Starting out on a journey to update my setup, in searching for a quality set of speakers I stumbled across Yambeka Audio. Being a long time advocate of Polk audio, Infinity and Energy brand speakers, I was leery of this unknown brand and what type of quality that they could offer especially at rock bottom pricing. After further research and learning of the companies return policy I decided to give the 7.0 set a try.
The set arrived in two shipments (three boxes), and all speakers were amazingly unscathed despite the fact that the boxes appeared to have made it through a war zone. Initial impressions are that the speakers are very pleasing to the eye. The mains sport a piano black finish on the front and all woofers in the set create a very modern look with white, but what about the sound?
I connected the set to my setup with both skepticism and anticipation. First I wanted to test their clarity, and stereo separation. I loaded Sting’s “The Soul Cages” album (a personal favorite), and selected “Why should I Cry for You?” As the track began I could hear depth, accurate highs, balanced mids and moderate lows. The stereo separation surrounded me despite the fact that I had native 2 channels with no DSP enabled and my subwoofer turned off. In a word dynamic!
Moving into the next track “Saint Agnes and the burning Train”, my first impressions were reinforced, as the stereo separation presented a true feeling of surround, an experience I have only rarely had before with high end products. The remainder of my initial trial was spent playing various tracks, testing and adjusting my DSP settings and matching my sub for the proper volume and crossover to compliment the setup. Although this setup does benefit from adding a subwoofer to enhance the low end of the sound spectrum, the overall range of sound that the 7.0 set offers is well balanced without one.
In the end my skepticism was blown away by performance, my anticipation reinforced by quality and I am left with a wallet that boasts additional buying power. These speakers prove that quality and accurate sound do not only come at high price points. These speakers hold their own to alternative products that cost several times more, the companies customer service is outstanding (which is often hard to find in a world of corporations), and to the credit of the companies tag line, I too am now a believer that Yambeka Audio is truly “the affordable audiophile speaker”.
Comment by J. Hon — April 10, 2008 @ 4:00 am
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Here is my early review of the Yambeka Audio V2 towers
Review Date: 1/5/2008
Shipping: Fed- Ex damaged both speakers during shipping. It took about 3 days to receive them from Yambeka. The speaker boxes showed signs of damage. When I took them out of the box, the left speaker had one corner of the base crushed and the right speaker appears to have been speared by a fork truck (there was a rather large hole in the box). There are three gashes in the wood at the rear of the right speaker (I only ordered left and right front towers).
Packing: The speakers come in large boxes that are taped at each end. Inside there is lots of Styrofoam to protect the speakers and each speaker is securely wrapped in a plastic bag. There is a single band of packing bracing around each speaker. One of these bands was missing from the speaker box (damaged by Fed-Ex).
Fit and Finish: The speakers have piano gloss black fronts with black vinyl wrap. All seams fit together well. The gloss black front panels with white drivers make a great combination. The three-midrange drivers and the dome tweeter are internally mounted to the front baffle so no screws show. This gives a strikingly gorgeous look when the grills are removed. My wife thought they looked really good. The speakers weight about 26.9 lbs each and stand just shy of 42 inches tall and are about 13 inches deep and about 7 inches wide. The speakers have an integrated base. The drivers all have rubber surrounds and the grill cloth is very easy to take off and put back on. The 8-inch side-firing woofer has an easily removable cover. The Yambeka logo is enclosed in plastic and looks really good. No it is not crooked. The speakers have a small narrow elegant profile and come in left and right mirror imaged pairs. Overall they are very impressive looking.
Specs: The box lists the net weight of each speaker as 25.9 lbs and gross shipping weight of 31.3 lbs and frequency response of 60-20,000hz with a maximum handling power of 80 watts and 3 x 51/4 inch woofers and 1-inch dome tweeter bass reflex towers with 8-inch side firing woofers.
Knuckle Test: The speakers sound hollow when struck on the tops or side panels which suggest that they are not very well damped nor do they have thick cabinets. I would think about 1/4 inch thick. The speaker enclosures are wood with a vinyl wrap with a simulated wood grain look.
Connections: The speakers each have a single pair of gold plated five-way binding posts that will accept various types of connectors—no spring loaded push in terminals here. The connectors are located about half way up the rear of the cabinet and the port is located at the rear near the floor. The plastic port is just shy of 3 ½ inches wide.
