I finally took the plunge and purchased a YSP-1100 along with a Yamaha YST-FSW100PN last week. Two things made me pull the trigger on this vs. a 5/7.1 system: 1) having speakers around the room was not going to please the wife, and 2) ideally those speakers should be at ear-level, which would further complicate things. The YSP (and the TV) are installed a couple of feet just off center flush against one of four walls in a 20' X 20' room, so I felt I had the right room configuration for this.

Installation took about 2 hours, and that is not including the time spent at the electronics store purchasing three component cables and a Toslink digital audio (glass) cable. It only weighs 35 lbs., buy my first impression was, "This thing is heavy!"

First thing I did in installation was connect my satellite receiver (DirecTV HR-20) to the YSP with the component video cables, composite audio cables, as well as the Toslink cable. I was/still am confused why the instructions called for connecting both the Toslink cable and the red/white audio cables, but I did it anyway.

Next was the DVD player (Oppo DV-970HD). I connected the component video cables along with a coaxial digital audio cable. The later came with the YSP and appeared to be just like any other cable with an RCA connection but in this case the connectors are orange.

Connecting the subwoofer to the YSP was just a one wire job which came with the subwoofer. The subwoofer came with another wire to integrate the two systems (i.e., subwoofer powers up/down when the YSP is turned on/off), however, in the YSP instructions it does not allow for this integration.

I then connected the YSP to my TV with the third set of component cables. One of the things I had to go back and do later was to also connect the YSP to my TV with a separate composite (yellow) cable. The setup menu for the YSP will only display on the TV via this cable.

Finally as a redundancy I connected both my satellite and the DVD player directly to the TV via their HDMI connections. Doing the IntelliBeam setup took all of three minutes, and then it was time to hear the results.

At first it was lackluster, but then I took some time to go through the audio setups of the satellite and DVD players. After changing them to output in 5.1, then the results were…stunning?...amazing?...how about pretty good to really good. Amazing would have been my wife reacting the same way she did went from a 27" S-video connected CRT to the 50" 720p plasma. We both still make comments like "That's a great picture!" regarding our plasma TV after having it a couple of months. She does concede that it's better than just the TV's speakers, but the improvement doesn't add much value to her in-home movie experience.

As for me, I think the sound experience takes in-home movies to the next level. I agree with my wife that going HD on the video side was a "WOW!" experience and well worth the $2,500 we put on the counter. This elicits a "cool" response for me and has been worth the $1,200+ we've paid (including extra cables). The sound experience is like a 180 degree zone where you feel like you are hearing things from your 9 o'clock all the way around to your 3 o'clock. In the couple of movies I have watched, I have yet to hear anything that made me want to turn my head behind me. Maybe that's because of an armoire on a side wall or the book case on the back wall. It will be interesting to see in a couple of month after we remove these pieces if the listening experience changes. Maybe I could have enjoyed the same results with a 3.1 system, but again I'm pretty happy with the results so far. Even with a 3.1 the left right speaker needed to be a certain length apart, and we didn't want speakers everywhere.

One of the things that puzzles me is that I am not getting a picture on my TV when I select the YSP as the input via component cables. I have worked around this by selecting the HDMI inputs from the video source directly, but that means all the trouble I went to with the component cables was for naught.

***6-month UPDATE***

My enthusiasm for this product has waned since purchase. There is no rear-channel effect, and only occassionally do I hear a left/right effects. This is setup in a 20' x 20' room - I thought a perfect situation. My wife just considers this "loud", therefore when we're watching a DVD I just keep this off.