Yamaha: The name evokes memories of my youth when those much-coveted receivers were out of financial reach, leading me to rely upon entry-level Kenwoods and Pioneers and others that sounded worse. Everyone who ever had a cheap receiver blow up—that’s what caused me to move from Kenwood to Pioneer—or heard an old Akai that made LPs sound like 128kbps MP3s, please raise your hands.
Yamaha was in a different league (footnote 1). Hence, when Jim Austin proposed that I review the brand-new, top-of-theline Yamaha A-S3200 integrated amplifier ($7499.95), I was eager to discover just how far the company’s designs had progressed since I was in my 30s.
When I first saw the A-S3200’s retro, double-meter look and discovered that it has bass and treble tone controls and a front-panel headphone jack, l experienced a moment of time-travel déjàvu. I returned to the 21st century upon examining the multi-language owner’s manual and noting that it was free of the kind of Japanese-to-English mistranslations that made some of Yamaha’s early manuals so much fun to read. If only some high-end companies with far more expensive products would take the same care with their product manuals. (A good start, in a few cases, would be to write one.)
My eagerness to review the A-S3200 increased when 35-year Yamaha employee Phil Shea, currently Yamaha USA’s marketing content development manager, told me that the A-S3200’s amplifier section is very similar to that of the flagship M-5000 stereo amplifier ($9995.95). “The M-5000 is our no-holds-barred amplifier that, together with the C-5000 preamp ($9995.95), took Chief Sound Designer Susumu Kumazawa 14 years to develop,” Shea told me by phone. “He and his team were also in charge of engineering an earlier predecessor. After a reviewer told him that the amp spec’d out perfectly but didn’t move him—the stereotypical criticism of Japanese products is that their sound is accurate but not musical—he started from the ground up to develop a musical design.”
The fruits of his team’s efforts are the 5000-series power amp, preamp, turntable, and speakers. “Many elements of the A-S3200 were considered for their low impedance,” Shea said. “The whole idea for the amp is to get power from the wall to the speakers when it’s supposed to get there. We need to be able to turn transistors on and have them send power down the speaker wire instantaneously so that all frequencies go through at the same time.”
Description
The A-S3200 is a class-AB, fully balanced, floating design. Because most Yamaha users use single-ended cables, there are only two sets of balanced inputs on the rear panel. The remaining inputs, which feature old-school labeling—Phono, Tuner, CD, Line 1, Line 2—are single-ended. (Curiously, they’ve chosen to rename what used to be called the Tape Loop; it’s now just Line 2, which has inputs and outputs “for external components that feature analog audio in/out jacks,” says the manual.) There’s also a Pre Out and a Main In, so you can use it only as a preamp or only as a power amplifier, should you be so inclined.
All the single-ended inputs connect to a balanced circuit, which, Shea said, “releases the ground to float it off the ground shield of the RCA cable as soon as it gets into the receiver and sends it balanced all the way through to the speaker terminals.”
The M-5000 and A-S3200 share many features. Both designs began by addressing vibration, resonance, and other mechanical issues that, in Shea’s words, “limit emotional attachment to the music.” Both have a center-mounted power supply, “supersized” internal cabling, and custom-built “huge” filter capacitors that, like their toroidal transformers, connect with brass lugs rather than solder. Power transistors are low-impedance MOSFETs, which, Shea asserts, sound more open and clean than the bipolar variety. Transistors are mounted on a copper-clad internal structure to reduce electromagnetic interference. Capacitors are either Shinyei polypropylene or Toshin polyphenylene sulfide film. The A-S3200’s top cover is milled from a solid sheet of 6mm aluminum. No screws are visible on the casework.
The A-S3200 uses a special “high-precision, super low-noise digitally controlled analog volume control built to Yamaha’s specifications,” Shea told me. The tone controls work in parallel with the volume controls—they are not in series—and bow out of the signal path completely when in neutral position (0). The front-panel ¼” headphone jack connects to a separate, fully balanced, low-impedance discrete headphone amplifier. Connecting headphones automatically shuts off the signal to the speakers and the “Pre Out” jacks and defeats any input from the “Main Direct” jacks. A trim selector adjusts gain by either –6dB, 0dB, +6dB, or +12dB. It worked fine with the Audeze LCD-X ‘phones.
