ON TEST
Yamaha
NS-SW300
subwoofer
I
have a great deal of respect for Yamaha:
both for the company and for its
products. As a company, it’s hard to go
past the fact that it recently celebrated
its 50th anniversary, and is renowned the
world over not only for the quality of its
audio products, but also for the quality of
its musical instruments… not to mention its
motorcycles and outboard motors. So far as
its products are concerned, well you don’t get
to be a great company if you don’t have great
products, and I can say at the outset that I
have personally owned and enjoyed using
Yamaha products across all four categories.
One reason Yamaha has been so successful
is its ability to embrace new technologies,
no matter whether the result of in-house
research and development at Yamaha,
54 Australian
or embracing technologies developed in the
USA, Sweden, or elsewhere in the world. The
NS-SW300 that is the subject of this review is
a good case in point, because it incorporates
some unusual—and unusually useful—tech-
nological features.
First and foremost of these—at least to
my mind—is the inclusion of Yamaha’s
Active Servo circuitry… now in its third (I
think) generation, and being presented as
‘Advanced YST II’ where the YST stands for
Yamaha Servo Technology. This isn’t a new
technology, but it’s certainly a significant
technology when it comes to subwoofer
design (for reasons I will soon explain).
Another new technology incorporated in the
NS-SW300 is the use of a ‘twister’ bass reflex
port, which I’ll also soon explain.
The Equipment
The Yamaha NS-SW300 is quite a small
subwoofer, measuring only 350×366×420mm,
which is only a little larger than a plastic milk
crate.* (*Actually, plastic milk crates vary in size,
with the largest measuring 362×362×323mm,
and the smallest 305×305×310mm, so this is
hardly a precise descriptor…Editor.) So if this
subwoofer is so small, how come Yamaha
claims the frequency response extends down
to 20Hz, when conventional speaker design
thinking has it that a subwoofer has to be
physically large in order to deliver low bass
frequencies?
The answer is that Yamaha is using a
clever trick to extract more bass than one
could reasonably expect from a subwoofer
this size, and that ‘trick’ is the circuit I

