The Yamaha NS-B210 bookshelf speaker is heir to a rich heritage of great audio speakers. From an array of terrific floor standing speakers through the small but mighty Yamaha NS-10 and NS-10Ms that have been ubiquitous in recording studios for many years, Yamaha has produced some great speakers. Perhaps there’s a little bit of unfair comparison with that distinguished lineage, but we find that these little bookshelf speakers just don’t quite hit the mark.

While it would be wrong to judge speakers based on their size, there are some fundamental reasons, based in physics, that give an advantage to larger devices and the Yamaha NS-B210 are the smallest bookshelf speakers in our lineup by a substantial margin. Whether the reason for that is just to make them less expensive or to accommodate easy placement, the compromise has a negative impact on their sonic characteristics.

There are some pretty fundamental design differences between these bookshelf speakers and those that we’ve ranked more highly. The first is that, while all of the others combine a low-frequency driver with one or two tweeters, or high-frequency drivers, Yamaha has chosen to make this speaker with two identical 3.125-inch drivers to do the whole job. We see this as a compromise that didn’t pay off.

Despite the unusual driver arrangement, the Yamaha NS-B210 bookshelf speaker features a wide frequency response range. The low-end drop-off, for practical purposes the lowest tones that the speaker can reproduce, is a rather respectable 75Hz. That’s not as low as most of the more highly rated speakers but it’s not too bad, especially considering the small speaker. Treble response is actually very good, extending up to 35kHz. As far as specifications go, that allows for a broad range of overtones that, though not actually audible, add a dimension of spaciousness and realism that we can discern.

Though these bookshelf speakers produce rather deep bass, there is a feeling of emptiness to it. Ultimately, a speaker has to move air in order to produce sound and it has to move a lot of air to produce great bass. The presence of two 3.125-inch drivers is likely done to, in some measure, make up for their diminutive size. That is to say, two of them can move more air than a single one; nonetheless, they’re not as good at doing it as a larger driver would be. This trade-off is not uncommon in the manufacturing of speakers. Even some large, floor standing speakers employ several smallish woofers to make up for the absence of a large one.

There’s no crossover in these bookshelf speakers so both drivers are tasked with reproducing the entire sound spectrum. In addition to the thin bass, both drivers produce the highest tones. The overall sound can be a little confusing rather than clean and distinct.

Beyond the driver configuration, the Yamaha NS-B210 bookshelf speakers are of the acoustic suspension design as opposed to the bass reflex arrangement found on other products. The general effect is less bass response overall though what is there tends to be rather tight and precise. Also, whereas most speaker’s nominal impedance, or resistance to an electrical current is eight ohms, these are rated at six ohms. Though resistance varies with frequency, this generally means that amplifiers and receivers have a harder time driving six ohm speakers than their eight ohm counterparts.

The Yamaha NS-B210 bookshelf speaker is available with a brown or black wood-grain finish as well as piano black or white finish. They’re not magnetically shielded so placing them near a CRT TV could interfere with the video image. The manufacturer recommends maximum input power of 120W and the speakers can handle 40W of continuous input.

Customer support can be contacted by email or telephone, though the phone number isn’t toll-free. The manufacturer’s web site includes access to the owner manual though registering for the Yamaha Online Easy Pass function is required to do so. There’s also a rather complicated FAQs section that offers support for the entire range of Yamaha products as opposed to these bookshelf speakers specifically. The warranty covers just two years.