There seems to be as many ways to approach speaker design as there are speaker designers, but some go to greater lengths to achieve their particular goals. YG Acoustics is one such intrepid explorer.
These lengths are best represented by the company’s BilletCore Drivers. From YG:
Our BilletCore cones start life as massive slabs of aircraft-grade aluminum alloy. The drivers are then precisely machined down to a few ounces: over 99% of the material is removed as tiny chips for recycling, and only the desired shape remains. The resulting cone retains the original structure and strength of the raw billet, without any of the strain introduced by bending or stamping into shape. They provide unrivaled bandwidth, exceptionally low distortion and the fastest transient response.
The YG Summit, the top of their Peak Series lineup, sport an 18.5cm (7.25″) BilletCore mid-driver and 26cm (10.25″) BilletCore bass driver paired with the YG ForgeCore tweete with a machined custom venting plate in the motor structure which gives the tweeter more power handling and reduces resonances according to YG. The sealed cabinets are designed to be free of internal resonances, which can wreak havoc on the music signal if left untamed.
Here’s YG again:
Sealed cabinet bodies are made from inch-thick dense resin fiber, curved to exact tolerances in custom presses by experienced European workshops. They include advanced bracing and acoustic absorbers which eliminate cabinet resonances and reflections.
Innovative crossover topologies are optimized through complex simulation and countless hours of critical listening. These designs maximize efficiency and ensure the broadest possible compatibility with amplifiers. Crossovers use the highest quality components and are hand-built on circuit boards that YG machines in-house.
It’s worth noting that YG machines their BilletCore drivers and solid aircraft-grade aluminum cabinets employed in the Reference Series using a massive new Flow waterjet cutter and four new DMG-Mori CNC machines. In other words, don’t try this at home. There’s much more to the tech story behind every pair of YG speakers and I recommend a visit to the Technology page on their website to read all about it.
One last bit from YG:
Simulation, measurement and listening form the basis of every YG design, from the first concept sketches to the finest engineering details.
Our approach to simulation is unusual as we look beyond just the loudspeaker: we model the entire audio system, looking at the impact and interactions of all the components and cables right up to the final, elaborate interplay of amplifier, crossover, drive units, cabinet and room. It is only thanks to the practically unlimited compute resources of Amazon’s EC2 and Microsoft’s Azure that this is possible.
The Summit’s fit and finish are first rate and the combination of black aluminum baffle and Balanced Oak veneer in the review samples offer a very pleasing to the eye appearance. Elegant, even, in a muscular ready for action way.
The backsides offer a single pair of low-mass WBT binding posts and badge, while the black aluminum base offers a nice finishing touch. If you get too aggressive with the customary knuckle rap test, your knuckles will resonate while the cabinet nearly silently smiles.
The YG Summit got to spend their nearly 3-month stay playing music on both sides of the Barn’s dual listening areas, a first for the fairly recently setup B-Side that offers a bit more width than the A-Side, roughly 21’ wide versus 18’ with the same 35’ depth, while outfitted as more of a traditional living space with comfy plush furnishings and a coffee table (don’t panic, it doesn’t interfere). Accompanying amplification was provided by the fairly recently reviewed Thrax Enyo Signature integrated amp, the review Audia Flight FL Three S integrated amp (more info), and the Ayre 8-Series Pre/Power combo (more info). The Auralic ARIES G1.1 (review) fed the totaldac d1-unity (review), while the Mola Mola Tambaqui (review) acted as streamer and DAC on the B-Side (full system details).
While all three amplification partners acquitted themselves very nicely playing with the Summits, my favorite power partner was the Ayre KX-8 Preamplifier/VX-8 Power Amplifier combo for its silky smooth powerful richness (more on the Ayre stack in their own review soon), which brought out the best of the Summits on both sides of the Barn.
Micro-controlled intimacy, ultra-clarity, and stunning dynamic punch combined in the Summit’s presentation to carve music in air in Barn. Once properly set up, speaker set up remains one of the most under-appreciated system upgrades imo, it took me some time to settle into the YG’s damn near character-free character. That said, the accompanying amplification did shine through to some extent and as I mentioned, the Ayre gear offered a very nice balance between control, clarity, and richness along with what I’ve come to recognize as Ayre’s signature silken purity. On Mary Lattimore’s Silver Ladders from 2020, these strengths all played out in Barn with stunning clarity, supreme precision, and delightful sparkle and life from Lattimore’s harp. Silver Ladders embodies a very large space, backed by Neil Halstead on synthesizer and guitar, the Summit’s proved more than up to the task of recreating every nook and cranny with billowing perfectly focused beauty.
