I’ve had the pleasure of testing out the fourth-generation Yamaha surround sound bar, the YSP-4000. You know, the box that sits under a TV and projects 5 discreet beams of audio using Cold War direction Sonar steering from Submarines. This generation has had its trapezoid shaped array turned into a more of a hexagon, and the chassis is more rigid. There are HDMI inputs, and upscalers for analogue content. And there are DSP modes for stereo music sources that did not exist before. Does the fake surround work? Hell yes, better than ever.
Consisting of two satellite towers and a downward-firing amplified subwoofer, these red LED-illuminated Rosetta speakers from Britz have been designed with computer or gaming set-ups in mind. Featuring IHSS (Indeptendent Harmonic Surround Sound), they are probably a bit too weedy for hardcore gamers. If you ask me, both towers and sub look like the kind of vase you’d find in a funeral home.
Logitech’s $200 G51 surround-sound speakers work with hot new 5.1 sound cards thanks to a direct six-channel input, but they were designed to intensify even lame-ass stereo games with a 5.1 matrixing mode and an explosive 56-watt subwoofer. The system has an integrated headphone jack for conveniently talking trash with the other kids combatants. But say your mom suddenly interrupts the melee with your favorite PB&J—Logitech thought of that, too.
The dual mute function allows you to mute the audio coming out of the speakers so your mom doesn’t complain about you going deaf. And it lets you mute your headset, so your battalion of renegade mercenaries (or is that mercenary renegades?) don’t have to hear the dreaded, “I love you too, mommy.”
The final touch, for the more artistic gamer, is something called G-Skin. The speakers have clear shells, under which you can insert your own “personal artwork.” Hopefully, once Logitech sees what your own stuff looks like, it will begin offering download-and-print artwork of its own. That or you borrow some of those excellent unicorn drawings from your sister.
OK, we’re calling it: this is the year of the sound bar, those long, slender speaker boxes that you see freakin’ everywhere. (Today alone we mentioned three companies introducing a total of six new models!) When our very own Brian Lam was at CES this past January, he heard the editor-in-chief of a top home Audiophile/Videophile magazine tell one of his lead sound gear writers “audio is just dead.” That kind of talk is not unexpected—it’s about as shocking as a French wine critic calling Australian shiraz “the end of civilization.” We all know sound bars have a place, but what have they done to 5.1? As you may have noticed, not all sound bars are surround bars. Here’s the breakdown of most currently available models:
Today, Yamaha introduced a new flagship in its YSP “sound projector” faux-surround bars. The YSP-4000 is a follow-up to the YSP-1100, with a similar setup: 40 individual “beam” drivers that have individual amps, and two midbass speakers. The YSP-4000′s main upgrade seems to be HDMI pass-throughs, and analogue/720p/1080i upscaling to wonderful 1080p.
No word on who makes the upscaler, but I notice that their new flagship receiver uses a not so great scaler by the usually high-end Anchorbay.
But back to audio. Those speakers all coordinated by a DSP, and by tweaking delay and volume, convincingly eliciting sweeping surround audio that seems to come from all 360 degrees, and then some. There are “seven Cinema DSP programs (three movie, three music and one sports)” and “Dolby Digital, DTS, Dolby Pro Logic II and DTS Neo:6,” all of which are selectable via the remote and on screen display or LCD. The YSP-4000 is iPod and XM ready and goes for $US1800.
Yamaha’s YSP line of soundbars are incredible for faux surround. One problem — they’re generally too tall to fit below a TV, unless you wall mounted, which the majority of us don’t. The YAS-70 budget soundbar could be their best one ever, if only because it is merely ~3 to 4 inches tall, fitting under any TV. The drawback is that this only has 6 individual beam drivers, so I’m not sure how great the surround will be compared to its predecessors. (But it should be way better than the budget-budget-hobo version Boston released today.)
Today Boston Acoustics rolls out its TVee Model Two, a “soundbar” that connects directly to the line-output of your TV, plus a subwoofer. Unlike many products that look similar, it doesn’t do surround sound, but there are other tricks that do make this 100-watt $400 system unique.
Yes, unlike surround bars from Yamaha, Denon, Philips and Polk, which provide either virtual, psychoacoustic or projected surround sound, the TVee Model Two is just stereo. It takes over the sound coursing through your TV set, supplanting your TV’s crappy speakers. As low-tech as that sounds, the unit itself can learn the volume commands off of your TV’s remote, for instant control. Also, the subwoofer is wireless, and can be placed anywhere in the room (near power, of course) thanks to a 2.4GHz RF connection. And in case you never heard of the Model One, don’t feel bad: Boston Acoustics decided to skip straight to Model Two.
Polk Audio’s latest HE audio system, the SurroundBar50, is 51 inches of speaker that gives you surround sound from just one speaker. The aluminum-covered unit contains nine mid/bass drivers with Neodymium magnets, three dome tweeters and a four-PC board crossover, and Polk’s Stereo Dimensional Array (SDA) technology on the left and right front channels.
Measuring 51 x 4.5 x 5.1 inches, the SurroundBar50 comes with a bracket that you hang either above or below your TV, and will cost $1099.95 when it is released in October. [OhGizmo!]
Audiovox isn’t so much an innovator as a “value” company, making (or at least branding) products that are fairly cheap in price but hopefully hold together. You probably know Jensen is an Audiovox brand; you may not know that Acoustic Research (along with certain RCA products) were added to the Audiovox lineup not long ago. Today in NYC, Audiovox showed some of the hotter things from its current lineup—Jensen Rock-N-Road XM-capable GPS, the Audiovox wireless surround-sound home theater debuted at CES, and Jensen Code Alarm remote-start keychain with full motion video (in gallery)—plus some fun new stuff…
The iLive iHTD8817DT Flat Panel Docking System is a virtual surround sound bar that uses magnetically shielded 2 full mid/high range drivers and twin internal woofers. You can pretty much hook up whatever you want—DVD players, TVs, computers via USB, other audio players—but considering it has a specially built motorized tray that fits an iPod, we’re guessing that’s what iLive had in mind. The unit also has a headphone jack. Weird.