Test Conditions:
Room: 35 feet long x 14 feet wide x 8 foot high ceiling home theater room in the basement w/carpet and drapes.
Projector: Panasonic PT-AE 900U LCD 720P
Screen: 4 x 8 foot durotherm light DIY screen with a 4-inch black wood border.
Receiver: Technics SA-DX930 5.1 receiver (100 watts x 2 20-20,000hz and 100 watts x 5 at 1khz); All speakers are crossed over at 100 Hz and set to small
DVD/CD: JVC XV-523 digital liked with coaxial cable
Center Channel Speaker: Yamaha NSC-444 piano gloss with 2 x 5 inch midwoofers and 1-inch metal dome
Surrounds Speakers: Acoustic Research AR HC 6 black gloss satellites each with 3.5 inch midwoofer and 1-inch dome tweeter.
Subwoofer: HSU VTF-MKII piano piano gloss black (32 hz in maximum output/24 hz in maximum extension). The sub is set for maximum extension with one port plugged.
Wire: 14-gauge oxygen free copper
Placement: Speakers were placed 10 feet apart and toed in toward the listening area and placed about 10 inches out from the front wall. The home theater seating is about 10 feet back. They were placed on either side of the projection screen.
Test Materials:
Leopold Stokowski conducts music of Bach, Vivalvdi and Corelli; The Stokowski Sound by Eric Kunzel and the Cincinnati Pops; Vivaldi Six Concertos Chandos; George Szell Cleveland Orchestra Dvorak New World Symphony Smetana The Moldau; Boss Tenor Gene Ammons; We get Requests Oscar Peterson Trio; First Light Freddie Hubbard; Miles Davis Round About Midnight; Round Up Telarc; Upclose Volume 12 Chesky; New Voices Windham Hill; Marvin Gaye What’s Going On; Cast Your Fate to the Wind Sounds Orchestral (original); I Robot Will Smith; Drumline Nick Cannon; Star Wars A new Hope; Local Smooth jazz and Classical FM radio stations and other movies and CDs.
Listening Results:
I listened to a variety of music CDs movies and even FM radio. I only ordered a pair of towers to I confined my listening to them with and without the addition of a subwoofer as well as being the mains for a 5.1 home theater setup with and without a subwoofer. I am a music lover from way back before home theater movie and sound came about. I would characterize the towers as laid back with a smooth non-fatiguing upper register with a nice midrange that is detailed with a rather wide sound stage. I was easily able to place the three instruments when listening to Oscar Peterson. The piano sounded very clean. The brushes on some of my older recordings were not as distinct without the subwoofer as with it. They appeared to lose detail until I added the subwoofer. Apparently the subwoofer cleans up the midrange when it is engaged. The jazz and classical trumpets sounded clean and non-fatiguing. There is certainly bass coming from the towers, but remember that the specs on the box say that they only go down to 60 Hz. So don’t expect the speakers to shake the walls, but what bass they put out is at least clean. I had to move the right speaker out from the corner because that woofer was facing the wall and was being loaded by the corner so that it became a bit boomy. The HSU subwoofer integrates really well with these speakers and at least in my home, they gave a seamless dynamic sound on my recordings and movie soundtracks. There is bass enough for listening without a subwoofer, but for true dynamics and for a really weighty bass, I would recommend the addition of a subwoofer to fill out the missing bottom octaves. I was never fatigued while listening to these speakers. I did watch movies without a sub and the speakers never sounded distressed even when given a full range Dolby Digital signal. I made mental notes that I believe the strong suits of the speaker are the tweeter and the midrange. There was remarkable detail on some recordings with the subtle sounds piercing through the background. They are not in your face type speakers. They will play loud without distress. They are especially pleasing to the eye and the ear as well. No I am not comparing them to Klipsch, Ascends, Av123, Aperion, Polks or anything else simply because I did not have all those speakers on hand to do a shoot out comparison and I have not heard most of them. I enjoyed listening to these speakers. I think that in the context of cost and what they do, they are a great value. If you are looking for a cost effective way to get a great looking and sounding pair of speakers, they give the Yambeka V2 a try. Most likely, you will not be disappointed—I wasn’t.