The opening tracks from Jaimie Branch’s stunning Fly or Die Fly or Die Fly or Die ((world war)) form a perfect set of test tracks with Chad Taylor’s timpani pounding away like thunder on “aurora rising” with the full ensemble coming on strong on “borealis dancing” with Branch’s trumpet ringing out with backing horns, percussion, keyboard, double bass and more as supporting cast. We’re talking about big, bold, complex, largely acoustic music that is highly dynamic and completely captivating and the Summit carved out every voice with supreme solidity and focus for a full figured and wild, wild, ride. The Summit’s have, what is in my experience, a super solidity to their sound that makes Taylor’s timpani feel fully formed and, with the help of the Ayre gear as well as the Audia Flight FL Three S, fully voiced, with the impact on taught skin clearly resounding in the instrument’s hemispherical drum and out into space with a stability and precision that is extraordinary. Startling, if you’re paying attention.
An interesting, if perhaps apples and orangutans (wink), comparison pits the YG’s against the recently reviewed Zu Definition 6 (review) which are the same price in the stock Zu finish. The Definition 6’s high efficiency design coupled with their self-powered sub means they can run on a handful of Watts, like the Octave Audio V 16’s 8W, and they come alive very easily offering that nearly single-driver like in-room presence and extreme jump factor. On the other hand, the Definition 6 can sound a tad wild and wooly when compared to the Summit’s perfectly cool über-control when sending Fly or Die Fly out into the Barn with less micro-focus and ultimate control. I will also say that I don’t think someone interested in a pair of YG speakers will also be looking at speakers from Zu, kinda like suggesting someone thinking about a Mercedes AMG E 63 S Wagon might also be interested in a classic Bronco. Horses for courses.
As we approach the end of another vacation-less summer, I enlisted Welsh-Jamaican singer Aleighcia Scott’s positively bountiful boisterous getaway beats from Windrush Baby, released in August on Black Dub, as staycation travel guide. This is straight ahead Reggae with plenty of bottom end grounding the movement and lighter-than-air Scott vocals and backing band. Once again, the YG’s solidity, control, and dynamic punch-ability brought this music to larger than life in Barn, with every last bit of energy and fit, fully voiced bass converted into waves of delight. Percussive smacks rang out with life-like force and impact while a kinda syrupy sax solo sang out over the top with full voice and clarity. As was the case with a lot of the music I played through the Summit’s during their months-long visit, I found myself turning the volume up and up again to fully feel, in a visceral way, the impact of Aleighcia Scott & Co. Even at higher than normal levels, the Summit kept their cool, unflappable sound.
Olivier Messiaen’s Quatuor pour la fin du temps is among the most moving pieces of music I know and this recording on Deutsche Grammophon from 2006, ripped from CD, featuring Luben Yordanoff, Albert Tétard, Claude Desurmont, and Daniel Barenboim is the version I know best. Violin, cello, clarinet, and piano speak to faith over horrors and the Summit, driven by Ayre, brought these voices, sorrows, and hope to life in rich, full voice. Desurmont’s clarinet solo on “Abîme Des Oiseaux” perfectly highlighted the Summit’s ability to deliver its full voice, its fullness of body, and of greatest import, Desurmont’s skill at conveying humanness against all odds. These musicians sounded so perfectly dimensional, so perfectly carved in space, that the escape from the cares of the day to the triumph of Messiaen’s music was as effortless as falling in a dream.
I’d like to remind readers that, while I highlight just a handful of records here, the YG’s reproduced countless albums and ‘test tracks’, the latter consisting of music I love and know exceedingly well, some having served this purpose for decades. My tastes and inclination also means that a wide variety of music got to play with the Summit for hours and weeks to my great delight. This experience, over weeks and months, allowed me into the soundworld of the Summit, which proved to be as vast, deep, richly detailed down to every last micro-movement, and as enticing as the music they reproduced. The Summit’s stunning clarity and focus also means that scale, the differences between very tiny musical things and very big musical things, was always perfectly captured and communicated.
My time with the YG Summit proved to be an exercise in physically-induced delight. The Summit are, without doubt, among the most solid, punchy, and precise speakers I’ve had the pleasure to live with in Barn, while digging deep into the detail and delicacy of every bit of the wild variety of music I sent their way. The Summit are clearly engineered to act as pure conduit of music’s power and beauty which they deliver with music-inspired authority.
YG Acoustics Summit Loudspeakers
Price: $25,000/pair
Company Website: YG Acoustics
Specifications
Speaker Type: 3-way passive floor standing speaker
Drivers: ForgeCore tweeter, 18.5cm (7.25″) BilletCore driver, 26cm (10.25″) BilletCore driver
Frequency Response: 24Hz – 40kHz
Impedance: Average 4 Ohms, Minimum 2.4 Ohms
Sensitivity: 90dB
Dimensions: 44.7 x 12.2 x 19.7″ (H x W x D) | 1135 x 310 x 500mm (H x W x D)
Weight: 159lbs each | 72kg each
