I noticed recently that people have been coming here after entering the search term Yamaha HS50 in a search engine. I guess this page is not too useful, for that. So I guess I will add my opinion on them.
The Following is the original post. The additional information is after.
Today I finally have my first complaint about these speakers. I love them, think they are great. Damn the thing that sucked most about them was, lugging them half way across Osaka. That sucked. I’m glad I had the foresight to keep the boxes and the little make shift handles that the store I bought them at made, but walk to the train station and catching the train and then walking to my place, sucked. I did not like the attention that they brought me on the train. People staring at me and my speakers. After awhile those bad boys got heavy. I’m just glad I didn’t go with the bigger Yamaha monitors. I really considered it at one point, but these are fine.
By the way I used these on my EP. Berliner and Robot were mixed in ProTools and the Umbra tracks were mixed in Cubase SX2.
So far after having the monitors for about 8 months, I have to say I do love them I find that they were better than Alesis Monitor ones I used to use in Hawaii. Those had a nasty little brightness in the mid highs. I could never really get the area sounding good on the first try in my mixes. When I listened to the test mixes after mixing on the Yamahas, I found that my mixes were a little loud in the same frequency range as the Alesis’s. However it turns out that the Yamahas were not to blame. When I went back to fix the mixes, I noticed that the mix was just bad. I think part of it was that I had not done in mixing in a long time and was having difficulty hearing things properly.
The monitors have a bass roll off switch on the back. It’s intended to help with the low end when the speaker is placed in a less than ideal location such as close to walls. I did play with it when I first got them and noticed a difference in but I believe I left it alone and didn’t bother with the roll off. That is what my ears liked best.
The only problem I have with them besides the one mentioned above is that the low end is not low enough. I can’t blame them, they are not very big speakers. I should really get sub. I would recommend anyone getting a pair of these to get a subwoofer to compliment them. I’m sure it will make a big difference once you get everything calibrated and set up right.