Yamaha Stagepas 200

Yamaha’s new all‑in‑one speaker packs a lot of sound into a portable package.

As the parent of a musical teenager, I’ve done a bit of research recently on high‑quality, portable, personal PA/backline products. And I’ve come to the slightly surprising conclusion that, apart from the Roland Cube Street EX, there’s not many options out there. So when a Yamaha news story announcing the Stagepas 200 dropped into my inbox I was intrigued. I have some experience of the previously mentioned Roland Cube Street EX, even occasionally using one as double bass rehearsal backline, and know it to be a very capable product, so would the Stagepas 200 offer a viable alternative?

In the flesh, the Stagepas 200 feels like it means business. Somehow, to my mind, there’s something innately purposeful about cube‑shaped products, and the Stagepas 200 presses that button perfectly. The Stagepas 200 also presses my “Oh, that’s neat!” button, because attached to its underside are two dense rubber moulded components that play the role of non‑slip feet while clipped in place, but can be un‑clipped and attached, one to each side, to become floor stands that angle the enclosure upwards, at 30° or 60°. Also neat is that the Stagepas 200 is fitted on one side with a ‘top‑hat’ (35mm diameter) speaker stand hole, so it can potentially be mounted at height. Having the mounting hole in the side usefully ensures that the control knobs remain accessible when the Stagepas 200 is raised. Lifting a Stagepas 200 up onto a speaker pole is not entirely without effort, though, because despite its compact dimensions, it weighs a relatively heavy 12kg, even without its optional 79.9 Watt/hour lithium‑ion battery pack. The surprising weight, though, adds yet more heft to the feeling of serious intent.

Pas The Parcel

Behind its sturdy, perforated metal grille, the Stagepas 200 incorporates a 200mm‑diameter, 50mm voice‑coil bass/mid driver with a concentrically mounted, 25mm‑throat, 31mm voice‑coil horn‑loaded compression high‑frequency driver. Two triangular ports, located in the corners either side of the bass/mid driver, provide reflex loading that extends the low‑frequency bandwidth beyond what would be feasible with a sealed enclosure, and helps reduce bass driver diaphragm excursion. The two drivers are powered by Class‑D amplifiers rated at 150 Watts and 30 Watts for LF and HF respectively, and the crossover between them is specified at 2kHz. Yamaha claim a system frequency response of 60Hz to 20kHz.

Diagram 1: The Stagepas 200’s frequency response, with EQ set flat, measured on‑axis (red trace) and 30° off‑axis (blue).

I took the review Stagepas 200 to my usual speaker measuring space and launched FuzzMeasure to undertake a little acoustics analysis. Diagram 1 illustrates the axial and 30° off‑axis frequency response. Three things stand out. Firstly, despite its various discontinuities, the frequency response is actually somewhat more linear than I expected. It’s not bad at all. Secondly, one of the noticeable bumps in the response is slap‑bang in the middle of the ears’ most sensitive region at 1kHz, so is likely to make a significant contribution to the overall tonality of the Stagepas 200. And lastly, I was also expecting the Stagepas 200 off‑axis response to fall away more quickly than it does as frequency rises. This is another good result, meaning it’s not acutely directional....