Yamaha's contribution to the world of high fidelity has been distinctive, sometimes even distinguished, but also more than a touch patchy, with long barren spells punctuating the infrequent highlights.

The latter include true world beaters such as the CT1000 tuner and the beryllium tweeter equipped NS1000.

But ambitious mainstream high fidelity components have been noticeable by their absence; the new 2000 series components you see here being their first important new introductions for many years.

Yamaha means business

Now the deed has been done, it has, at least, been done properly. First impressions on decanting the two components are that Yamaha really means business. There are no short cuts here. They are unfeasibly heavy, superbly built and have the kind of fit and finish that usually eludes most Western producers, even the more exotic names.

The CD-S2000 is the disc player and is designed to play stereo CDs and SACDs, with outputs in single-edged and balanced form. In common with many other high-end SACD players, there is no provision for multichannel playback. The A-S2000 is a fairly powerful integrated amplifier, subjectively better endowed than the numbers suggest.

Yamaha's notes covering these two product make much of the fundamental technologies. Most amplifiers these days that are not digital use a fully complementary configuration, utilising matched pairs of NPN-PNP transistors.

The ASA21000 uses a different approach, which Yamaha describes as a balanced non-complementary 'pullable' rather than push-pull design that is fully balanced from the input (actually just after the input for the single ended inputs) to just before the speaker terminals.

This is to distinguish it from those amplifiers with balanced in/outputs, but where the internal architecture is single- ended. The configuration has all the usual benefits of balanced operation, in particular rejection of noise on the signal or earth lines imposed from external sources.

Accurate volume control

Yamaha also use a more sophisticated than usual power supply which has constant current and constant voltage characteristics, regardless of the draw placed by the audio circuits.

Also, because the amplifier is not push-pull, but push-only, crossover distortion is not an issue. Mains earthing is separate from the signal returns. Finally, the volume control, bass, treble and bypass switching are all mutually isolated.

Consequences of the design are that the volume control has virtually zero tracking error (even at very low volume levels) and the headphone amplifier is also fully isolated and not potted down from the main output.

The disc player uses most of the same ideas, adapted to the voltage and current requirements of a disc player. In this case, the analogue and digital circuits are completely separated.

The DAC stage uses separate high- precision converters for the +ve and -ve going side of the signal, which are input into isolated low pass filters and transmitted from there to the output in fully balanced form. The player also uses the Pure Direct circuit from Yamaha's home cinema components, which functions to to turn the display and the digital outputs off.

Retro styling

Other points include the use of a number of specialised components, some designed and manufactured specifically for the 2000 series.

The units are extremely heavy, largely due to massive power supplies and, as noted earlier, they have unusually fine standards of fit and finish. The retro-styling of the amplifier in particular is also a talking point.

Another really neat feature is the design of the feet, which are adjustable and have round flat, neodymium magnet-equipped bottom sections which can be removed, exposing spikes. The mechanism and loader are also rather special and feature a 'silent' loader.

SACD performance

On request, Yamaha supplied a pair of the Soavo 1 floorstanding speakers, along with the electronics (which we thought should make a good match) and sure enough they turned out to be right on the button - on price at least.

Other components used included Mordaunt-Short Performance 6 loudspeakers, a Denon DCD-SA1 CD/SACD player and PMA-A1 integrated amplifier and various cables, concentrating this time on the excellent Atlas Mavros balanced interconnects (the single-ended counterpart was also available for comparison) and matching bi-wire speaker cables.

Yamaha make explicit recommendations for running-in both items, with good reason as it turns out - thirty hours for the player and fifty hours for the amplifier - and these were duly observed.

We were curious about some aspects of the Yamaha's performance, first how single-ended might compare to balanced mode interconnections and how SACD compared to CD. This is a particular preoccupation of this writer, because the world of SACD seems to belong almost exclusively to classical music.

Other types of music often use recording techniques that detract from the feeling of naturalness, a quality that is under appreciated these days. We've a particular liking for SACD, but continually hear about the format's supposed inability to 'play tunes'.