Yamaha YSP-1 Technology and Design

"The key is the size of an audio image. In the past it was said that a point source was the ideal for a sound source. That was correct for stereo but what about surround sound? The YSP-1 has been designed with the intent of paying more attention to the connectivity or extensity of a sound field than to the presence or localization of the sound image" (Extensity: In psychology, the quality of sensation which permits the perception of space or size.)

Extensity is an accurate description of the spatial envelope this Digital Sound Projector can portray. One gets the very new and somewhat eerie sense of the space within the room being defined by a movie's surround content. To illustrate; without the oft-times intrusive consciousness of in-wall speakers installed in the corner behind me and to my sides I can now sense the "sound bubble" of a particular movie from the prospective of the bigness or smallness of the effect itself. In other words, I think I'm hearing what the director and sound editor may have intended when he mixed in-studio from his fixed-position surround speakers.

It is this effect, this ability of the sound field to expand and contract depending on program content that is most difficult for my auditory memory to wrap around and get a firm grasp of. Many of us, after all, have been listening to surround from known, fixed speaker locations for almost a generation.

Putting aside the tremendous strides in direct surround vs. matrix, plus the ever increasing level of sound quality, one constant with surround speakers has always been that we know where our surround speakers are. We know how we expect them to "sound", no matter how wonderfully immersive and diffuse. And we expect that sound to come from the general direction of the rear and side wall perimeters.

It is this single aspect, this "floating-in-space" effect which helps to define the new sound of Yamaha's Digital Sound Projector. Before we were 2D surround, trying to make the case for that last dimension with wall mounted speakers. With the YSP-1, the surround sensation always exists in a 3D space and the "willing suspension of disbelief", as THX calls it, becomes easier to achieve.

Now that we have surround images floating in space, another apparent benefit becomes more obvious - that of the three-dimensional size of the floating image. It is here that my mind tells me this surround sound field is being portrayed unlike any I've heard from a point source, mono-polar surround speaker. Depending on the frequency content of the image, say, above 1 kHz, the projected image can have a greater sense of width and depth than is usually possible with wall-mounted surrounds. Conversely with the YSP-1, lower pitched sounds or effects, above the subwoofer's omni-directional frequencies can sound truncated or recessed.

In making that last statement though I would say it takes a trained ear, along with a good audio memory of what a particular moment in a film sounded like over a conventional surround system, to realize what may be missing in the sound reconstruction as projected by the YSP-1. And again, the honest-to-goodness 3D dimensionality of the surround soundstage greatly overwhelms the ear/brain's ability to determine the frequency envelope of an effect to your side or from behind.

Yamaha designers are acutely aware of the import a category-defining product such as the YSP-1 can have. Not only with first adopters but also with the second and third generation design variants which are sure to follow. GK Design has been closely aligned with the Yamaha family for decades. For all this time GK and Yamaha have shared the same basic design philosophy of elegant, simple-of-line, design execution. This philosophy has held especially true whenever rare milestone products such as the YSP-1 are first introduced.

In the US, a little known aspect of Yamaha's manufacturing prowess is their line of high style, exquisitely made, wood furniture (since 1903) available only in the Japanese market. So there is quite a long history of design thought given to melding what is hoped will be an elegant statement-piece of electronics into a home environment.

I had been told that first samples of the YSP-1 were already shipping. And since my review sample came in an unmarked box my guess is that these shipments would follow Yamaha's long-held practice of sending the first lots to company rep organizations as well as press to see if there were any last minute issues which might have slipped past the engineering team.

This lot of product is usually dubbed pre-production. A couple hundred pieces are typically "test run" on the actual production line to check last possible assembly glitches that could compromise the product's build integrity. Also of note at this final stage of development is that all actual tooled production parts are used. So the following comments on the product's fit, finish and overall design should be virtually identical to final production.

At a suggested retail of $1499 SRP the YSP-1's well-chosen and expensive construction materials plus exemplary fit and finish set a benchmark for every subsequent product to emulate. My significant other immediately approved the classy, muted silver-gray perforated metal grille across the upper span of the unit's face. She loved the fact that in most room lighting, the 42 black drivers mounted on a flat-black background behind the grille make them invisible. The bottom front area sports a clear Plexiglas-over-high-gloss-black background running lengthwise across the entire device. The subtle dull-to-shiny blend of the grille versus the base was also highly regarded in my household.

Behind the plexiglas in the unit's bottom-center is a 4" x 1/2" flouroscan dot-matrix display in a muted blue. This is my favorite choice of display technology and color as it is equally readable both in darkness and in most typical lighted room conditions. (The light level of this display is adjustable from 0 to -1 or -2 in the software. I found -2 worked equally well in darkness or daylight conditions.)

To the right along the bottom are four square, flat black tact-switch-style push buttons labeled Input, Volume - / + and Standby/On. To the Left along the bottom is a barely discernable Yamaha logo with "Digital Sound Projector YSP-1." A 0.2" wide x 6.25" high gloss black plastic end-cap finishes off both left and right sides of the perforated grille.

Moving around to the back, the unit's materials and quality of finish are every bit as impressive. Presumably to contain EMI radiation that may be emitted from the digital amplifier chips, a double-layer steel chassis has been fabricated with overlapping seams. The outer black-oxide coated chassis sits atop an eight-tenths width plastic injection-molded base. On the YSP-1's top, two black-anodized aluminum extrusions form the upper cover. A plastic cap which has the Yamaha logo reverse-embossed is affixed at the top center to cover the seam of the two aluminum extrusions.