I added the Yamaha NX-70A to the database this week. It is a pair of powered speakers with an HDMI socket in the back of one of them, 3,000 dollars, and it is Yamaha's first wireless system for a decade.
The Yamaha NX-70A, a two-way powered stereo system with HDMI eARC
Adding it meant checking a number, and that is where this stopped being a simple new-product post.
Quick facts
- The Yamaha NX-70A is 3,000 dollars a pair. The matching stands are another 500.
- Each speaker has 160 watts in it: 100 to the woofer, 60 to the tweeter.
- It does HDMI eARC, YPAO room calibration, Roon Ready and MusicCast.
- We now list 31 speakers with an HDMI input, and 15 of them do eARC.
- Our own feature page said 24 until this week. Six speakers were missing from it.
What the NX-70A actually is
Two speakers, one of which does all the work. The primary one holds the inputs and the streaming board. The secondary one connects to it, either over wi-fi or over a three metre LAN cable that Yamaha puts in the box.
Each cabinet is a two-way with a 5.25 inch woofer and a 1.25 inch dome tweeter, both made from what Yamaha calls Harmonious Diaphragm, a blend of ZYLON and the same spruce it uses in grand piano soundboards. Each speaker gets 160 watts of its own amplification, split 100 watts to the woofer and 60 to the tweeter.
The connections are the point. HDMI with eARC and ARC, optical, a 3.5mm analogue input, ethernet, USB-A, a subwoofer output and a socket for the YPAO measurement microphone. Yamaha supplies that microphone, plus a cardboard stand to hold it, which is more than most makers do.
The primary speaker's back panel, with the HDMI socket marked TV
Streaming is the full modern list: AirPlay 2, Google Cast, Spotify Connect, TIDAL Connect, Roon Ready, internet radio, UPnP and Bluetooth. MusicCast handles multi-room.
Yamaha NX-70A Powered Bookshelf Speaker Key Specs
- 2-way Bass Reflex Design
- 1.25" Dome Tweeter
- 1 x 5.25" Harmonious Diaphragm (ZYLON and spruce) Woofer
- 50-35k Hz Frequency Response
- 160-watt RMS Integrated Amplifier
- Built-in Bluetooth
- HDMI eARC Input
- Ethernet Port
- mono-RCA Subwoofer Output
- Handheld Remote
- App Control Feature
- Roon Ready
- Weight:11.90 lbs / 5.40 kg
- Dimensions (H x W x D): 13.125" x 7.5" x 9.25" / 333.0 x 189.0 x 234.0mm
- Read the Review
The spec Yamaha publishes that most makers would noth
Here is the line I liked. Yamaha gives the frequency response twice.
50 Hz to 35 kHz with the two speakers wired together. 50 Hz to 21 kHz with them connected wirelessly. Both at -10 dB.
So the wireless link, the feature the whole product is sold on, costs you the top of the treble. Yamaha prints that itself rather than quoting the better number and hoping nobody asks. If you buy these, run the supplied cable between them unless the room makes it impossible.
A wireless link between two speakers is a compromise, not a free upgrade. Yamaha is unusual in publishing what it costs. Most brands publish one number and do not say which connection it applies to.
The recount, and what our page was getting wrong
Our Speakers with HDMI Input page said 24 before this week. That number was wrong, and not because of a filter bug. Fifteen powered speaker rows carried no value in the HDMI field at all, neither yes nor no, and a blank reads as a no to every filter that touches it.
Six of those fifteen do have HDMI:
Four of those six are newer than anything the page was showing. A reader looking for a speaker they could plug into a television with one cable was being shown a list that quietly excluded four of the newest options, including a 4,000 dollar KEF.
Two of them were also carrying wrong numbers, which nobody would have spotted while the rows were invisible. The Q Active 400 was listed at 799 dollars against a real price of 2,999, and the Cambridge was dated 2023 when it was announced at CES in 2026. Both are fixed.
The PSB iQ1 at 999 dollars, one of the six speakers with HDMI eARC that our own feature page was not showing
ARC or eARC, and why the split matters
With the NX-70A added, the list stands at 31. Of those, 15 handle eARC and 16 are plain ARC.
The difference is real for anyone who watches films. ARC carries compressed audio. eARC carries enough data for lossless formats, so it is the one that matters if your television is passing on a Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD soundtrack. If you are only sending it a music app and the news, ARC is fine.
Three speakers on the list go further and give you two HDMI ports each: the Klipsch The Fives II, The Sevens II and The Nines II. That lets you attach a games console alongside the television without a switch box.
