Complete the following sequence: 5000, 3000, 2000… ? Got your answer? Congratulations if you said 1000, and bonus points if you realised from the context that these are the descending series of stereo hi-fi components available from Yamaha’s music division.
Up at the top in the audiophile 5000 Series, the pre-power amplification alone will set you back $26k. The 3000 Series maintains full analogue hi-fi sensibilities at a lower component level: the integrated amp is $9999. Then in a relatively recent addition to the lower 2000 Series, the $4999 R-N2000A added a full streaming section on top of (or more accurately below) the analogue amplification. The ‘N’ in Yamaha’s product numbers indicate networking and smarts.
So here we have the new R-N1000A. Yamaha labels it a network ‘receiver’, but don’t think of Yamaha’s famous AV receivers, with surround and stuff. Here it’s two-channel stereo, and ‘receiver’ just means ‘amp with a radio’.
Mind you it’s not just ‘radio’. There’s fully-fledged MusicCast onboard here; this is Yamaha’s well-established streaming and multiroom platform. So in our own magazine parlance we would label this a streaming stereo amplifier.
Let’s see what it inherits from those above, and how much has been tailored to the needs of the likely audience at this more affordable price of $2299.
Build & facilities
Much of what is going on within the R-N1000A flows down from those higher series. There is the one-point grounding system of Yamaha’s ‘low impedance concept’, thick wires and an additional screw to strengthen the ground raising signal-to-noise performance.
There’s a custom-made power transformer and block capacitors, and the same combinationimpressive to see the resin-framed ‘Art Base’ surviving into the 1000 Series, along with a double-bottom chassis, a 1mm-thick iron damping plate on the chassis bottom, and anti-resonance feet to boot.
