Customer Reviews

Yamaha YSP-800 82-Watt Digital Sound Projector, Black

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This unit is simply amazing! I first heard the original YSP-1 in December 2005 in a professional sound room at a local hi-end audio store. During the demo, the sound was actually coming from behind and next to me! I was in wonder. The clarity was amazing. The only thing that kept me from buying right then and there was the price tag of $1500.

So when I saw the new models online, and a price tag of nearly half the original (I actually got mine for less than half :o) I just had to put it on my list. And this one sounds even better!

Plus, no wires is key! And the look is simple elegance. Plus, to see the look on a friend's face when he hears the surround sound and can't find any speakers back there is priceless!

The cleancher for me was when I played the first "top sound quality" dvd - The Last Samurai. I almost jumped off the couch during the battle scene. This speaker rocked the house! Far surpassing the clarity of my past $400 Sony and Panasonic 6-speaker systems. And I didn't even have Yamaha's matching subwoofer yet.

Don't be dissuaded by the stringent room set up. My livingroom has one side wall of glass windows, and one broken wall with a couch. And still the sound comes from all around. With just a little thoughtfulness and tweaking (and the simple automatic microphone setup), I got full surround.

Now, I have the matching YST-FSW100 subwoofer. GET IT! This allows the speaker to focus solely on hi and midrange sounds and lets the deep base to the sub. So much better sound.

Just the idea that one speaker can do such an amazing feat is worth the purchase in my mind. And it does it so well. Five Stars Yamaha!

I have lived with the Yamaha YSP-800 for approx. 90 days and I have to say this unit does exactly what was expected of it.

Many years ago I was considered an audiophile by most of my friends spending obscene amounts on vacum tube pre-amps and amplifiers, turntables, tonearms, moving coil and strain gauge cartridges and exotic speakers of various vintages. At one time my vinyl collection contained over 3000 albums. Currently my music system is much simpler consisting of a receiver, dvd player for music, Infinity floor standing speakers, and a decent Boston Accoustics sub-woofer. I probably don't have the golden ears I read about in some of the remaining hi-fi magazines, but I can usually tell whether equipment sounds close to right which includes qualities like tonal accuracy and balance, sound stage, and depth. In the 1980's my hi-fi equipment was worth over $15,000.00 and included some of the cult names of the time. Currently I have the best sound ever. It comes close to sounding like real music, and is the least expensive system I have had since my early 20's. Total value under $3,000.

My wife and I are empty-nesters and decided to move from an estate sized home we had custom built in 1988 to a condo. Part of the old home design included a family room optimized for home theater and hi-fi sound. My hi-fi equipment ranging from expensive to reasonable, plus various large screen and hi-definition televisions all performed great in the room which also served as a gathering place for my son and his friends during his adolescent and teenage years.

We have now moved to a condo and experienced major lifestyle change. Our new home is open, bright and airy. Every room opens off a large living area which includes a living room and dining room with vauted ceilings throughout. There is also a den, and sunroom which open from this area with double wide doors. Things look beautiful, but all of the long walls i had grown accustomed to for 19 years were not there. No built-in bookcases for books, CD's and DVD's. No long walls for entertainment equipment. No back wall for surround sound. The solution for hi-fi was easy as our sun-room became the reading and listening room with excellent results. However, no room there for our plasma HDTV. In fact there was only one logical spot in the whole place for a large screen TV which was in one corner of the living room. We had a custom built cabinet for the TV built and it extends from just beyond the door facing leading into the sun room to a set of double wide windows on the opposite side. There is no spot for speakers outside of the cabinet.

The first week in the new condo my wife and I both noticed that we had to crank the internal speakers from the plasma TV way up to have decent volume. This was probably the first time I had listened to TV speakers in decades. They have improved, but they sure weren't good. Over the next 3-4 months I examined numerous possibilities for hi-fi sound with the home theatre, but almost everything had drawbacks whether esthetically or sonically.