The A-S3200’s height-adjustable footers are the same three-piece supports found on the 5000. Beneath a surface-protecting floating cap, not intended for removal, protrudes a spike that is welded to the chassis. Earlier models in the series had a naked spike with a magnetic cap that, when removed, was less than kind to components and shelves beneath it. As Editor-in-Chief Jim Austin noted during one of our email dialogs, “They thought through vibrations and EMI, and used some remarkable hardware like those big strapping internal cables with screw-down lugs and the copper-lined chassis. It looks like a high-end product.”
I did not discuss the fully discrete phono preamplifier with Shea because I’m not equipped to review it. We will cover it in a follow-up review.
From the back forward
In addition to the inputs and outputs mentioned above, the A-S3200’s rear panel has two sets of heavy-duty, easily tightened speaker terminals that accommodate both bananas and spades. There’s a tiny toggle switch that, when set to “on,” places the unit in standby mode if “it is left turned on and not operated for eight hours”; the quote is from the manual. Note, however, that “not operated” apparently means “not fiddled with”: If you’re just playing music for a long time, it will shut off after eight hours. I can see the utility in that, but it’s not ideal for break-in. That’s more of a problem for reviewers than for buyers.
The A-S3200’s single-ended “Pre Out” jacks output “the same channel signals that are output at the L/R CH speaker terminals”; bass, treble, balance, and volume settings remain effective. The “Main In” jacks bypass the preamp section; if you use them, you must set the volume with a separate preamp or a source component. “Attenuator” switches for each of the two balanced inputs enable you to lower the input level by 6dB if audio from a connected component is too high in level; “Phase” switches allow you to switch the hot pin on the balanced input jacks from pin 2 to pin 3.
The handsome front panel’s two output meters can be set to display either “Peak” or “VU”; the latter, says the manual, “shows an effective audio output value that represents the way sound is perceived by human ears.” If you want to, you can dim the meters or turn them off entirely. On the chance that meter operation and illumination could negatively affect sound, I turned both off during serious listening.
Input can be selected by either the large input knob—there’s another large knob to control volume—or the lightweight plastic remote that controls those functions and more. According to the manual, the “Audio Mute” toggle “reduce[s] the current volume level by approximately 20dB and lights up when activated.” Add in a balance control and another toggle for choosing the type of phono cartridge in use (MM or MC), and you’ve got everything on the A-S3200’s exterior deserving of attention.
Let’s get it started
I placed the new-from-the-factory A-S3200 on my Grand Prix Monza four-shelf double rack, resting it on its footers. I connected it to my Wilson Alexia 2 loudspeakers. After consulting with Shea, I ran the integrated for a good 200 hours to ensure that I would hear it at its best.
When the time arrived to begin serious evaluation, I spent some time trying to set up the system for optimal sound. When I tried the three Ansuz Darkz T2S resonance support feet—the ones that usually support my reference D’Agostino Progression monoblocks ($38,000/pair)—the improvement I heard was consistent with what I hear with the Progressions: a fuller, more fleshed-out midrange and a smoother, rounder sound with heightened depth, air, and detail. The soundstage was also set farther back and seemed more realistic. Given the difference they made, I used those supports under the Yamaha for the remainder of the review.
My dCS Rossini D/A processor has both balanced (XLR) and single-ended outputs. Comparing the Yamaha A-S3200’s balanced or single-ended inputs using Nordost Odin 2 cabling revealed that single-ended delivered flatter, grayer, less distinguished sound. There was less delineation of acoustic space, and the edge on soprano Sandrine Piau’s marvelous voice, in Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater (Alpha 449, 24/96 WAV) with Les Talens Lyriques conducted by Christophe Rousset, was blunted except for her highest notes. The singing was less breathtaking.
Footnote 1: Even today, you can buy a Yamaha component at just about any price, from $129 on up.—Editor
NEXT: Page 2 »
COMPANY INFO
Yamaha Corporation of Japan
US distributor: Yamaha Corporation of America
6600 Orangethorpe Ave.
Buena Park, CA 90620
(714) 522-9011
usa.yamaha.com
ARTICLE CONTENTS
Page 1
Page 2
Specifications
Associated Equipment
Measurements
Herb Reichert November 2020
Click Here: Inter Milan Jersey Sale