookshelf speakers released in 1978. The size is W215/H383/D199mm. Among Japanese fans, it is called "Ten-moni" or "Ten-emu". "Emu" is Japanese pronunciation of "M". The designer is Akira Nakamura who also designed the excellent NS-1000M. Even NS-10M is small, it is build with the same material and so is the finishing. It is so easy to see Yamaha's enthusiasm on this from the stylish package design as well as the other factors. It is no surprise that they sold more than 300,000 pairs of these. As you might know, this model is one of world classic nearfield monitors. They can be seen often in musician interviews too. You can try Googling "recording studio" and you can easily spot some pairs. Nearfield monitors are small monitors used for producing/recording music. They are designed to mimic home stereos to balance & mix sounds. I think it is suitable for mixing pop or rock. I was training to become a mixing engineer before I come here to repair speakers. So I personally feel very familiar to "Ten-moni".

In my opinion, monitors must be "flat" and neutral like water and NS-10M does that very well. They have no taste, in a good sense. They may not be very fun (or tasty) speakers. I enjoy these by touching the real sound that the artists and engineers intended to record on the medium rather than enjoying music itself.

	These are the 1st generation of NS-10M. It seems they were released as low-beget speakers for young people. They consist of tweeters JA-0518, woofers JA-1801, and simple networks with three capacitors and two coils each.
Back them Japan was in the middle of economic growth and more and more people moved to cities and their residences are becoming smaller and smaller. One o the mega hit of the speakers might be that. The compact bodies attracted such people when big speakers were still dominant. There is another story that studios allover the world adopted the speakers after world-famous sound engineer Bob Clearmountain was spotted to be using them.

As you can see, user's manual is attached on the back of the 1t generation. One thing that hits my spot is the white corns. One thing I am not a big fun of is the treble that I find a bit too strong. Bob Clearmountain himself was apparently so and his solution was tissue papers on tweeters (right picture).

In 1987, NS-10M was slightly updated. The biggest one was tweeters. Like the tissue situation earlier, it was known that the 1st generation had too strong treble. As a solution, Yamaha added felt around tweeters and now people no longer needed to use their ugly tissue papers. Another update was the terminals. They were modified to screw type for tighter connection and compatibility with thick cables. This a very subtle but screws on units were modified to hex screws. One more thing is durability, event it is not visible. This is my assumption but I think units were changed to JA-0518A and A-1801A from this generation. In addition, they also released three different models as follows.

NS-10M PRO This "pro" model is designed to stand vertically and comes with saran nets. Stickers say NS-10M PRO as well.



NS-10MC This is the most unknown one of the three. These come with saran nets and are designed to be mounted on walls. I have never seen them used as they are designed though.

In 1993, another update was done. Cancelling magnets were added to units and the speaker became antimagnetic, which added resolution to the sound. Overall sound became more clear and treble became even milder. It is more comfortable to listen to. For some reason tweeter grills were gone. Maybe they had negative effect on sound.


NS-10MT In 1995, centre model NS-10MT was released. They are of course antimagnetic. Terminals are now compatible with banana plugs and the enclosures are now bass-reflex design for more bass. They gained 56cm to the back as well. Unites are similar but different models too. NS-10MT has wider range than the other models but I must say the sound is no longer that of "Ten-moni". However, as a collector, as long as it is named NS-10M I need to have a pair. As what it is called, I think it is better for home theaters.

These are mini versions of the series, NS-10MM (left, 1996) and NS-10MMT (right, 2001). They were half the sizes of original NS-10M. Honestly, I think these have gone too far. Other differences are logos and bass-reflex ports on NS-10MMT. At this point, sound really doesn't matter to me. I just have to own them only because that they are called.

	Sadly, the beloved NS-10M finally ends its legacy in 2001. The reason I heard was unstable supply of wood pulp, which was main ingredient of the cones, at that time. The speakers might have been still on sale if it wasn't the case. Now Yamaha sells powered monitors HS series. I think they are quite good speakers and I could feel the blood of NS-10M. Additionally, speakers on the right are EX10M manufactured by ClassicPro. I haven't seen then in person but I presume the engineers were inspired by NS-10M.
This is the end of my newsletter. I hope you enjoyed the world of "Ten-moni". It would be fun to do a sound comparison in the future. We get some of NS-10M from time to time at Hi-Fi Do. I hope you are now NS-10M-curisous and try one in the future.

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