Yamaha YAS-101 Soundbar

[Psycho Sonny]

Just ordered one of these badboy's for £159.

This is for a bedroom setup, had to have minimum number of wires possible, therefore soundbar was the best option.

Also space is at a premium so soundbar again was really the only option.

I also have the ability to plug in a seperate sub should the bass of the soundbar not be enough as a small upgrade route.

Here's a review - http://reviews.cnet.com/bluetooth-speakers/yamaha-yas-101/4505-34810_7-35088920.html

Detailed Spec:

Product information

Get more out of your TV programmes and movies with the Yamaha YAS-101 sound bar. Combining Yamaha’s audio expertise with sleek, modern design touches, it looks every bit as good as it sounds. Geared for powerful bass and clear highs, sound effects are more realistic, while dialogue and music sound richer than ever.

Key benefits:

6.5cm cone speakers work with a dual-driver subwoofer and digital amplifier for sound that soars. 120 Watts of audio output push your experience further, filling just about any space with cinema grade sound.

Air Surround Xtreme reproduces 7.1 channel surround sound to put you right in the heart of the action. Dolby Digital and DTS Digital Surround compatibility creates an even more immersive effect for full multichannel audio.

Clear Voice brings out the finer details of dialogue and commentary so you don’t miss a things.

A trumpet bell shaped internal design enhances sound clarity while the high volume cabinet keeps bass response as accurate as possible.

A rear IR flasher transmits your remote control signal to the TV, even if the sound bar is blocking the receiver. It can also sync with your remote’s functions for on/off and volume adjustments.

Fully wall-mountable, the YAS-101 is ideal with wall hanging TVs.


I have found Yamaha YSTFSW050BL Subwoofer - Black for £74.95 online which can be easily added should I require it, but currently I do not have a space for a sub, so going to see how the soundbar works out.


For my needs this seemed to be the best "budget" option bar the xenta which sold out at £70 ish, which was a bummer, but i'm guessing the Yamaha is in a different league to the xenta.

The IR flasher is what convinced me to get this as well, since most likely all soundbars would be blocking my tv's IR receiver.

Wish I had more money to spend but since the TV only cost £899, I wasn't really willing to pay more than £200-£300 max, the cheaper the better.

PQ to me is far more important, so long as this produces a half decent sound, I will be happy.

Built in speaker's these day's are shockingly bad.

 

[Robbo]

Any good?

 

[spoffle]

This reads like an advert.

Also, can I teach you how apostrophes work?

 

[Psycho Sonny]

Bass off just the sound bar is brilliant, the surroud effect is good.

For £150 it's fantastic for what it does, new models with bluetooth and smartphone app are coming soon but they will be more expensive.

I doubt you can find a better sound bar for the money.

If your a real bass head you can always buy the sub add on or the 3.1 yamaha system.

This sound bar is a must buy if you hate the built in speakers on new TV.

Also I'm posting off a tablet so I could care less about apostrophes and what not.

I'm pleased with it and would buy yamaha again.

If I had the space for a sub I would have went for a higher end model, but tbh this thing is pretty loud and crystal clear, I think the higher model would have been wasted this thing is that good.

Yamaha truly do make the best sound bars

 

[spoffle]

Also I'm posting off a tablet so I could care less about apostrophes and what not.

Well it's good to hear that you DO care to some degree.

 

[Raymond Lin]

This reads like an advert.

Also, can I teach you how apostrophes work?

I thought that, it reads like an ad.

And I post from my iPad all the time, apostrophe is not exactly difficult. Hell, it does it for you most of the time!

As for soundbar compared to built in speakers, I'm in no doubt they are bad, physically they can't be good. There is no replacement for displacement, and size do matters when it comes to speakers. Which brings the point about the bass, it's a sound bar, plastic, long shape, I'm sure there is some bass, I wouldn't call it good, may be compared to the TV perhaps.

And when you say things like the sound bar puts you right in the middle of the action with 7.1...then you are not comparing it to a tv but a full on 7.1, and I am not even going to go there, it'll be like me saying my 14" CRT has a mode that can make it look like I am watching a 50" Panasonic plasma to you.

All you could say at the end of the day is that it is an improvement and something that should come free with the TV, since they made it so bad to begin with.

 

[Robbo]

I don't expect anything magical from a sound bar, like 7.1 surround or anything like that, but it does seem that this would be a decent improvement on built in speakers. At this kind of price point it does seem to be in a league of its own, and I know Yamaha are a very well respected audio brand which always helps.

Pretty much all reviews of this bar are very positive, which is certainly encouraging. I could go and spend a lot more on a proper surround sound setup but I'm not a big audio buff and don't really care that much, I've just got some space infront of the TV where a sound bar would go nicely and I'm sure it would be a fairly big improvement.

I was thinking about the Bose Solo, but my TV is 46", I think the stand would just squeeze on it, but its more expensive than this and I'm not sure it will be better. I also prefer the idea of a bar infront of the TV rather than the TV on a box, making it higher.

