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.
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No, not the LCD...the Sound Projector

[image courtesy Yamaha]

posted by Andrew Harris

Now I preface this post by asking all audiophiles not to cringe in disgust. Its another all-in-one audio unit. Yamaha, with the YSP-3000, hopes to make some multi-speaker system shoppers convert and embrace their vision of surround sound. Which is a singular sound projection unit. It uses all the latest innovations from a variety of renowned sound labs. These technologies simulate a multi-speaker system's sound, without the wires or the installation contractor.

The beams of sound shooting out the thing effectively make it true multi-channeled. What can you listen to on it? The Yamaha YSP-3000 sound projector has more connections than a Columbian drug lord...mini-jack, HDMI, XMHD ready, FM tuner, and an iPod interface(w/YDS-10 dock)all presented in a deceptively simple package.

I don't think that sound system installers are going to lose sleep over this one. Although, if you're short on space(as many city dwellers are)than this sound system could be a valuable space saver. I mean really, if you're so short on space that you're TV is two feet away from you couch...than you mostly likly don't need powerful multi-speaker sound system. So this makes perfect sense.

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