After reading a review of the Yamaha Sound Projector, I went to a local Best Buy that included a Magnolia home theater section to listen to the large Yamaha Sound Projector. I was impressed by the sound and the dynamics. It was clean and the various surround modes were impressive. I asked to hear the unit in stereo-only mode and the help at Best Buy really didn't want to help. After I explained that my new home had almost no walls for sound reflection, the sales person was sure that the Yamaha wound not work as it needed walls to reflect from. He wanted to come to the house and give me an estimate for a custom in wall system. I told him there would be no walls to mount his in-wall system into and that all of the rooms had vauted ceilings that would make the installation even harder. All I wanted was decent sound from my plasma TV. I would be satisfied with decent mono or stereo and didn't require 5, 6, or 7 channels like I had at my old home. Bottom line, I decided not to do business with Best Buy. This is not the first time that I have been ready to spend money at a Best Buy, but the sales help knew what was best for me and didn't want to sell me what I wanted. Three years ago they even missed out on a laptop PC sale because I wasn't going to pay them $65 to set the unit up for me. I explained that I worked with computers for over 30 years and had been a senior systems analyst for the last 19 and was perfectly capable of setting up my own computer. He said Best Buy didn't want to sell home computers unless they set it up and that did I know that I could get over 3000 viruses by just plugging the unit into the AC in the wall. I did not have the time or patience to try to explain things to this young man and drove down the street and purchased the same unit, same price from Circuit City who also gave me 24 month interest free financing. Does Best Buy train these people this way or do they dream this stuff up on their own. And yes I worry about security as I have seen various computer threats bring down whole corporations. Enough of my rant about Best Buy.

I returned home and reviewed additional articles and tests on various iterations of the Yamaha Sound Projector. I decided to order the model YSP-800 with the associated sub-woofer through Amazon and J&R Music World. J&R shipped my order free and it arrived within about 4 days. I initially unpacked only the speaker, made the connections and began the setup process. The Yamaha setup process is very good and when complete the speaker is ready to use. The unit was mounted inside the new corner cabinet flush with the doors and directly below the screen of the plasma TV.

My first impression was that decent sound had returned to my home theater. My wife and I put some favorite DVD's on, watched and listened and were favorably impressed. I used some of the manual setup features at this point to change the unit from it's default of three-channel beamed sound to basic two-channel stereo. I also entered information concerning the shape and dimensions of the room. This was not a side by side A/B test, but we both felt the sound was more solid and defined and would definitely play loud enough on any of our source material without strain. With only a few minor changes, this setup has remained for the last 90 days.

One thing most reviewers had warned about was the lack of bass since the YSP-800 comes with two smallish 5-inch woofers. My initial impression was that the bass was accurate and smooth down to it's cutoff point. I never heard any stress while playing movies with loud, deep bass content. No, it did not have the impact of my regular system including the sub-woofer, but it did what I expected. I added the subwoofer about one week after the initial install of the YSP-800 and adjusted the crossover and output for balance with the main system. The Yamaha sub-woofer is not a sub-woofer in the truest sense. It is however a well made good, clean woofer and gives good response somewhere into the upper parts of the lowest octave. It also fits easily into our decor and integrates perfectly with the sound projector.

Overall, this was an excellent investment. I have good, hi-fidelity sound while viewing television which was my goal. Both units are well-made and since the main unit is hidden behind doors with the plasma TV when not in use and the subwoofer is unobtrusive against a wall (recommended placement) behind a queen anne chair, they get high ratings on the spousal approval meter.

My only complaint was the fact that I have multi-device remotes included with every piece of equipment in the house. They all brag about how they can control up to 5 or 7 components. They all include codes for all sorts of Yamaha (and other) equipment. Yet, I could not get a sinle one to work with the Yamaha Digital Sound Projector. I contacted Panasonic (plasma TV & DVD), Scientific Atlanta (Hi-Def Cable/DVR) and neither could find a Yamaha code to work with the new speaker. I then contacted Yamaha and had a nice conversation with a congenial young man who told me that he had the same problem with almost identical equipment and Yamaha did not have any codes to work on any of my existing remotes. He did tell me he was using one of the Logitech Harmony remotes and that solved all of his problems. I really didn't want to spend an additional $120 for a new remote but broke down and purchased the least expensive model that included DVR functions. As the young man from Yamaha promised, the Logitech did control everything. There were also other advantages to the Logitech remote such as turning on or shutting off all components with a single button and setting up activities such as watch DVR where the remote controls picture and input via the TV, cable channel and DVR functions from the Scientific Atlanta unit, and last but not least, sound from the Yamaha Digital Sound Projector.

