Toronto Audiofest 2024

Toronto retailer Star Electronics's room was offering some substantial sound, and by substantial, I mean thick toned, resoundingly harmonic, with solid, well-defined bass. Being demoed was gear by Yamaha, but this was not your daddy’s, or your youngers self’s, Yamaha, when the manufacturer’s audio products were entirely targeted to the mainstream market.

The system being demoed made music that belied its compact size. Consisting of a pair of ported, two-way, standmount Yamaha NS-800A loudspeakers ($5999/pair), a fully balanced, dual toroidal transformer-employing C-5000 preamplifier ($13,999), a 100Wpc MOSFET amplifier, a Weiss 204 DAC ($4500), and cabling by Luna Cables, the system’s sound was richly reverberant, luxuriantly textured, warm but never congested, and tonally deep-colored and full.

I don’t normally associate Yamaha with audiophile sound, but I’m slowly changing my opinion about that. I think that in the last few years, and especially lately, the company has been making inroads when it comes to designing audio products with an audiophile pedigree. I’m feeling the love.

The company seems to have been working hard to earn a seat at the audiophile table, and it may be working. I think the products in this room showed a serious desire by Yamaha—or at least a branch of it—to appeal to people who take sound quality seriously. These are legit audio products.

Whoever is at the head of Yamaha’s audiophile department, I applaud them. Quality audio may not pay as much as the off-an-assembly line, mainstream kind, but it’s a noble pursuit.