Yamaha Audio NS-C210BL Center Channel Speaker - Each (Black)

A great value in a center channel speaker. Compact design but big sound. Takes up very little space, can be wall mounted. Dialogue is crystal clear. Despite small size, pumps out some nice bass. Using with a Yamaha RX-V6A av receiver. It's a real bargain in a great sounding speaker.

Excellent speaker; perfect for center role; crisp sounds (!). Happy with my choice..

I wanted a basic center channel for a 5.1 AV receiver system. The model by Pioneer I preferred had no way to wall hang it. It was very hard to research center channels on Amazon. It was hard to find out which units had wall hanging ability. In a way, I just gave up. This was not as cheap as the better made and better sounding unit I would have preferred but, at least it was clear: this could be hung. Also, the max watts was good for the receiver I have. Also a Yamaha. The look of it is fine. The screen cloth is grey but a dark grey. A plastic criss cross mesh is under the screen. Why they did not make the speaker cover removable is a mystery. I think the one I got was originally part of a kit that included some other surround speakers and this was a leftover from a box that was broken up. The box it came in was plain and looked like it would be in a larger kit box originally. To some degree, this sales tomfoolery pisses me off. Just TELL us it was from a KIT. You will still sell them AND be honest upfront! The unit comes with some velcro things probably a lawyer mandated to keep it in a cabinet. They should have included flat (a millimeter or two), low rubber feet BUILT IN. (Not the kind you stick on as the glue inevitably fails in a few years and you have to replace them anyway.) The cabinet is good quality. It looks and seems like actual wood veneer. But fake veneer can be pretty real looking. Either way, it makes no difference. It looks good and is black. The sound quality, well, not sure what to say. Center channel is all for dialog on surround sound. If you turn on the center channel option after having no center from the start (like me) on your AV receiver, it does play from this speaker. Voices do come from it and music from the LR front speakers. Some (many) people skip the center. Indeed, I'd get a sub woofer way before you got this (if you need or are missing a woofer). The quality if hard for me to judge. A lot depends on the recording quality. I’ll need to watch a bunch of movies in surround with it to see if it makes a difference. Some movies have dialog SO LOW it is ridiculous. I bought this, in part, to see if it would help. There is one issue and, it may be deliberate. Human voice highs, like women talking, end with a high pitch at the end. S words in particular. Equally, low lows like deep deep mens voices seem unnatural. So I trimmed the highs and the lows a tiny bit with the AV receiver EQ on the center channel speaker setting. I have not yet done the final YPAO set up where the receiver sets all that up - need to move a big couch to right spot. But, the YPAO results are often less than perfect too. This is a ported speaker. I have mixed feelings about porting in general. It could be the cause of the male voice low lows being unnatural. If Yamaha made a model like this just a little lower in height, it would fit under many it not most HDTVs on stands. But this one is about .35 inches into the screen area of a Sony Bravia I have. (I’ll end up hanging either the TV or speaker eventually but, Yamaha, you are SO CLOSE! Just make them a little lower… Update: I've used it for a few years. A lot of how good a center is depends on the source. Well microphoned voices are good. Bad mic or bad post processing of the audio = bad voice. This is a good center speaker from a good company. I raised it one star. If the cover came off and it came with decent feet and it was slightly lower and the included cable was a bit better quality, maybe 5 stars.

Very happy with this center speaker. Really improved the dialog and overall sound quality in my 7.1 system.

When I decided to swap out the sound bar I was using as a center speaker (yeah, I know), I looked for a center channel speaker that would be small enough to sit in front of my TV yet good enough to do a better job. Cost was also a factor. I finally settled on this Yamaha speaker, and I don't regret it a bit. The sound is clear with good range, although, of course, the center channel doesn't test sound quality the way the other speakers do, and it works just as well with music and it does with home theater video. I love that it comes with its own speaker wire that has already been scored at the ends so the buyer can just slip off the plastic coating, twist, and connect to a receiver. (Audiophiles will likely want a smaller gauge/thicker wire, but the included wire is perfect for the average consumer.) Note: this is not a powered speaker. You must have an audio receiver to use it. The speaker is 4 1/8" high x 13 3/8" wide x 5" deep, including the grill. -- Debbie Lee Wesselmann

Easy to install, fit perfectly under my tv, sounds great as a center speaker and you can’t find a better speaker for the money.

I've been looking for awhile to find a center channel for the PC to hook up to the receiver. I have a Klipsch bookshelf surround and Klipsch doesn't make a desktop size center. Actually not many manufacturers at all let alone something that's decent quality! So not easy finding a center channel in this size of good quality to fit on a desk that can pair and sound as good as Klipsch bookshelf speakers. This small Yamaha center does very well paired against the Klipsch's. The tone matches so close in fact that I didn't bother with calibration which is a nice surprise. The Yamaha center is a dome tweeter but it does very well against the horns on the Klipsch's and the clarity of dialog is also very good. I don't think it's loud enough to go in anything but a small living room but for my purpose as a desktop center channel it does exceptionally well. Has a nice solid weight to it and supports banana plugs. Overall really pleased with this small center from Yamaha.

Just got this thing delivered yesterday. The retail box was a bit torn, but the speaker was unharmed in its journey. I like that there are two options to hook this thing up to your receiver. You can either push your banana plugs into the terminals in the back or use bare copper wire and insert into the terminal holes and then rotate the knobs to lock down the wires. I docked half a star, because there is no picture of the rear terminals on the Amazon web site. This is for people who are hesitant to put this speaker in their Amazon basket, because they don't know if their wires will work with this speaker. I also docked half a star, because the speaker terminals are pointed up at an angle, therefore your wires will protrude upward and block your view if you mount this in front of your TV. There's a simple fix for this though if you have a standard Phillips screwdriver. Just unscrew the four black Phillips screws in the back and rotate the speaker terminal plate so that the speaker terminals point down and re-secure back the four black Phillips screws you removed. The height of this speaker still blocks 2" of the front of my TV which is just sitting on the factory TV stand on my dresser, so I just put the center channel speaker behind the TV on my dresser. The sound is just as clear and now the speaker does not block my view. I docked a whole star, because you cannot remove the front speaker grill to see the speakers. The front grill is glued to the speaker box. Other manufacturers let you see the beauty inside by letting you remove the speaker cover if you want. Also, the mesh fabric can get torn by accident and it would be nice to know the fabric can be replaced by removing the front cover and taking it to a upholstery fabricator. Also, if a speaker gets damaged it would be nice to be able to remove the front grill cover to replace the blown speaker. Yamaha gets 3 stars, because this unit is smaller than other units I viewed and the voice sound is clear and loud enough to be heard over my loud AC unit in the apartment.