 

[Psycho Sonny]

it's obvious a soundbar will never beat a seperates setup.

this particular soundbar does have good bass on it, trust me, i was going to buy a seperate sub down the line (theres two models the 50 and the 100 which is only a few quid more than the 50 but the 50 auto switches on and off with the soundbar whereas the 100 you need to switch on and off yourself, although i did email yamaha and they said any sub would work with the system), but once i heard it, the bass was quite impressive for a soundbar.

so much so, i don't think i will bother spending the extra £75-85 on a yamaha sub, as then i think the bass will become overkill compared to the speakers.

it also has a IR receiver and transmitter, which is a pain to turn on, need to follow the manual's instructions, but again something completely brilliant and unique to yamaha i believe.

my tv's IR is blocked by the soundbar, but the soundbar receives all IR and then re-transmits them to the tv, simply brilliant.

i simply cannot have wires in the bedroom, neither do i have space for speakers everywhere.

in the future though, obviously i will look into an onkyo amp and separates for a home cinema setup, when moving into a bigger home, currently the spare room is used for a home gym, which imo is far more important than a dedicated home cinema, so the cinema can wait a few years.

i also don't agree they should come free with tv's these day's, because it's up to the consumer, what level of sound they want, if they came free they would be crap, and companies like yamaha wouldn't really have a big market to sell their better systems to as most people would make do with the free crap ones.

it's like some people and car's, some people buy 1500W subwoofers for the boot, etc, etc which imo is overkill for a car, a decent set of components and two 6x9's on the rear shelf should be more than enough for any car.

but some people prefer to have deafening bass, etc which cannot be produced by the above setup.

currently the yamaha is up there with my <£25 remote controlled dimmable BIAS lighting setup for best tv accessory.

for £150 you cannot complain, when it comes to seperates i would do it properly and spend at least £2K on an amp and speaker setup, but that shall need to wait for when i have another spare room.

 

[Defunkt]

I owned the YAS-101 (£130) and then the YHT-S401 (£300) Both of which were terrible. I mean really bad. Yes compared to the basic speakers built into a flat panel TV both are an improvement (although the 101 only minimally over my 2012 Pany) They both have things like "uni volume" and other really badly implemented digital trickery but it leaves a horrible echo effect most of the time from voices (especially on BBC HD when there is an announcement for some reason)
I found fault after fault with both of these Yamaha soundbars but it all basicly was that no matter what settings you use on both these bars you can't listen to anything other than digital trickery. you can't even get true basic stereo from these things without the trickery kicking in! (and in most cases not a pleasant way)
How either of these bars can be sold as in any way "surround" is also a joke as they have 1 out of 10 for surround effects (and that's generous)

It's not all bad news for Yamaha though. I decided to try and make it 3rd time lucky and bought a proper soundbar (mainly out of frustration) the Yamaha YSP-2200 (£475) This one is different beast all together as it's a "digital sound projector" Might just be words but it makes the world of difference to the sound quality. a proper, true, surround experience and also nice stereo sound for my music too.

So yeah. Yamaha do make some good soundbars. But they also make some real rubbish. As always.. You get what you pay for. I'd steer well clear of their bottom couple of the range though.

Thought i'd add this post to redress/balance the ludicrous OP.

 

[FoxEye]

I owned the YAS-101 (£130) and then the YHT-S401 (£300) Both of which were terrible. I mean really bad. Yes compared to the basic speakers built into a flat panel TV both are an improvement (although the 101 only minimally over my 2012 Pany) They both have things like "uni volume" and other really badly implemented digital trickery but it leaves a horrible echo effect most of the time from voices (especially on BBC HD when there is an announcement for some reason)
I found fault after fault with both of these Yamaha soundbars but it all basicly was that no matter what settings you use on both these bars you can't listen to anything other than digital trickery. you can't even get true basic stereo from these things without the trickery kicking in! (and in most cases not a pleasant way)
How either of these bars can be sold as in any way "surround" is also a joke as they have 1 out of 10 for surround effects (and that's generous)

It's not all bad news for Yamaha though. I decided to try and make it 3rd time lucky and bought a proper soundbar (mainly out of frustration) the Yamaha YSP-2200 (£475) This one is different beast all together as it's a "digital sound projector" Might just be words but it makes the world of difference to the sound quality. a proper, true, surround experience and also nice stereo sound for my music too.

So yeah. Yamaha do make some good soundbars. But they also make some real rubbish. As always.. You get what you pay for. I'd steer well clear of their bottom couple of the range though.

Thought i'd add this post to redress/balance the ludicrous OP.

Although I wouldn't say it's rubbish, I've not been impressed with my YAS-101. Bass is non existent, except for very low frequency rumble. If you're after tonal bass (bass guitar, opera tenor singer), you won't get it here. What you'll get is unnatural sounding voices, coupled with lots of rumble.

I was considering something like the 401, but after Defunkt's comment, think I'm better off going with separate speakers instead. Just a shame that you can't audition any of this stuff where I live, so you have to purchase blind...