the practical result ... is a subwoofer with 90 per
cent less cabinet volume than a conventional bass
reflex subwoofer while still maintaining similar bass
characteristics. In other words: bigger bass from a
smaller box.
referenced in the introduction to this piece:
Advanced YST II. Although the ‘Advanced
YST II’ circuit in the NS-SW300 has benefitted
from some recent circuit ‘tweaks’, the basic
idea behind it is not new. Indeed YST’s
evolution can be traced all the way back here
to Australia and the work done in the ‘70s
by the late, great Australian engineer Neville
A. Thiele (who famously teamed up with
US engineer Dr Richard Small to develop
the ubiquitous Thiele/Small method of
speaker alignment that is now used by every
loudspeaker manufacturer in the world.)
Back in the 70s, Thiele wrote a paper
entitled ‘Loudspeaker Circuit Stabilising
Networks for Audio Amplifiers’ that contained
some new and interesting theories about
how an amplifier interacted with the speaker
it was driving. Up until the publication of
Thiele’s paper, both amplifier designers and
speaker designers had operated under the
premise that they were ‘stuck’ with having
to deal with fixed sets of constants when
designing their products. Amplifier designers,
for example, had to assume that their
amplifiers would be connected to speakers
with an impedance of between 4Ω and 8Ω,
for example. Thiele proposed a circuit that
could ‘trick’ an amplifier into thinking it was
connected to a loudspeaker with different
electrical parameters than it actually had.
This would then enable amplifier designers
to do things they’d previously thought to be
impossible.
Thiele’s paper inspired speaker and
amplifier designers around the world to
realise the impossible and develop such
circuits, and one such designer was Katsuo
Nagi in Japan, who named his circuit ‘AST’
(Active Servo Technology) and assigned his
patent to Yamaha, which marketed it as ‘AST’
when it was used in its full-range speaker
designs and ‘YST’ when it was used in its
subwoofers. (A young Swedish electronics
designer, Erik Stahl, also developed a version
of the circuit, but he opted for the descriptor
‘ACE-Bass’.)
To understand how YST works, you need
to understand that the difficulty of extract-
ing deep bass from a conventional dynamic
driver is that they all have a fundamental
Yamaha NS-SW300 Subwoofer ON TEST
‘finning’ on the rear panel suggested to me
that Yamaha was using a conventional Class
AB amplifier inside the NS-SW300, rather
than a Class-D switch-mode amplifier, but
according to Yamaha’s specifications, it is
using a Class-D (PWM) amplifier, which
the company rates as possessing a power
output of 250-watts. This drives a front-firing
250mm diameter woofer—though because
resonance frequency below which their out- this woofer is located underneath a protective
put falls off very quickly (at 12dB per octave grille that I could not remove, I was unable
when the driver is mounted in a closed box to independently confirm its dimensions…
and at 18dB per octave when the driver is in particular its Thiele/Small diameter! This
mounted in a vented enclosure, as here). driver’s voice-coil is unusual because rather
This means that the drivers will deliver bass than using wire with a circular cross-section,
fairly readily down to this frequency (usu-
ally around 30–40Hz) after which the bass
essentially ‘disappears.’ By using a ‘negative’
output impedance it is possible to eliminate
Yamaha NS-SW300
the various ‘flow-on’ effects that usually
Subwoofer
result from an amplifier being connected to
Brand: Yamaha
the resistance of the loudspeaker’s voice-coil,
Model: NS-SW300
the practical result of which is a subwoofer
Category: Powered Subwoofer
with 90 per cent less cabinet volume than a
RRP: $899
conventional bass reflex subwoofer while still
Warranty: Two Years
maintaining similar bass output character-
Distributor: Yamaha Music Australia
istics. In other words: ‘bigger bass from a
Address: Level 1. 99 Queensbridge St
smaller box.’
Southbank VIC 3006
As you’ve probably guessed from the
1300 739 411
photograph accompanying this review, the
(03) 9693 5111
Yamaha NS-SW300 has many more controls
(03) 9699 2332
than the volume control and power switch
au.yamaha.com
that are visible on the front panel. Look
around the back and you’ll find a mains
power switch (the one on the front is actually
a standby power switch), a three-position • Great bass for size
automatic standby slider switch (Off/Low/ • Front controls
High), a two-position phase slider switch • Multiple inputs
(Normal/Reverse), a rotary high-cut control
(40–140Hz) and a two-position B.A.S.S.
slider switch (Music/Movies). B.A.S.S. is a • Non-detachable
manufactured acronym that stands for ‘Bass 240V mains cable
Action Selector System’: it’s really just an
equaliser that lets you choose between two
different EQ settings, depending on whether
you’re watching a movie or listening to
music.
Also on the back panel are gold-plated
LAB REPORT
Readers interested in a full technical
RCA phono inputs for line-level inputs,
appraisal of the performance of the
with the left-channel input being the one
Yamaha NS-SW300 Subwoofer should
to use if you have only a single subwoofer
continue on and read the LABORATORY
output on your amplifier or AV receiver,
REPORT published on page 57. Readers
plus a gold-plated LFE phono input which
should note that the results mentioned
you’d use if your AV receiver has an LFE
in the report, tabulated in performance
output. There’s also a set of high-level inputs
charts and/or displayed using graphs
and output terminals (multi-way banana
and/or photographs should
types) for those who prefer (or
be construed as applying only
by design are forced) to connect
to the specific sample tested.
their subwoofer to their amplifier’s
speaker terminals. The extensive
Lab Report on page 57
avhub.com.au 55
ON TEST Yamaha NS-SW300 Subwoofer
the wire has a square cross-
section. This is a well-known but
rarely used method of putting
more conductive material into
the magnetic field, which has the
effect of increasing the driver’s
efficiency.
Another device that increases
efficiency is a bass reflex
port and, as I noted in the
introduction to this review, the
NS-SW300 has one of these…
but it’s a strange one. Instead
of having a smooth surface,
there’s a ‘whirl’ moulded into it
that looks almost exactly like a
reversed-out version of the ice-
cream at the top of a Mr Whippy
cone. According to Yamaha’s
website (on which you can see a
video on the topic), ‘The flared,
gently twisting shape diffuses the
vortex of air generated around the
edge of the port, creating a smooth flow of air.
This reduces extraneous noise not present in the
original input signal and provides clear, accurate
low frequency reproduction.’ The idea, of course,
is to reduce so-called ‘port noise’ which has
plagued bass reflex enclosures for many
years. Other manufacturers have come up
with alternative designs to provide the same
solution, one of the best-known of which
is British manufacturer Bowers & Wilkins,
which covers the inside surfaces of its bass
reflex ports with dimples, not unlike a golf
ball. Me? I personally think Yamaha’s ‘twister
port’ looks cooler than B&W’s ‘flow port’.
As for the external cabinet, photographs
don’t really do it justice, but it’s an
outstandingly good black piano-gloss
finish—and you don’t need me to tell you
that Yamaha knows more than a little about
piano-gloss finishes! It’s always in the eye of
the beholder, of course, but I found the NS-
SW300 made for a very handsome item of
furniture in my listening room… and my wife
agreed, while also commenting that it was
‘sensibly smaller’ than the subwoofer that
normally occupies that territory in the room!
My only tiny complaint about the NS-SW300
is that its 240V mains cable is black, and
fixed to the subwoofer, so you can’t replace
it. Since my carpet is white, if the cord had
been removable, I could have replaced it with
a white-coloured 240V cable, which would
have been less visible.
In Use and Listening
Sessions
If you have never owned a subwoofer previ-
ously, be warned that you will initially need
to spend a considerable amount of time
working out where in your room the NS-
SW300 has to be placed in order to ensure
56 Australian
Yamaha has leveraged
its technological clout to
deliver a subwoofer that
punches well above its
weight...
it will deliver the deepest, most even sound.
The process is quite lengthy, so you’ll find a
description here: http://www.avhub.com.au/
features/hi-fi/subwoofer-placement-394396
(The good news is that once you’ve found
the best spot, that same spot will be the best
for any subwoofer, so it’s a process you’ll only
do the once, even if you decide to upgrade
to a larger subwoofer at some time in the
future… or add a second subwoofer.) In the
room I was using, the best spot is actually
a corner that’s a fair distance from my TV
screen, but only a bit further to the right
than my right-channel speaker. This position
put the bass reflex port (which is on the right
hand side of the subwoofer) fairly close to a
stub wall on the right, but it didn’t seem to
make any difference to the sound.
What decidedly did make a considerable
difference to the sound was the position of
the B.A.S.S. slider switch. I greatly preferred
the sound of the SW300 when it was set to
‘Movie’, irrespective of whether I was using it
with a movie soundtrack or listening to two-
channel music, so I just left it in the same
position throughout the whole time I was
listening to the NS-SW300 in order to write
this review.
Another setting that will make a very
audible difference to the sound you’re
hearing is where you set the high-cut control
(note that although Yamaha calls it a ‘high-
cut’ control, which is technically accurate,
most audiophiles—along with
many subwoofer manufacturers—
call it a ‘crossover’ control). But
whatever you choose to call it,
my ears very definitely told me
that the NS-SW300 sounded the
most dynamic and the bass the
deepest when I set the high-cut
control to 40Hz. In this setting,
bass transitioned to the three
pairs of main speakers I had on
hand quite nicely, with no ‘hole
in the middle’ that I could hear.
However, if you have very small
main speakers, you may have
to set a slightly higher high-
cut frequency to avoid a ‘hole
in the middle’ (that is, where
the subwoofer’s high-frequency
response is rolling off before the
low-frequency response of the
bookshelf speakers starts kicking
in). Be aware, however, that the
higher the setting of the high-cut control,
the less loudly you’ll be able to play the NS-
SW300 before distortion starts setting in.
However from my experience with the NS-
SW300, I think you’ll be able to play it plenty
loud enough—even with the high-cut control
set to maximum—in any average-sized room.
So long as you’re not a fan of the pipe
organ, you will find bass extension a-plenty,
with the low strings of both bass guitars and
double-basses being reproduced accurately
and tightly, with very little ‘bloom’. Bass
timing was very precise, and the speed of
the bass such that I couldn’t hear any lag at
all. Tonality was excellent with the crossover
set close to 40Hz, with an ever-so-slight
‘plumminess’ creeping in only at higher
crossover settings… and then only when
volume levels were also set too high.
Conclusion
In the world of subwoofing, the performance
of any individual subwoofer will be dictated
by the diameter and quality of the bass
driver fitted to it, the volume of the cabinet
in which it’s fitted, the power output of the
amplifier driving the bass driver, and the
presence (or absence) of any sophisticated
electronic circuitry fitted to enhance the sub-
woofer’s performance (YST, DSP et al).
Of course all of the foregoing will affect the
manufacturing costs, and therefore the final
retail price. In the NS-SW300, Yamaha has
leveraged its technological clout and manu-
facturing expertise to deliver a subwoofer that
punches well above its weight... or should
that be delivers more and deeper bass than
you’d expect for its size? Either way, if you’re
in the market for a small, relatively inexpen-
sive subwoofer, you should definitely
check it out. Lee Downes
 Yamaha NS-SW300 Subwoofer LAB REPORT

