9 year old Yamaha bookshelfs unveiling - not particularly impressed

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Hey guys I thought i would share this with you.

I was cleaning up my computer desk, installing quieter power supply in my computer, when I had my screw driver handy, I'd thought I would crack open my yamaha speakers which i bought a good 9 years ago.

I wasn't impressed to say the least. Build quality of the cabinets is really cheap and nasty. I mean, I like these speakers, they sound "ok" for a bookshelf, and have served me well for a very long time. I bought a pair of budget strathfields 2 way floor standing cabs with a 6" woofer, and what looks like a bandpass config, around 6 years ago, and they were only 100 bucks.. sound pretty good and built ALOT better!!! haha

I cant recall what model these are, (i have a heavy bookshelf perched ontop of them) but here are a few shots of the drivers, and ahem... crossover network *cough!* and whats with using telephone wire for speaker cable... dammit!

1 cap for the tweeter and a full range woofer??? cmon Yamaha were is the 150 dollar value in these??.. just aswell that i don't thrash these, as they would surely be dead by now.

anyways.. :)

Now i really cant wait to make my DIY 3 way jaycar floor standers.. and use PROPER crossovers!..

sheesh.

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That's quite shocking for a speaker that retailed at $150 like you said :eek: . Just about the very cheapest parts and construction. I have some smaller speakers that came with a mini Hi-Fi, the total cost of which was probably about equivalent to $150 and the speakers supplied appear of higher quality than these!

Good luck with your new DIY 3-way, it should be a whole lot better!
 
thanks Dr Em

I mean, If these Yamahas, sound ok to me.. not the best but ok, Imagine what a solid built, tuned, properly done cabinet with good quality drivers would sound like,

Im new to audio, and Im doing a lot of prep and theory before I build, so now this shocking discovery has actually made me more enthusiastic about my new project! woo! :)
 
Why shocking? Very good binding posts cost $150 .Also quite expensive EPOS speakers and many other full range outrageously expensive ones used the same topology with just a cap to roll the tweeter in. I don't expect yamaha woofer to be the same quality but knowing British manufacturing mentality who knows :D If it sounds good it's good and perceived built quality has little importance. You may be sorely disapointed with your DIY efforts and blow your budget
 
well..

using common sense, im sure by using thicker wood, sound deadening, padding, and a decent quality cross over, as well as drivers that are quality built with good specs, Im sure that i will be satisfied.

then again, who knows, as you say I may be dissapointed.. but thats what makes this fun right? :) You never know what you will get when you first dive into this stuff :)
 
Yes , I also think that you should be satisfied with proven DIY design and nice components but I also found out that some of those cheap mid-fi speakers are suprisingly musical and non fatiguing sounding with all kind of music.
Good luck with your project.
 
having disected many similar boxes found on the side of the road, I have to sat that they are all pretty similar to this one; the only diff is that Yamaha & Panasonic (Matsushita) may have slightly better quality drivers, so they may be worth the effort of upgrading, most of the rest can be ditched (after testing of course, there are some unknown gems out there...)

First thing to try is some padding in the box & upgrade the xover to 1st order on the woofer, 2nd order on the tweeter
 
I have those !!!!!!!!!!!!!

I bought them for the boxes to put some silver flutes woofers in them.

As they were, they are a 6" with super tweeter, kinda bad, but I just wanted the box.

I had better luck taking their 3-way with the 8", disconnecting the tweeter, replacing the series cap to the 3" mid/tweet, connected the drivers so same polarity, added poly fill, then tilted it backwards till some time alignment. Then played with receivers tone controls till it sounded good. They used to sell for $100 at sears, I think the 2 way was closer to $70 or $80 10 years ago.


Norman
 
All I can say is that you guys have some distorted ideas of what speakers are like. Those are actually pretty good speakers, I've seen lots worse. And you know what, the total cost of those parts was maybe $25. That right, that's about what a speaker like that costs top manufacture in China, maybe less. 25$ in parts, sold to the distributor at $50 and at retail from $100 - $150. You think your getting a good deal when they "discount" it to $90.

Thats is the market. Nobody wants to pay for good speakers. The fact is that a DIY could probably not do better for that price or maybe even twice that price. You have to jump big time in dollars to beat what the mass market companies can do when they sell in volume. Basically at $150 you would have to jump to almost $500 before you could get someting that was "notably" better.

The market is like that. The "sweet spot" is dirt cheap, but just a little bit better costs a whole lot more. And then the next "notable" step above that and your talking very big price tags. The big guys "own" the "average" market, and, unfortunatley, few can afford to get above that.
 
diyAudio Member
Joined 2007
Earl I know all about that marketing sweet spot, but to put a little felt and fibre in the box at the factory would add mere cents, and the improvement from that simple addition is usually out of proportion to the cost.

If more consumers complained about the poor sound of the bottom end of the market the chains would h"ave to raise the bar, it is ignorance on most peoples part that allows" them to get away with selling crap.

However Sansui did go broke, and of all the cheap brands Sansui was the one that I thought put some effort into value for money in SQ at the bottom end of that said market
 
frugal-phile™
Joined 2001
Paid Member
As Earl has said pretty typical.

And as to the XO, there is nothing wrong with the topology at all. Matter of fact there is a lot to commend it -- if you can control the performance of your drivers to get away with this. Matter of fact, if you can get the drivers right, this is the best XO possible (just don't use a cheap bipolar elco cap.

