Yamaha HS Series Monitors: The Perfect All-Rounder (updated for July 2025)
Are you looking for new studio monitors? There’s more choice than ever, and the level of quality across the board is pretty high. Whatever you choose is likely to sound decent and do a good job with your mixes.
But what if you want better than ‘decent’? As somebody who has demoed and sold a great deal of studio monitors, there are a few I’d choose over others, and the Yamaha HS series is tough to beat. But before I get to them…
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Yamaha NS10
The phrase 'industry standard' gets tossed about a lot these days to describe tech, often without a lot of proof behind it. Check out most pro recording studio control rooms, though, and I expect you’ll find a set of Yamaha speakers with those tell-tale white woofers! Top end studios will have Yamaha NS10s in addition to other boutique speaker brands, and are literally industry standard. That is, they were, because Yamaha discontinued them in 2001, due to a problem sourcing certain parts. These speakers were famous for their flat, uncoloured response, so producers and engineers could trust them as an honest reflection of the work they were producing.
Today’s Yamaha HS range is based directly on the NS10’s, and come in at a more affordable price. Interested in hearing a little more?
Yamaha HS
So, the Yamaha HS range is based on the famous NS10 speakers, and also have those famous white woofers. However, as has always been the case with Yamaha's signature monitors, these weren't built to be easy on the eyes, but to provide a professional quality mixing solution.
Rather than colouring your mix, the HS series from Yamaha provide a clean, clear and - most importantly - accurate representation of what you're working on. Also, they don’t tire out your ears after a few hours’ work, so you can go the long distance with a set of these speakers. It’s often a waste of time to try mixing at the end of a session because your ears are quite done for the day, but I’ve found that fatigue doesn’t tend to set in as much with these. Volume plays a factor of course, but you already know that! Be sensible or pay the price!
The Main Range
Not all studio spaces are the same size. Larger rooms require larger monitors to fill the space with sound. Conversely, smaller rooms would get swamped and overwhelmed by larger monitors, so smaller units are what’s preferred.
The Yamaha HS range comes in three main sizes, in order for you to find the perfect size for your studio:
- Yamaha HS5: 5” cone, 1” dome. 2kHz crossover
- Yamaha HS7: 6.5” cone, 1” dome, 2kHz crossover
- Yamaha HS8 8” cone, 1” dome, 2kHz crossover
As you can see, the only main technical spec that changes is the size of the woofer itself. The high frequency cone remains the same size throughout the range, and the crossover frequency stays at 2kHz. This ensures that the sound of the speakers is the same across the board, and that any edits you make to your mix will make sense in the same way on each speaker.
Perfect for analysing studio recordings, the mentality behind the original NS10s was that if your mix sounds good through them, it's almost guaranteed to translate to other studios, speakers, headphones or whatever else you feel like playing it through.
We're pleased to be able to genuinely confirm that the HS range has maintained this, making them an incredibly powerful tool for any studio. Behind every great producer is a pair of monitors they can trust and Yamaha's HS series are some of the most reliable that I’ve ever come across.
Smaller HS
For those with particularly small studio spaces, check out the HS3 and HS4 monitors. Sold in pairs, these are a different overall design to the others, but are made to sound as close to the other HS monitors as possible. They are a fantastic price and easily the best ‘small monitor’ choice, in my opinion.
The Perfect All-Rounder
In the HS range, Yamaha have done the impossible in successfully reincarnating one of the most acclaimed speakers of all time and doing it well. Remaining in a league of their own, professionals buy Yamaha HS monitors for their flat, responsive and accurate sound. I humbly suggest that you pay us a visit - with your best mixes - to see what all of the fuss is about!
Click to View our Yamaha HS Range
