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"This is a gem, pretty surprising results from a "single speaker"" on by busychild
Pros: A really cool concept when dealing with a odd shaped room or finished carpentry
Cons: Most definately need the sub-woofer
Summary: Those of us in the business of designing, sellling and installing home theater systems have a tough time when it comes to irregular room shapes, equipment tucked into a corners or finished carpentry. Custom installation is sometimes not cheap or easy especially when the home is complete. Customers sometimes are unwilling to move the equipment around, but on the same token want that true "Home Theater" experience.
The Yamaha offers a unique solution for that type of client as well as the wealthly college students dorm-room. The ability to "steer" the sound towards the listening position is really this devices claim to fame: Can you say "REFLECTIONS".
You can program it with its onscreen display and EZ setup. Input your rooms diminsions, and speakers location in that room as well as other neat features. It has terrific in all of its four modes (5-beam mode, Stereo mmode, 3-beam mode and 3-beam + stereo mode) sound and a suprising ammount of power, 120 watts to be specific. The rear panel has 2 optical inputs, 1 coaxial digital input and 2 analog inputs, 1 sub woofer out and a RS232C interface.
It is a pretty neat system. Pricey, but look at the alternatives: tons of wiring, potentially a fair bit of custom installation, the cutting open of the walls or ceilings. Custum installation is not cheap. Hum: What to do. -
"Unbelievable sound" on by BigDaddyJP7983
Pros: You can't believe the surround sound from one speaker
Cons: Difficult to hide wires
Summary: I first heard the YSP-1 paired with a Definitive SuperCube sub, and decided to purchase it. It is a truly amazing speaker, and puts out as much sound as you could ever want in anything but the most advanced Home Theatre system. Your "significant others" will like the fact that there are no more speakers or wires hanging around their living room, and the directional sound is pretty incredible from anywhere in my 20 by 15 room. It does need a sub with it, but anybody who is buying this likely has one already. The wall mount looks really great, but if you place the speaker under your wall-mounted TV, the mount does not have an area where the TV cables can pass through. This is not really a problem with a sheetrock wall, but I had to build a wood spacer so that the cords would fit behind the speaker. I urge anyone who is interested to go to their nearest high end dealer and listen to this speaker, then get ready to remove 6 speakers, an A/V receiver and all of the clutter in your living room.
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"I love my YSP-1" on by pstrauss
Pros: Awesome surround sound from one box
Cons: Wish the speaker grille was black, not silver
Summary: On Dolby Digital and DTS encoded sources, Sound quality is excellent. 5.1 separation is pretty good, but localization of sounds is not as distinct as a dedicated speaker/receiver setup. I think part of this could be due to my odd shaped listening environment. In general, movie sources sound better than most HTiB's and small systems that I've heard.
>It's really amazing to be able to play with the locations of the virtual "speakers". My favorite feature is that you can make it sound like the dialog channel is actually BEHIND the screen. This is a real boon to those of us with non-projection environments.
>On sources such as digital or analog stereo TV and analog music sources (i.e. an iPod in my setup), sound is pretty good, but not as rich and full as a pair of decent bookshelf speakers hooked up to a decent receiver (I previously had a pair of Klipsch Synergy SB-1s hooked up to a Pioneer VSX-814K).
>"Center" channel sound is excellent, and dialog is very clear even at very low volume levels. I didn't even need to use the dynamic range compression "Night" mode for this. I do have to say that the center lacks a little at conveying the lower tones in voices (especially on non 5.1 source material), but I'll take that trade-off for clear dialog. I'm guessing that playing with the equalization might help. (BTW: you can independently adjust Bass and Treble for each virtual "speaker" - sweet)
>This puppy can get incredibly loud without distorting. I couldn't get it to clip at any volume level short of ear-bleed. That said, a subwoofer is a must if you want anything resembling true bass or LFE. I added on an inexpensive Infinity 8" model, and it sounds great.
>I have a non-standard listening environment (i.e. no right hand wall near the listening area, and a back wall with lots of jogs in it and some furniture there - see earlier post). It was a little difficult to get the sound "beams" calibrated given this situation, and I'm still not completely satisfied. I was able to get pretty good surround imaging, but I'm still struggling with getting the Right Front channel localized. It still seems a little vague in its location (like an out-of-phase speaker). Part of the difficulty with setup seems to be that the pink test noise is a little hard to pinpoint for my ears. I'd love to have some fixed frequency test tones instead, as I think that would allow me to adjust the beam locations with greater precision.
>The setup screens on the OSD are EXTREMELY HIGH CONTRAST (white text on bright blue background), and are static. I hate leaving these up on my plasma screen while tweaking, as I'm afraid they might burn in. Unfortunately, all of the fine-tuning settings are only accessible through the OSD. I think this is a problem with many receivers, so it's really not the fault of Yamaha. I just wish more manufacturers would recognize this as an issue, and think of ways to reduce that risk with equipment that's very likely to be hooked up to a plasma tv. I guess the best solution would be to buy a crappy little portable monitor, and hook it up to that for tuning.
> It's physically imposing. You definitely need a substantial surface to mount it on. In my environment, it's on a tabletop in front of the plasma tv. I'm really considering wall mounting everything now to give things a cleaner look. I wish that a black grill would be offered as an option. My TV and furniture are all black, so this would be a nice option, and would make it less imposing. Perhaps Yamaha will offer this as an accessory at some point.
>The "sweet spot" for the virtual surround channel is definitely wider than other systems I've seen. From all three cushions of my sofa, the effect is quite good. I have another chair that's way off center in the room, and it even gets some of the surround effect.
In general, despite my minor criticisms, I'm pleased so far. I still need to work out some of the weird acoustics in my room, and you'll definitely will want to tweak your setup beyond the "automatic" beam settings, unless you have a perfectly square or rectangular room with no substantial irregularities. -
"Excellent surround sound effect" on by tetherdown
Pros: Getting rid of all those wires
Cons: It's still only one box, but it's a big box
Summary: Love the idea of getting rid of all the wires, and this has garnered fab reviews in the UK where it's flying off the shelves. I've heard a demo and thought it sounded fab.
Yamaha YSP1 Digital Sound Projector user reviews
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Results 1-4 of 4
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