A Review By: J. Hon – A Yambeka Audio customer
Starting out on a journey to update my setup, in searching for a quality set of speakers I stumbled across Yambeka Audio. Being a long time advocate of Polk audio, Infinity and Energy brand speakers, I was leery of this unknown brand and what type of quality that they could offer especially at rock bottom pricing. After further research and learning of the companies return policy I decided to give the 7.0 set a try.
The set arrived in two shipments (three boxes), and all speakers were amazingly unscathed despite the fact that the boxes appeared to have made it through a war zone. Initial impressions are that the speakers are very pleasing to the eye. The mains sport a piano black finish on the front and all woofers in the set create a very modern look with white, but what about the sound?
I connected the set to my setup with both skepticism and anticipation. First I wanted to test their clarity, and stereo separation. I loaded Sting’s “The Soul Cages” album (a personal favorite), and selected “Why should I Cry for You?” As the track began I could hear depth, accurate highs, balanced mids and moderate lows. The stereo separation surrounded me despite the fact that I had native 2 channels with no DSP enabled and my subwoofer turned off. In a word dynamic!
Moving into the next track “Saint Agnes and the burning Train”, my first impressions were reinforced, as the stereo separation presented a true feeling of surround, an experience I have only rarely had before with high end products. The remainder of my initial trial was spent playing various tracks, testing and adjusting my DSP settings and matching my sub for the proper volume and crossover to compliment the setup. Although this setup does benefit from adding a subwoofer to enhance the low end of the sound spectrum, the overall range of sound that the 7.0 set offers is well balanced without one.
In the end my skepticism was blown away by performance, my anticipation reinforced by quality and I am left with a wallet that boasts additional buying power. These speakers prove that quality and accurate sound do not only come at high price points. These speakers hold their own to alternative products that cost several times more, the companies customer service is outstanding (which is often hard to find in a world of corporations), and to the credit of the companies tag line, I too am now a believer that Yambeka Audio is truly “the affordable audiophile speaker”.
Comment by J. Hon — April 10, 2008 @ 4:00 am |
Here is my early review of the Yambeka Audio V2 towers
Review Date: 1/5/2008
Shipping: Fed- Ex damaged both speakers during shipping. It took about 3 days to receive them from Yambeka. The speaker boxes showed signs of damage. When I took them out of the box, the left speaker had one corner of the base crushed and the right speaker appears to have been speared by a fork truck (there was a rather large hole in the box). There are three gashes in the wood at the rear of the right speaker (I only ordered left and right front towers).
Packing: The speakers come in large boxes that are taped at each end. Inside there is lots of Styrofoam to protect the speakers and each speaker is securely wrapped in a plastic bag. There is a single band of packing bracing around each speaker. One of these bands was missing from the speaker box (damaged by Fed-Ex).
Fit and Finish: The speakers have piano gloss black fronts with black vinyl wrap. All seams fit together well. The gloss black front panels with white drivers make a great combination. The three-midrange drivers and the dome tweeter are internally mounted to the front baffle so no screws show. This gives a strikingly gorgeous look when the grills are removed. My wife thought they looked really good. The speakers weight about 26.9 lbs each and stand just shy of 42 inches tall and are about 13 inches deep and about 7 inches wide. The speakers have an integrated base. The drivers all have rubber surrounds and the grill cloth is very easy to take off and put back on. The 8-inch side-firing woofer has an easily removable cover. The Yambeka logo is enclosed in plastic and looks really good. No it is not crooked. The speakers have a small narrow elegant profile and come in left and right mirror imaged pairs. Overall they are very impressive looking.
Specs: The box lists the net weight of each speaker as 25.9 lbs and gross shipping weight of 31.3 lbs and frequency response of 60-20,000hz with a maximum handling power of 80 watts and 3 x 51/4 inch woofers and 1-inch dome tweeter bass reflex towers with 8-inch side firing woofers.
Knuckle Test: The speakers sound hollow when struck on the tops or side panels which suggest that they are not very well damped nor do they have thick cabinets. I would think about 1/4 inch thick. The speaker enclosures are wood with a vinyl wrap with a simulated wood grain look.
Connections: The speakers each have a single pair of gold plated five-way binding posts that will accept various types of connectors—no spring loaded push in terminals here. The connectors are located about half way up the rear of the cabinet and the port is located at the rear near the floor. The plastic port is just shy of 3 ½ inches wide.
