Yamaha YSP-1 What it is, What it is not
The Yamaha YSP-1 is, quite simply, a single-box, high performance home theater solution which, by its very nature, integrates more easily into a typical home environment than any product that has come before.
The YSP-1 is based around digital Sound Projector technology developed over the past 7 years in Cambridge, England, by 1 Ltd, a small hi-tech R&D IP-licensing company founded by Dr. Tony Hooley in 1995. Until now this technology was only previously licensed to Pioneer of Japan.
For more information, please read my exclusive interview with Dr. Hooley.
To define it component-wise using standard audio categories, the YSP-1's internal sub-systems would break down roughly as follows:
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It is an Audio Preamp/Processor which integrates with analog or digital video sources. The YSP-1 hooks up to both digital and analog audio sources. Dolby Digital and DTS are built-in for movies while Dolby Pro Logic II and DTS Neo 6 can transform two-channel music into five channel surround. The number of inputs has been kept to a bare minimum but, as will be seen, they will support the most common configurations for which this unit will likely be used. This includes the capability to hook up to a DVD player, a cable or satellite receiver box (analog audio, digital video), an analog or digital TV and even analog audio from a VCR. Then there is the ever-present aux digital input which can be used for a digital cable TV, digital satellite TV or game console.
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It h a s forty-two channels of digital amplification. The YSP-1 has forty 2.5 watt digital amplifiers, each tied directly to its own 1.25" transducer within the array. There are also two 20-watt digital amplifiers which deliver power to two 4.5" mid-woofers.
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The YSP-1 has a proprietary (1 Ltd) digital signal allocation and "beam steering" audio processor chip. This chip directs both the appropriate channel content and the amount of power given each of the 40 array-transducers so that speaker groupings of individual channel beams can be "steered" toward different locations within the listening space. All of the transducers are used for ALL of the 5 different steered channels - they are NOT used as subsets; i.e. some for each beam only.
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It is a button-push configurable two-cha nnel, three channel, five-channel and three LCR channel + 2 channel surround-capable speaker system. Forty-two transducers total; two 4.5" left and right front mid-woofers on either side of the master array of 40 approximately 1.25" diameter drivers. The crossover frequency of the two 4.50" left-right mid-woofer drivers is switchable to 80Hz, 100Hz or 120Hz to match with an outboard subwoofer for which a low-level output is provided. The mid-woofers' handoff frequency to the 1.25" forty-driver array takes place at 350Hz (1000 Hz in Corner-location mode).
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It is the most decor-friendly, highest spouse-acceptance-factor, true surround audio system ever designed. With the debut of the Yamaha YSP-1, its product execution, from the quality of materials, to the stunningly elegant industrial design, marks a high-point for performance vs. value in a category-defining product.
Projecting surround channels acoustically
The design premise of Yamaha's Digital Sound Projector is contained in an in-house, training-oriented "white paper" of sorts entitled "The Goals of a High-Quality Sound Field Creation (System)." This title hints at the inherent 180ยบ difference between the YSP-1 Digital Soundfield Projector we're reviewing here vs.1986's Yamaha DSP-1 Digital Soundfield Processor which, to this author's way of thinking, was a digital sound field re-creation device.
The Yamaha DSP-1, Stereo Review's Product of the Year for 1986, had algorithms built-in which were said to recreate the sound of famous concert halls, jazz clubs and stadiums from around the world. That product, launched when the only home theater format in existence was three-channel Dolby Surround, required a minimum of four amplifier channels and four loudspeakers plus a subwoofer to make the full system really blast off. And at the time, Top Gun, played thousands of times in dealer showrooms nationwide, introduced well-healed audiophile/movie aficionados to the joys of a movement which became known as Home Theater.
As spectacular as Top Gun was back then it required at least a couple thousand dollars in auxiliary equipment (extra boxes) to reach the system's full surround potential. Let's now come back to the present and take a look at the lofty product goals set for Yamaha's single-box sound field creation machine (as paraphrased from the Japanese-to-English translation):
Natural, Speaker-less Surround
"What makes a playback sound field artificial is the presence of speakers."
Agreed. From the beginning of home theater, the goal of the surround speakers has always been to generate a sense of immersion or envelopment; of making the surround speakers seemingly disappear. But before THX's doctrine of sound "immersion" was widely marketed, and with little understanding of surround's psychoacoustic implications, one-brand stereo systems began to be sold with two, small-box, single-driver surround speakers.
Power to these rear channels was usually from a low power "chip-amp" which at most would put out 20 watts at 10% THD. Driving low sensitivity, inexpensive "full-range" surround speakers, the end result would typically be a huge sound quality unbalance between clean, truly full-range front channels and an annoying, tinny "surround sound" signal emanating from behind the listener.
The sound of the Yamaha 's YSP-1 is light years ahead of that first generation of product. First off, all of the channels have a more natural, out-of-the-speaker-box sound. This is particularly apparent on center-channel dialog in which voices on a good recording are imbued with their natural timbre.
This clarity of vocal articulation is fairly startling to hear for the first time. When you're used to hearing the slight side-to-side cancellation effect of a horizontal D'Appolito center speaker, the YSP-1's natural sound is a very welcome change.
