Yamaha YSP-1 Remote Control

I'm big, really big on easy-to-use remotes. I'm just guessing here but I'd say Yamaha's YSP-1 engineering team must have taken several samples home for their wives and kids during development. The basic operations are simplicity in the extreme, and intelligently grouped along the remote's bottom 40% of real estate. The remote works within a pretty generous ±30º window and at that 30º angle it's good for full functionality to about 20 feet.

There are some really clever ergonomic touches that are not apparent until you study the remote's layout a bit more closely. For example, the TV channel up-down buttons have been moved up and out of the most-used bottom sector. (Keep it on channel 3!)

Another brainy move was placing all the set-up routine buttons in a sort of "no-man's-land" center section around the ubiquitous Up-Down-Left-Right directional wheel with center Select button. This leaves a neatly divided and simple-to-use remote with most-used, single-push controls at the bottom.

At the top are secondary controls which the kids or grandparents would use less often once the movie or TV program is started. This is a remote I can remember easily and, for instance, coach my fiancée's grandfather over the phone should he get in trouble. Just set it up once, warn kids and novices to stay away from buttons with green nomenclature in the center area, and you're home free. It doesn't get any better than that!

Along the remote's bottom are the four available beam modes. This section has a violet background which immediately identifies this remote as belonging to the Digital Sound Projector. (As we shall see later in the review all four beam modes are available when the YSP-1 and your video display are placed flat against a wall surface. For a corner arrangement, only two of the four modes, Stereo and 3 Beam mode are available.)

Above the beam mode selection buttons are a soft-white TV input selector and four dark gray source selection buttons for TV, DVD, VCR and aux. The owner's manual suggests aux can be either a digital satellite tuner, digital cable or a game console. There is even a sleep mode button which alternates by single presses between 30 minutes, 60 minutes, 90 minutes, 120 minutes and off.

The next section up from beam mode selection will be the most utilized. And it is here that the simple two-color button theme plus clever spacing ergonomics play such a subtle, yet vital roll. To the left in soft-white are the + and - TV Volume rocker-style buttons for the TV speakers. On the remote's right side the two + and - charcoal gray buttons simply called Volume. A soft-white TV Mute is in the center between these two rocker-style volume controls and matching charcoal gray Mute to quiet the YSP-1 is above that.

To me, the remote and its design are one of the surest signs signaling the care with which an electronic piece of gear has been designed. If system's remote functions well; if it is both intuitive in layout and labeling, and smooth and quick in operation, the end result is increased satisfaction with the system as a whole.

If you hold it down, the volume control on the YSP-1 goes from -99.5dB to 0dB in less than 10 seconds. That's 199 points of volume adjustability! To my mind the speed, smoothness and accuracy of this volume control are perfect. The mute threshold for the YSP-1 is adjustable in the menu, so you can have the volume cut off completely, or mute it to a level more appropriate to your preference. Using the YSP-1's remote to control my eight-year-old Mitsubishi TV's volume, the action of this new remote was much smoother than with the remote that came with the TV. Now that's cool...

Situated just below the Standby/On and AV Power buttons at the top is the numerical keypad. The numerical buttons will probably be used most times for setting up the initial remote codes for non-Yamaha devices. In my case, looking up the code for my Mitsubishi TV in the back of the YSP-1's owner's manual and punching in the code took all of 30 seconds total. Bingo, instant and seamless interoperability from the Yamaha remote. The best part of this simplicity of operation is that the Yamaha remote button named TV Input now handled, for the first time in my experience with a second party remote, the TV's input select function.

The top section of the remote also has a standard set of grey transport control buttons: Play, Pause, Stop, Fast Forward and Reverse and Chapter Advance/Reverse. These larger rectangular buttons functioned perfectly with the Yamaha DVD S1500 which I also had under review at the time. Toward the end of the review I did drag out one of my VCR's to check the code learning acuity on a device that might be fairly common in installations containing the Yamaha YSP-1. My Toshiba VCR had no problem functioning from the Yamaha remote so I'd give the code research team kudos here.

A single nit-pick: the remote control feature most of us Audioholics immediately look for... backlighting, is not included. Normally, in a product of this ambitious caliber I'd express disappointment. I'm guessing though that in most instances there'll be adequate lighting in the room anyway. So while I'll give the engineers a pass on this first version, at the same time I'd humbly request a fully backlit remote, (with the same great control layout please!) in your second generation Digital Sound Projector.