Test Conditions:
Room: 35 feet long x 14 feet wide x 8 foot high ceiling home theater room in the basement w/carpet and drapes.
Projector: Panasonic PT-AE 900U LCD 720P
Screen: 4 x 8 foot durotherm light DIY screen with a 4-inch black wood border.
Receiver: Technics SA-DX930 5.1 receiver (100 watts x 2 20-20,000hz and 100 watts x 5 at 1khz); All speakers are crossed over at 100 Hz and set to small
DVD/CD: JVC XV-523 digital liked with coaxial cable
Center Channel Speaker: Yamaha NSC-444 piano gloss with 2 x 5 inch midwoofers and 1-inch metal dome
Surrounds Speakers: Acoustic Research AR HC 6 black gloss satellites each with 3.5 inch midwoofer and 1-inch dome tweeter.
Subwoofer: HSU VTF-MKII piano piano gloss black (32 hz in maximum output/24 hz in maximum extension). The sub is set for maximum extension with one port plugged.
Wire: 14-gauge oxygen free copper
Placement: Speakers were placed 10 feet apart and toed in toward the listening area and placed about 10 inches out from the front wall. The home theater seating is about 10 feet back. They were placed on either side of the projection screen.
Test Materials:
Leopold Stokowski conducts music of Bach, Vivalvdi and Corelli; The Stokowski Sound by Eric Kunzel and the Cincinnati Pops; Vivaldi Six Concertos Chandos; George Szell Cleveland Orchestra Dvorak New World Symphony Smetana The Moldau; Boss Tenor Gene Ammons; We get Requests Oscar Peterson Trio; First Light Freddie Hubbard; Miles Davis Round About Midnight; Round Up Telarc; Upclose Volume 12 Chesky; New Voices Windham Hill; Marvin Gaye What’s Going On; Cast Your Fate to the Wind Sounds Orchestral (original); I Robot Will Smith; Drumline Nick Cannon; Star Wars A new Hope; Local Smooth jazz and Classical FM radio stations and other movies and CDs.
Listening Results:
I listened to a variety of music CDs movies and even FM radio. I only ordered a pair of towers to I confined my listening to them with and without the addition of a subwoofer as well as being the mains for a 5.1 home theater setup with and without a subwoofer. I am a music lover from way back before home theater movie and sound came about. I would characterize the towers as laid back with a smooth non-fatiguing upper register with a nice midrange that is detailed with a rather wide sound stage. I was easily able to place the three instruments when listening to Oscar Peterson. The piano sounded very clean. The brushes on some of my older recordings were not as distinct without the subwoofer as with it. They appeared to lose detail until I added the subwoofer. Apparently the subwoofer cleans up the midrange when it is engaged. The jazz and classical trumpets sounded clean and non-fatiguing. There is certainly bass coming from the towers, but remember that the specs on the box say that they only go down to 60 Hz. So don’t expect the speakers to shake the walls, but what bass they put out is at least clean. I had to move the right speaker out from the corner because that woofer was facing the wall and was being loaded by the corner so that it became a bit boomy. The HSU subwoofer integrates really well with these speakers and at least in my home, they gave a seamless dynamic sound on my recordings and movie soundtracks. There is bass enough for listening without a subwoofer, but for true dynamics and for a really weighty bass, I would recommend the addition of a subwoofer to fill out the missing bottom octaves. I was never fatigued while listening to these speakers. I did watch movies without a sub and the speakers never sounded distressed even when given a full range Dolby Digital signal. I made mental notes that I believe the strong suits of the speaker are the tweeter and the midrange. There was remarkable detail on some recordings with the subtle sounds piercing through the background. They are not in your face type speakers. They will play loud without distress. They are especially pleasing to the eye and the ear as well. No I am not comparing them to Klipsch, Ascends, Av123, Aperion, Polks or anything else simply because I did not have all those speakers on hand to do a shoot out comparison and I have not heard most of them. I enjoyed listening to these speakers. I think that in the context of cost and what they do, they are a great value. If you are looking for a cost effective way to get a great looking and sounding pair of speakers, they give the Yambeka V2 a try. Most likely, you will not be disappointed—I wasn’t.
Comment by C.Jones — May 14, 2008 @ 8:29 pm |