The list also is not only powered speakers any more, which is how it was framed when we first wrote about this in 2023. Four of the 31 are conventional-looking passive-style cabinets with amplification hidden inside: both Focal Divas and both Fluance Ri models. The span runs from the Onkyo GX-30ARC at 349 dollars to the Focal Diva Mezza Utopia at 69,000.
| FEATURE and SPECS COMPARISON | |  |  |  |
| Model | Yamaha NX-70A | KEF LS50 Wireless II | KEF LS LUXE |
| Speaker Type | Powered Bookshelf | Powered Bookshelf | Powered Bookshelf |
| Driver Setup | 2-way | 2-way | 2-way |
| Max Power (RMS) | 160 watts | 380 watts | 380 watts |
| Tweeter | 1.25" Dome Tweeter | 1" Hard-Dome Tweeter | 1" Hard-Dome Tweeter |
| Woofer | 1 x 5.25" Harmonious Diaphragm (ZYLON and spruce) Woofer | 1 x 5.25" Woofer | 1 x 6.5" Woofer |
| Frequency Range / Low | 50Hz | 45Hz | 42Hz |
| Frequency Range / High | 35kHz | 28kHz | 28kHz |
| Height | 333.0mm | 277.8mm | 336.0mm |
| Width | 189.0mm | 200.0mm | 223.0mm |
| Depth | 234.0mm | 322.3mm | 298.0mm |
| Weight | 5.40kg | 20.10kg | 20.00kg |
| Ethernet Port | | | |
| MSRP(pair) | 3000USD | 2999USD | 4000USD |
| Check Current Price | Amazon | Amazon | Amazon |
Where the NX-70A is hard to recommend
Three things, and none of them is about the sound, which I have not heard.
The price bracket is brutal. At 3,000 dollars the NX-70A lands on top of the KEF LS50 Wireless II, which is 2,999 and has been the reference in this category since 2020. The KEF LS Luxe is 4,000. And the Yamaha stands are 500 dollars extra, which the KEF stands also are, so that is a wash rather than an advantage.
Yamaha does not publish an amplifier class or a DAC specification. Not the amplifier topology, not a sample rate, not a bit depth. Reviews quote figures for these. Yamaha's own specification table does not, so our row leaves them empty rather than borrowing them.
There is no Yamaha USA page for it. The model is absent from Yamaha's US site and from its US sitemap. The 3,000 dollar figure comes from What Hi-Fi's review. Yamaha's own published price is 2,590 pounds, on sale since July. If you are in North America, check availability before you get attached to it.
The KEF LS Luxe at 4,000 dollars, another speaker with HDMI eARC that our feature page had been leaving out
One loose end we have not tidied
Seven powered speakers in our database still carry no HDMI value at all: the Sonos Era 100 and Era 300, the Klipsch R-40PM, R-50PM and ProMedia Lumina, the Victrola Soundstage and the DALI Oberon On-wall C. I do not believe any of them has an HDMI socket. But I have not opened a manufacturer page for each one today, and writing a "no" I have not checked is how a database ends up asserting things nobody verified. They stay blank until somebody looks.
Questions answered
Which speakers can I plug straight into my television with one HDMI cable?
Thirty-one in our database, from the Onkyo GX-30ARC at 349 dollars upwards. The full list is on our Speakers with HDMI Input page, which is now correct.
Do I need eARC or is ARC enough?
ARC is enough for television sound, streaming apps and stereo music. eARC carries more data, so it is what you want if your television passes through lossless film soundtracks. Fifteen of our 31 do eARC.
Does the NX-70A sound better wired or wireless?
Yamaha's own numbers say wired. The response is 50 Hz to 35 kHz over the supplied LAN cable and 50 Hz to 21 kHz over the wireless link. Yamaha includes a three metre cable for exactly this reason.
What is YPAO?
Yamaha's room calibration. You put the supplied microphone in your listening position, run the routine from the app, and the speakers adjust for the room. On the NX-70A it covers parametric EQ, reflected sound control and volume levelling.
Is the NX-70A related to the WXA-70A?
Only by name and generation. The Yamaha WXA-70A is a streaming amplifier you connect to passive speakers. The NX-70A is a complete system with the amplification inside the cabinets. You would buy one or the other, not both.
Why did your count change?
Because fifteen powered speaker rows had the HDMI field left blank, and a blank behaves like a no. Six of them turned out to have HDMI. Adding those six and the Yamaha took the total from 24 to 31.
If you are shopping for speakers to run from your television, does the ARC and eARC distinction change what you would buy, or is one cable to the TV the only part you actually care about?
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