Yamaha TSX-130 - Your Desktop Companion

All Things Music

Yamaha is a huge company that manufactures a wide diversity of products. Some of you might be familiar with their musical instruments, of which they are amongst the world’s largest, producing anything from pianos and guitars to saxophones.

While others might be more accustomed to Yamaha being a manufacturer of motorcycles. In fact, Yamaha is the world’s second largest manufacturer of motorcycles behind Honda. And in the 2008 MotoGP season, the amazing Valentino Rossi raced a Yamaha YZR-M1 and won the championship by a record margin.

Yamaha’s expertise with motoring doesn’t end there. Case in point is the amazing Lexus LFA supercar, because when developing cylinder heads for the LFA’s V10 powerplant, it was Yamaha whom Toyota turned to.

Also, did you know Yamaha used to make bows for archers? Amazingly, Six archers in five different Olympic Games won gold medals using their products.

Recently, the company has been making forays into the world of consumer electronics with their range of award-winning soundbars, and now, to further bolster their ranks of consumer electronics is the TSX-130. Positioned as a desktop audio system, the TSX-130 combines an iPod/iPhone dock with a traditional CD player, USB flash drive playback and FM radio in a neat and compact system. Turn the page to find out more.

The Yamaha TSX-130 Desktop Audio System

The Yamaha TSX-130 is available in both black and white, and it manages to successfully blend retro and modern elements. The two circular speaker grilles upfront remind us of old-school radios, whereas the wood panelling on top lends the unit a modern zen touch. Taken as a whole, the design of the TSX-130 has a very contemporary Japanese feel about it and we like it very much. The white model, especially, carries off this look very well.

On the audio hardware front, the Yamaha TSX-130 is actually rather basic, sporting only two full-range 8cm cone woofers with bass-reflex ports. There's no dedicated tweeters or low-range woofers. It'll be interesting to see how the TSX-130 sounds.

Test Setup

Traditionally, we tested speakers over four categories - CD, MP3, movies and games. But seeing that the Yamaha TSX-130 isn't a pair of proper speakers per se, and users likely won't be using it for movies and games, we’ll be restricting our tests to CD and MP3 testing. Basically, we want to look out for the TSX-130’s musical sensibilities. Hence, we’ll be playing a variety of different tracks to see how the speakers would perform across different genres such as acoustic, jazz, orchestral and trance.

Of course, different people have different musical and sonic tastes. Some are bassheads while others are treble freaks, so your preferences with speakers may vary.

The complete list of testing material is as follows:

CD Testing:

• Pod Race Scene from The Phantom Menance
• Tyrannosaurus Rex Sound Effects from Jurassic Park
• Theme from Jurassic Park
• Apollo 13 Lift-off Sound Effects
• Theme from Cutthroat Island
• Fanfare for Louis, performed by the Dallas Wind Symphony

MP3 Testing:

• Hotel California - Eagles
• Sail on Soothsayer - Buckethead
• Melt My Heart to Stone - Adele
• Elements of Life - Tiesto

Report Card

We begin our analysis with the usual sampling of CD tracks which contains materials ranging from sound effects to full-on orchestral pieces. This is a good way to gauge the speakers.

Like most iPod docking devices, the Yamaha TSX-130 suffered from a noticeable lack of width and soundstage. Using the Pod Race scene from The Phantom Menace, we noticed that while there’s sufficient oomph from the speakers to power the sound effects of the pod racers, the stereo effects that we were expecting was sorely missing. You do not get the sense that the pod racers are swishing across you.

However, despite the discernible lack of stereo width, the TSX-130 handled the two orchestral pieces, Theme from Jurassic Park and Theme from Cutthroat Island, with great aplomb. Although it didn’t sound as spacious as we’d have liked, it sounded majestic enough. It sounded even better when we turned the TSX-130 to the “Live” DSP setting, as it widened the sound stage considerably.

Moving on with our MP3 testing, we plugged in an iPhone 4 and started piping the usual four tracks we use for this segment. Beginning with the classic Hotel California, we were impressed by the TSX-130’s rich and full sound. The bongo drums that kick in at the start had terrific punch and the guitars had commendable precision and delicateness. Again, we found that the TSX-130 sounded best in the “Live” DSP setting.

Onto the Buckethead’s soulful Sail on Soothsayer, we found that the TSX-130 had sufficient speed to keep up with the guitar extraordinaire’s fast picking. The TSX-130 also exhibited the same excellent precision and delicacy that we’ve heard on Hotel California.

But where the TSX-130 really excelled was on DJ Tiesto’s Elements of Life. The TSX-130 had really deep, thumping and accurate bass, making it a real joy. In fact, we found the TSX-130 to be really great at handling dance tracks, because despite its rather compact size, it’s capable of some deep, rich, fulfilling bass.

However, the TSX-130 was slightly disappointing on Adele’s Melt My Heart to Stone as the British songstress’ sounded slightly harsh at certain parts of the song.

Conclusion

On a whole, the Yamaha TSX-130 is a fine product for a desktop audio system that punches well above its weight, thanks to its useful features and impressive audio performance. Considering its category and capabilities, here's our audio performance summary.

From an aural standpoint, the TSX-130 might not be as accomplished and refined as the “über docks”, namely Bose’s SoundDock 10 and Bowers & Wilkins’ Zeppelin, but at least it comes really close. Crucially, the TSX-130 is lacking that little bit of the sparkle and spaciousness that would have elevated its status. Nevertheless, it remains to be a solid sounding dock, full, well-rounded and authoritative, and certainly well worth the S$599 price tag that it commands.

Furthermore, unlike most other Apple docking devices, the TSX-130 is much more versatile, and music lovers would definitely rejoice in its wide-ranging abiliies. Specifically, not only can it play regular CDs, CD-R/CD-RW, and MP3 CDs; it can also play MP3 and WMA music from USB flash drives; and it is also a FM receiver.

All in all, the Yamaha TSX-130 is one for the music-lover, letting music-lovers enjoy tunes from multiple sources, and at the same time impressing with its great audio performance.

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