Recommended.

Before you even think about buying this, Is your furnature up against the walls with no hope of ever re-arranging your furnature?. If no, go buy something else. Seriously, I heard this thing in Best Buy and I was blown away and my thought was "If it sounds this good in a warehouse, its gonna sound incredible at home!"... Well it wasnt what I expected, but it still is damn good. This is a fine piece of equipment IF you have the right set up... If your main point of viewing your TV is on a couch in the middle of the living room this is going to sound great because the sound can bounce off the walls behind you and back to your ears, but that is NOT going to happen if your furnature is up against the walls... trust me! Also, if you buy this unit dont even think about it unless you plan on getting a Sub-woofer with it... the sound its a million times better with it and you definitely get more of the theater experience... without it, it sounds like a very nice speaker... one final note: The louder you play this thing, the better it sounds no doubt about it...

This is an unusual product, and it sounds quite good speakerwise. Basically-what your geting here is a home theater receiver and speakers all in one box which conceptually is a great idea. No wires! Especially if like myself you live in small quaters-on paper-it sounds like the perfect solution.

With the supplied microphone-the unit very easily acousticly adjusts automatically to your room's physical dimensions. So far so good. But here comes the but or however.

It uses the walls of the room to replicate back surround speaker by bouncing a an acoustical signal off the wall. If you live in small space there's hardly a bare wall. And hence-the sound signal hits obstructions. Now-if you have a dedicated room-you're in business. The more spartan the room-the freeer it is of obstructions and the better the unit performs.

That said-it does sound very good and does what it says it will do. But does one have the unobstructed space to allow this unit to really deliver as advertised. And I should note-Yamaha is honest about it. They say-in their literature-the barer the room-the better the sound. Your call.

I live in an apartment and my home theater system was taking up so much room. I had two floor standing speakers a huge subwoofer, receiver and center speaker. I wanted to clear up some space so I purchased this. It's a replacement for a home theater system that cost me about twice as much.

Setup was extremely easy. You attach the included microphone and place it in the listening area. It takes less than 15 minutes. It's so nice having an auto-configuration instead of using a specialized DVD such as AVIA to do this.

No, it doesn't sound better than my $1500 home theater system, but it sounds good, even great. The best thing about this is it makes everything so simple. No receiver and very few cables.

I do have a subwoofer attached to this, so be sure to get one for it. They are not expensive at all. I don't know how well this sounds without one.

When I move into a house and can get a home theater room set up, I might switch back to my old speakers, but then again I might just stick with this! I love not having to mess with all those confusing cables and connections on my receiver.

My one and only complaint is that there is no way that i'm aware of to connect headphones. I like that option sometimes, especially late at night when I want to turn up something loud without annoying my neighbors.

The price is ok. It's not very good, but not bad. I still doubt though a home theater system at this price range could sound better.

4-23-2007 UPDATE:

I still use this every single day. I like this thing so much that i'll probably use it until it goes dead. I live in an apartment and that's one reason why, but i'll still use it when I move into my new house later this year I think. One negative about this is that I've run out of inputs. Yamaha also needs to add a way add headphones. A receiver has that option, so why doesn't this? Maybe i've missed it.

I've been itching to build a mini theater in our bedroom since I upgraded our TV to a 32' LCD HDTV about a month ago. I've considered a few "theater in a box" but the wife WILL NOT approve of speaker wires around the bedroom and space is also at a premium. I auditioned the Bose 3-2-1 and Cinemate at a local electronic store but was not too impressed by either. The surround simulation was okay but the limited source inputs was really what turned me off on the Bose. That's when I found the Yamaha YSP-800 on the next demo kiosk. The demo wasn't too impressive since these sound projectors utilize walls to bounce off the sound to create that surround effect. Long story short, I took one home to try it out in our bedroom. I've never owned a Yamaha but I know they have a decent presence in home entertainment. The speaker was well packaged and came complete with everything you need for multiple device set up. If you are an "electronically impaired" consumer, you will love this product! The set up was as easy as it can get. The supplied sound optimizer microphone does all the work for you during Auto Set Up. It automatically configures the "best" possible sound based on your room's acoustics.