dBSPL
110
Newport Test Labs
Laboratory 105
frequency response for the
Test Results 100
140Hz setting is about 45Hz
Newport Test Labs measured 95 to 180Hz ±3dB, which is an
the frequency response 90 excellent result. The black
of the Yamaha NS-SW300 85 trace shows the frequency
subwoofer at a distance 80
response of the NS-SW300
of two metres, using a when the high-cut is set to
75
pink noise stimulus. Figure 40Hz, and with this setting
70
1 shows the resulting of the control, the subwoof-
65
responses after they’d er’s frequency response was
been smoothed via third- 60
measured as 23Hz to 120Hz
octave filtering. You can 55 ±3dB. In this setting, the
see that the LFE input of 50 subwoofer’s output peaks at
20 Hz 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 200 300 400 500
the SW300 bypasses the around 50Hz.
Figure 1: Pink noise frequency responses (smoothed) at 2.0 metres. LFE input (black
subwoofer’s inbuilt high- trace); x/o at 140Hz (green trace) and at 40Hz (red trace). [Yamaha NS-SW300] Perhaps more importantly,
cut filter, so if you use the the frequency response is
LFE input, you will need to do any filtering control, the NS-SW300’s output peaks at most linear at this setting, extending from
using your AV receiver’s crossover circuitry. 90Hz, rolling off shallowly above this via the 30Hz to 80Hz ±1.2dB. Overall, the Yamaha
You can see that for both the LFE input and LFE input (black trace) and a little faster for NS-SW300 shows exemplary performance for
the 140Hz setting of the Yamaha’s high-cut the 140Hz setting (green trace). The overall a subwoofer of its size. Steve Holding

Overall, the Yamaha NS-SW300 shows exemplary

performance for a subwoofer of its size.

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