Yamaha HT-465HD Theater System
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Does not meet the claim it makes.
Pros
None
Cons
Does not meet the claim it makes.
Recommended it?
No
The Bottom Line:
This is the idea that obviously does not work. Amazing that they try to sell it.
Functionality
The idea of digital sound projector is in using several speakers each "projecting" the sound to another direction, where the sound will reflect from the wall and thus reach the listener from the left or from the right. You can do a simple experiment: while listening to the regular speaker in front of you, take the sheet of cardboard paper, hold it in your right hand upright, slowly turning around the vertical axis - at certain angle, you will hear the sound reflecting from the paper. This is the effect YSP-900 fully relies on. The claim is that you no longer need side and satellite speakers - instead, the sound from these directions will be coming reflected from the walls of your room, emitted by single YSP-900 in the calculated directions. The only other device you may need is the subwoofer.
To caululate these directions, YSP-900 uses calibration process where its internal computer finds out the dimensions of the room, thus adjusting the parameters of the directional speakers. During the calibration (which is called "auto-setup"), you place the microphone (included) in the position of the listener, connect it to the device, and then the speaker emits series of sounds that are "heard" by the microphone, so the device adjusts itself. This takes about 3 minutes.
While this sounds accurate in theory, on practice, unfortunately, it simply does not work. Here's why:
1. if you made the experiment with the sheet of paper above, you probably realized that besides the sound reflected form the paper, you still hear the sound from the original speaker. When you are listening to regular multi-speaker system, the sound from the right is coming only from the right speaker. In this case, it means that you should only hear the sound after it reflects from the wall, and not at all the original speaker. Unfortunately, this is impossible. Of course, you still hear the original source in the center, in addition to the reflected sound. Thus, stereo separation is much less than you have in the regular stereo speakers.
2. Again, if you made the experiment with the sheet of paper, you noticed that slightest movement of your head kills the effect - it can be heard only in very narrow area. In this case, it means that you must be exactly in the point where the microphone was during the calibration, sitting through the whole movie without a movement.
This effect is supposedly alleviated by the device's mode "my beam". In this mode, you press the button on the device's remote control in your hand. The remote emits the signal to the device, the device thus knows where you are, and sends the sound beam in your direction. However, whenever I tried this mode, the sound was losing that little spatiality that it had, and all I heard was perfectly mono sound coming straight from the device, indeed, in my precise direction.
3. For the reflected sound to be symmetrical, the listening room must be absolutely uniform rectangle - of the type you saw depicted on the listening diagrams in the manuals of sound equipment. No windows, no doors, plain uniform walls from all sides. Good luck finding one in your living home.
I tried this device in several locations of my home, as close to the uniform rectangle ideal as possible. The device has "test" mode where it emits test tone from the front left, from front right, left surround, and right surround. Though I did hear some difference in the sound supposedly coming from the right than from the left, it was practically impossible to say that this sound comes from the right and this from the left. The effect, if any, is very, very slight. No comparison to what you hear from the actual speakers positioned in the right places.
Quality and Customer Service
The first device I purchased did not work at all. No sounds. So I made another trip and exchanged it. The second one worked fine.
Just before the trip, I made an attempt to contact Yamaha technical support, hoping that maybe there's some "transportation switch" to turn that I did not know about. That's when I learned that Yamaha support does not work on weekends (unlike their sales), and they don't have toll-free number, or even separate number - only the extension on the main number. One might expect that the company with worldwide presence would look somewhat more established, and that tech support of the sophisticated self-calibrating products costing many hundred dollars would be little more available.
The idea of digital sound projector is in using several speakers each "projecting" the sound to another direction, where the sound will reflect from the wall and thus reach the listener from the left or from the right. You can do a simple experiment: while listening to the regular speaker in front of you, take the sheet of cardboard paper, hold it in your right hand upright, slowly turning around the vertical axis - at certain angle, you will hear the sound reflecting from the paper. This is the effect YSP-900 fully relies on. The claim is that you no longer need side and satellite speakers - instead, the sound from these directions will be coming reflected from the walls of your room, emitted by single YSP-900 in the calculated directions. The only other device you may need is the subwoofer.
To caululate these directions, YSP-900 uses calibration process where its internal computer finds out the dimensions of the room, thus adjusting the parameters of the directional speakers. During the calibration (which is called "auto-setup"), you place the microphone (included) in the position of the listener, connect it to the device, and then the speaker emits series of sounds that are "heard" by the microphone, so the device adjusts itself. This takes about 3 minutes.
While this sounds accurate in theory, on practice, unfortunately, it simply does not work. Here's why:
1. if you made the experiment with the sheet of paper above, you probably realized that besides the sound reflected form the paper, you still hear the sound from the original speaker. When you are listening to regular multi-speaker system, the sound from the right is coming only from the right speaker. In this case, it means that you should only hear the sound after it reflects from the wall, and not at all the original speaker. Unfortunately, this is impossible. Of course, you still hear the original source in the center, in addition to the reflected sound. Thus, stereo separation is much less than you have in the regular stereo speakers.
2. Again, if you made the experiment with the sheet of paper, you noticed that slightest movement of your head kills the effect - it can be heard only in very narrow area. In this case, it means that you must be exactly in the point where the microphone was during the calibration, sitting through the whole movie without a movement.
This effect is supposedly alleviated by the device's mode "my beam". In this mode, you press the button on the device's remote control in your hand. The remote emits the signal to the device, the device thus knows where you are, and sends the sound beam in your direction. However, whenever I tried this mode, the sound was losing that little spatiality that it had, and all I heard was perfectly mono sound coming straight from the device, indeed, in my precise direction.
3. For the reflected sound to be symmetrical, the listening room must be absolutely uniform rectangle - of the type you saw depicted on the listening diagrams in the manuals of sound equipment. No windows, no doors, plain uniform walls from all sides. Good luck finding one in your living home.
I tried this device in several locations of my home, as close to the uniform rectangle ideal as possible. The device has "test" mode where it emits test tone from the front left, from front right, left surround, and right surround. Though I did hear some difference in the sound supposedly coming from the right than from the left, it was practically impossible to say that this sound comes from the right and this from the left. The effect, if any, is very, very slight. No comparison to what you hear from the actual speakers positioned in the right places.
Quality and Customer Service
The first device I purchased did not work at all. No sounds. So I made another trip and exchanged it. The second one worked fine.
Just before the trip, I made an attempt to contact Yamaha technical support, hoping that maybe there's some "transportation switch" to turn that I did not know about. That's when I learned that Yamaha support does not work on weekends (unlike their sales), and they don't have toll-free number, or even separate number - only the extension on the main number. One might expect that the company with worldwide presence would look somewhat more established, and that tech support of the sophisticated self-calibrating products costing many hundred dollars would be little more available.