Connections and Adjustments:
There are 2 analog, 2 optical and 1 coaxial inputs and 1 system connector. I've used them all including the video and subwoofer outputs. It also has a plethora of DSP and non DSP modes (5 Beam, 3 Beam, St+3 Beam, Stereo, Target, Music, Movie, Sports, Night, etc.) which can be directly accessed through the remote control. The system menu also allows you to perform manual and automatic sound adjustments where you will likely be spending the most time on adjusting the sound to your liking.

The Tests:
After making all my adjustments, I immediately played a favorite CD and was delighted to hear how good it sounds. It creates a wide soundstage and the mid and high tones were crisp and clean.
Okay...let's see how it does with movies. I popped in Star Wars Episode III just because it was the DVD closest to me. Wow...the surround effect was very convincing and the dialogues were crystal clear while accurately distributing the low frequencies to the subwoofer. It was amazing to hear all that sound coming from a single speaker enclosure. I spent a few more minutes jumping scenes on Star Wars before playing my ultimate test material, The Eagles Farewell I Concert DVD set on DTS mode. All of the songs sounded great particularly "You Belong to the City" and "Hotel California". Once I heard those 2 songs, I knew then that my test was over and the speaker was not going back to the store! The YSP-800 successfully simulated the distinct DTS sound separation I expect from a DTS decoder.

The Verdict:
The Yamaha YSP-800 may not perform like a complete 5.1 home theater set up but it sure does a pretty darn good job pretending to be like one. Overall, I'm happy with my purchase and would recommend it to anyone:
* Looking to use it in an enclosed symmetrical environment
* Who doesn't like having multiple speakers and the hassle of wiring them

Other Recommendations:
* Yamaha YST FSW100 Subwoofer (see my review)
* Logitech Harmony Universal Remote Control

Awesome sound and easy setup. Unless your a person who listens to every noise, every sound, looking for perfect seperation for each channel this is the perfect setup. Just make sure to add a subwoofer and you wont be sorry at all. This will impress anyone who hears it. Go ahead invite over your friends to hear and they wont believe it. Much less complicated then figuring out how to run wires and where to mount the speakers.

I am very well pleased with the sound from the YSP-800. Now, I'm just an average guy, no audiophile here, just someone who goes by what he hears. I listened to one of these units in a store's listening room and I was impressed by the sound quality and separation. It sounds as good in my 12'x16' room. Based on other reviews I purchased the subwoofer that Yamaha suggests for this speaker, the YST-FSW100. Also, I really like the clean and simple look this sound system provides. The Mizzico cabinet that is specifically made for the speaker makes is wonderful piece of furniture for housing the speaker and the whole entertainment system. I must admit not having to deal with rear speakers and running speaker wires was a big plus for me. If you have similar requirements this is a very worthwhile consideration.

One negative issue I had was the remote control did not fully operate. For example, the sound volume worked, but the mute button did not. Getting a replacement was not a problem through Amazon.

I just received this product from Amazon...for only $350ish. It sounds great, does everything advertised and best of all...1 speaker. Now I don't have to worry about my 2 year old messing with all the speaker wires, etc for a full surround system. It sounds as good as my older (about 8 years now) surround system. I am sure there is better sound to be had but at a price and many speakers. This is perfect for me as I am trying to go "minimalist" in my living room.

Yes everybody says this unit is not the same as the 5 or 7 speaker systems. They are right, but consider a 15 minute hookup with auto setup that actually worked. No wires to trip over or remodel the whole room to hide all wires etc. This makes for a very happy wife. I also did add the Yamaha YST 100 subwoofer and definitely got enough sound for our needs. The units are well built a complete steel covering, nice no plastic. We have a Toshiba Regsa TV, this soundbar sits right in front of the TV as TV is big enough the soundbar does not block bottom of the viewing screen or the remote input on TV. At the stage of life we are at (seniors) We wanted something that when watching Transformers or King Kong would not blast us out of the room, and we did not have to hire somebody to install the unit. You know how inept seniors are, now if I could just learn how to program my VHS.