Yamaha's association with music dates back to 1887 when they built their first reed organ. And now in the 21 st century, where everything small is big, these Japanese giants have come this far by never having taken a back seat. We got the NX-A01 from their NX series of multimedia peripherals.

They keep it simple to make it exceptionally beautiful. Simple, because the small cube shape forms the base of all the shapes and beautiful because it is. The A01 small cube speaker measures less than your palm on each side and weighs about as much as a tennis ball. Enhancing its simplicity, it does not have any jazzy branches to it. A small circular rocker glows orange on top for the basic controls. It comes in white and black and as it is Yamaha, it obviously has the piano finish.





Technology
The Japanese techies can always flaunt their engineering skills because they are really very good at making very small things very interesting. As far as this speaker is concerned one may ask what can be so interesting in a cube with two titanium speaker units on either side. Well, to see that, you will have to hold it upside down. You will then see a small opening of about 1 cm through which you can see a hinge supported bass port. They call it the 'Swing Radiator' bass port which moves to the vibration of the main diaphragm, efficiently increasing the bass energy. This is better than a normal bass reflex design which has problems such as

bass lag and wind sound. One more interesting addition is the Bluetooth input port and TRX-R01 BT, a Bluetooth adapter which can be paired with any Bluetooth enabled device such as an MP3 player or a mobile phone. Once paired to the TRX-R01 BT, the audio can be streamed through the A01. And if you don't hate wires you always have the 3.5mm stereo jack.

Performance

Plugging the A01 took no time at all. We were up and running two minutes after we opened the box, thanks to the least messy set-up. We made a comprehensive playlist comprising songs from different parts of the world on our desktop and were all set to taste this little piece of cottage cheese. In the first song itself, the A01 gave us a glimpse of its high sound quality which was amazingly rich and full.

As we played the album 'This Binary Universe' by BT we could hear the SR bass port working at its best as it gave a convincing performance in the lower end of the spectrum. The bass was compact and just right enough that it could easily challenge the ones who claim that small multimedia speakers cannot hit the ground because of their small size. The mid-range was apt and crisp whereas the highs were soothing.




We have reviewed many multimedia speakers that crumble as we roll the volume knob to its max. Fortunately, the A01 didn't disappoint us on this front because as we pumped the drivers up, the A01 held on to its tight and compact tonal quality.
Coming to cons, considering the small size of the speakers we were tempted to put them in a backpack and enjoy its company on a hike. But the excitement lasted only until we realised that the A01 did not have any battery pack or charge arrangements. Also it would have been a better deal if the Bluetooth adapter was included in the same pack as the speakers as buying an extra accessory may be regarded as an additional cost to many ... especially because the A01 itself is on the costlier side.

Conclusion
The A01 is an excellent speaker unit with a good frequency response and a nice tonal quality. Its design and style coupled with its small size surely gives it that extra point and if you believe that simple is good, you will surely not regret being an owner of this mini¬master from the grand masters.