It can also be a cheap way to be able to say its a 2-way. I've taken apart more than 1 Japanese speaker with quite a decent FR and a tweeter XOed in at 20kHz.

dave

BTW, the diyA price for essentially the same tweeter at ApexJr is 2/$1.
 
konman said:
thanks Dr Em

I mean, If these Yamahas, sound ok to me.. not the best but ok, Imagine what a solid built, tuned, properly done cabinet with good quality drivers would sound like,

Im new to audio, and Im doing a lot of prep and theory before I build, so now this shocking discovery has actually made me more enthusiastic about my new project! woo! :)

They sure are not eye-candy, but as you said they souded "OK". With no measurements I would not judge their sonic qualities purely on woodworking. What if, for example, the natural rollof of the woofer coincide with the tweeter? People have been building good speakers with P13WH and single cap.
 
My guess on the costs and likely profit by Yamaha:

$4.80 woofer (10,000 unit price)
$1 tweeter (10,000 unit price)
$0.20 cap (50,000 unit price, spread over several models)
$6 cabinet, which has a rather nice exterior, which costs extra
$1 assembly & quick-test labor cost

= $13 parts and labor per speaker

$3 cardboard and foam packaging for two speakers (this always costs more than you expect)

$3 container transport and warehousing in the USA (mostly warehousing cost)

= $32 per pair, as delivered in the Yamaha USA warehouse and then stored for several months to several years

Now let's look at the retail end: If they list for $150 a pair, the normal retailer profit margin is between 40 and 50 points, or $60 to $75 profit per pair. Let's assume the retailer buys at least a thousand of them and gets the most favorable margin of 50%. So the retailer gets them in the door for $75 a pair.

Although container shipping is (very) cheap, UPS to the retailer isn't, and the manufacturer is expected to pick this up. The best deal Yamaha can probably get is $5 to $10 from the nearest warehouse to the retailer (depending on distance), so they end up with a net payment of $65 to $70 per pair.

You can see that Yamaha isn't really getting rich on this, with only $33 to $38 to show for a pair of speakers. I suspect that the costs for the woofer and enclosure are somewhat lower than my guesses.

You might be a bit annoyed why the retailer, with their inept minimum-wage staff, lousy customer service, and scruffy show-rooms, are getting so much profit, yet still find a way to keep going out of business. Well, unfortunately, they are in the furniture business, with ridiculous warehousing and display requirements, and additional disadvantages of rapid product turnover and flighty, fashion-driven customers who don't know what they want. (You might think computer customers are bad, but at least they know the difference between a desktop and a laptop, and usually have a preference. Not true for most audio customers, who still believe Bose Is Best.)

Thus, slow-moving, hard-to-sell products that consume a lot of floor and warehouse space, skittish customers, and unmotivated sales staff. Not a prescription for success.
 
diyAudio Member
Joined 2007
Well put Lynn, and that same $1- tweeter retails in Australia for $AUD19-

So kiddies as I used to say to my fellow sales team members "Don't buy anything at work until it goes to quit"

Retails sales are dominated by dollar per square meter of sales space, nothing else is of interest to the managers when they do budgets.
 
I should add that ratios of 1:5 to 1:10 are perfectly in line for parts & labor costs compared to retail list price. It's when they exceed the 1:10 ratio you can start thinking rip-off, say, for designer athletic shoes, which are nothing more than fabric, foam rubber, and synthetic rubber, and speed-assembled in rock-bottom-wage third-world countries like China and Myanmar/Burma. Those are products where the domestic marketing costs exceed parts & labor costs by a substantial margin. Those ads on MTV, product placement in multimillion-dollar Hollywood movies, and sports-star endorsements don't come cheap.
 
diyAudio Member
Joined 2007
I admit that I have owned a series of these speakers, I find them on the side of the road for free or at car boot sales for a couple of dollars.

My daughters party speakers are similar; put one small box on top of another with a biggish woofer, add a couple of bits and really cheap 3-way.

The kids are always blowing up party stuff so why spend money??

But the first thing I do is open them up to check for damping material, and I have yet to meet a pair that wasn't improved by adding the contents of an old pillow, packing foam or an old woolen blanket that had been washed too many times and felted down, or any combination of all three.

And as Lynn pointed out, a dollar at manufacture costs 10 on the sales floor, and as Earl pointed out most people by furniture on cost not sound value ( pun intended)
 
Moondog55 said:

Retails sales are dominated by dollar per square meter of sales space, nothing else is of interest to the managers when they do budgets.

It's all about turns per square foot of space - that is, total product turnover per year divided by floorspace. You don't get the turns, you're outta business - and fast. The employees, inventory control, the folks who answer the phones, the lights, the rent, the business insurance, that's all overhead that steadily uses up cash regardless of sales. Every moment the store is open and a product isn't being rung up the store is losing money.

The ideal is a minimalist store with a fast-turnover product that is small, profitable, and everyone wants to buy over and over again, which also removes the need to waste time "selling" the product. The customer puts cash in your hand and you hand over what they want. Simple.

Unfortunately, I've just described the purest and least regulated form of free-market capitalism, a drug dealer in a bad neighborhood. Or more legitimately, a fast-food handcart next to a public park or major attraction. Everyone wants a hot dog at the ballpark or football stadium. I'm sure the Romans did a tidy business in snacks at the Coliseum on Game Day.

You can see that hifi retailing is just about at the opposite end of the spectrum, unless they can cultivate a captive market of affluent customers who are OK with spending lots of money on a regular basis. The business model for hifi stores in the USA was successful during the days of Fair Trade (manufacturer-controlled non-discount) pricing, but when the Supreme Court knocked it down in the early Seventies as anti-competitive (which it was), the business slowly but surely went downhill, as manufacturers lost control of distribution agreements and bad retailers (predictably) drove out the good. Thus, small specialist shops were replaced by Circuit City, which then went bankrupt as well. Follow the model to its logical end, and the only ones left standing are Wal-Mart and Amazon.
 
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