MSR400 & MSR800W

Much of the work in putting together a high-performance sound system involves amplifier and speaker selection and setup. Here are a pair of solutions that can take you directly to great sound without the usual complications. The MSR400 powered speaker can be used alone or in combination with the MSR800W powered subwoofer to assemble sound reinforcement systems from modest to massive. They look great, too. So good, in fact, that they can be used as-is in many permanent installations without requiring any cosmetic cover-up. And, of course, they’re more than rugged enough for demanding tour applications as well.

Whether for use on the road or in permanent installations, powered speakers offer numerous advantages over their separate counterparts. The most obvious is that you don’t need separate external amplifiers or the extra connections required – you can plug your mixer’s outputs directly into the speaker inputs. In a modest-size system this alone can eliminate an entire rack of amplifiers. But there are sonic advantages as well. Optimum matching of amplifiers and speakers involves much more than simple impedance figures, and can be a formidable engineering task given the vast number of choices available. In the Yamaha MSR400 and MSR800W the internal amplifiers have been ideally mated to their respective speakers in every way possible, delivering reproduction quality that only such stringent matching can achieve.

The MSR400 is a bi-amplified 2-way system, featuring 400 watts maximum burst power that drives the 12" cone woofer and 1.75" V.C. compression driver. Frequency division is accomplished prior to the power amplifiers via a line-level electronic crossover. This eliminates the problems with loss, distortion, and phase that are virtually unavoidable in conventional passive crossover networks. Another advantage of this type of system is that power can be optimally assigned to the low-frequency and high-frequency units for optimum efficiency as well as smooth, natural balance across the entire audio spectrum.

Both the MSR400 and MSR800W feature LED power indicators as well as clip indicators that warn of impending clipping. This allows the engineer to make appropriate adjustments to the source level.