Review of Yamaha YSP-4000 Digital Sound Projector

Today, at one of our distributor's trade shows, I got to see Yamaha's exclusive sound projection technology in action. Admittedly, I was surprised. Their beam technology, present in the YSP-4000, is truly astonishing firsthand. I, like you, was skeptical that a sound "bar" could really give you the surround sound experience that you get with separate speakers. I found out that this technology is much better than I initially thought.

As soon as I stood in the middle of the 5-beam feed from the YSP-4000, I thought for sure they had connected some rear speakers. I turned around; only to find...

it was merely an upright sign that the sound beam was bouncing off of. This was incredible enough on it's own, but then I asked about the tech behind this sound focuser's tricks, and things got really interesting.

Rocking built-in digital amplifiers, which power 40-2W directional speakers and 2-40W stationary ones, this bar servers ups more variety than you local pub ever will. A variety of beam settings means the sound can be directed in a myriad of ways. The most useful of which is the YSP-4000’s directional mode; with this mode the sound can be directed to one area while the other areas of the room receive very little of the sound. If you love loud, but your companion would rather have quiet this Yamaha is a perfect solution. Best of all, you don’t have speaker placement and wires to contend with.

You have to get a Subwoofer to get the full home theater experience, but if you’re looking for the perfect partner for your new HD flat panel television, this is the one.

Other specs include: XM Satellite Radio Ready including XMHD surround, analog video to HDMI Upconversion, HDMI Upscaling (up to 1080i), Dolby Digital, DTS, Neural, and proprietary surround processing.