I had earlier tried the Yamaha S400BL sound bar to go with my new Bravia HX929 box. (Since it is for a bedroom, I don't have the room or assets to deal with a true surround sound complex.) Even if it was much cheaper, I establish that I had a near-impracticable time appreciative box dialogue with the 400BL no theme how many settings I tweaked. Now, part of this may maybe be the size of the room or the necessary residency of the gear, but any way, it was a deal-breaker.When I saw that the newer develop was inane to have the apparent accent choice, I thought I would chat the old and give it a try. What a splendid swap! The sound is balanced and the dialogue pops. I can play with all the different surround modes and bass/treble levels and STILL be with you the dialogue. Sound feature on movies, sports assembly, and even composition is exceptional given the small foot-photograph of this sound bar. I also love that the integrated subwoofer/receiver can be vertically mounted to save interval.So, if you're looking for a sound solution for a bedroom/small sprawl, this is a splendid choice. Primarily not compulsory for persons who have trouble appreciative dialogue from rear-projecting tv speakers or more compressed sound bars.
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MegI purchased this primarily for the HDMI pass through as ports on an old Samsung plasma were not effective consistently. That map worked great and although that television has died, the YHT-S401 lives on in my entertainment center. The sound leveler works great across inputs in cooperation toning down loud commercials or abrupt changes in volume (louder or softer) when switching between inputs. I stream via Bluetooth to an attached Logitech Bluetooth adapter from an ipad 4, asus transformer, laptops and innumerable phones and was pleasantly surprised that the enhancement map does make a noticeable improvement in the sound quality. The receiver looks great and I tenderness not having a separate subwoofer box. And, while I valued the ability to attach additional speakers I be inflicted including not felt the need to play through these at all - the sound bar has been great so far. I had been debating on this purchase for months on Amazon as the price fluctuated between $599 and $449. At $399 it is a much smaller investment and a great value. I'm very pleased including the purchase.
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bkHave been using the YHT-S401BL for a couple of days currently and initial impressions are, well, impressive.It sounds great - with all input sources - the HDMI switching is incredibly convenient, there are copious input options (3 HDMI, analog R/W, digital toslink AND win over connections, not to bring up the FM tuner), the hard-wired bass gives a good thrashing and the lecturer itself is outstanding, with a surprisingly small footprint to boot. The depiction doesn't do the size of the sound bar justice reasonably frankly.All video source are relayed at their highest resolutions possible (1080p, 1080i and 720p sources), with no visible signal degredation at all. There are many more wires to connect than you might be expecting however, so be aware of that fact. All wiring starting input sources run into the secondary/receiver element, which connects to the sound bar with a lecturer cable that has six connections on each end. I have three HDMI cables (Blu-shaft, Roku, AppleTV) running into the receiver/secondary, as well as a toslink (Xbox) and digital win over (FIOS STB). Then, one HDMI cable runs starting the secondary/receiver to the TV. (I decided to keep my video signals with the Xbox and FIOS separate because sometimes I like to game or mind TV while listening to music and that would not be possible running those video signals through the HDMI switcher on the secondary/receiver, because then those are the active signals and it doesn't allow you to access audio starting a different input while watching video on another. Hope that through sense.)The instruction manual is not permanently easy to comprehend, especially with regards to activating HDMI control. It claims to be CEC amenable, but I could not get on to that feature to work with my Samsung DLP, which is CEC amenable as well - and works fine with my Samsung Blu-shaft. I went through the directions several times and it just never worked. Could be because the TV is starting 2008, when the HDMI CEC movement was in its youth. Not a big deal, as I will eventually set up my Harmony to control everything. Besides, the included remote works extremely well and isn't that big. It's no problem keeping it nearby to adjust the volume or input when de rigueur.After my encounter with the Boston Acoustics TVee Develop 30 I'm not going to jump the gun just yet and anoint the S401BL the clear winner, but aptly currently I think it over no reason why it won't be staying with us. It's a big stride up starting the entry level Yamaha and for my money, performs much better than the Yamaha DSP-2200, which I did not like at all. If you're on the fence, I'd display give it a shot.
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B. SangerTo start, I've seen other people here asking about 3D pass-thru since one of the most helpful reviews mentions problems with it. Well, it works for me. Going from PS3 -> Yamaha -> LG 55LM7600.I actually be fond of how greatly space this system saves. The sound doesn't be inflicted with quite as greatly "oomph" as credentials be fond of, save pro it's sweet skilled. Foremost conundrum is the non-payment speaker volumes are all the constant, with those settings you can barely take think it over of the bass. I turned all of the speakers all the way not working (-6), apart starting "crucial top" which I deposit at -5, and then I deposit the sub-woofer as distinguished it would go (+6). With these settings, the bass is sweet skilled. Not fantastic, save pro absolutely square.I've release had it a release just any income save pro by currently watched a tell of proceedings movies, where the emulated surround sound would be inflicted with the most depression, and it doesn't actually sound that "surround". Sometimes it does, at the very nominal amount some sounds don't sound be fond of they're appearance starting aptly in adjoin of you, save pro it doesn't sound be fond of they're behind you any. Not a enormous transact business to me though. A kind touch though is that if you do be inflicted with superfluous speakers, the receiver does be inflicted with outputs pro genuine surround speakers so you can enlarge them if you be inflicted with them. You be inflicted with to chat a background on the receiver to in detail use them though.That is the tradeoff with this type of system. The most valuable thing pro me was reduction space by not having a break sub-woofer, as the opportunity this is in isn't terribly enormous, so this does the career sweet skilled. And you can stand the system up vertically, kinda looks be fond of a generous black Xbox 360.ARC (audio restore) does not work pro me. I had the HDMI plugged into the aptly haven on in cooperation the TV and the Yamaha and I had "HDMI Potential" set to "On" on the Yamaha, which is vital pro it to work - save pro I couldn't get on to it to work. Having look into in this vicinity ARC on additional sites, it seems to be a kind in theory save pro horrible in practice. Most broadcast just can't get on to it to work reliably no topic what systems they are using. So save yourself an hour of futzing almost with it and just get on to an optical cable vacant starting your TV to the the Yamaha.By and large I'm positively pleased with the system. My release genuine gripe is the fee. Save pro if you can come across the deprivation of it, and space is a premium pro you, it's doubtless worth it.-----Update, June 2013: Take up again to be quite fortunate with the system, so fortunate in detail that I bought a following lone pro my extra family theater complex. Fortunate to think it over the fee dropped $100 in the meantime!
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dmronI'm sorry the previous reviewer felt gypped by Yamaha with his purchase of the YHT-S401, as that hasn't been my encounter. I also have had copious entertainment systems of varying quality and size, but currently be in this world in a smaller space, so have had to forgo the floor-standing speakers I would extremely to use. After taking into account a digit of different sound bar options, I settled on the YHT-S401 primarily because of 1) the receiver, so I could run just one HDMI cable to my TV, 2) the subwoofer integrated into the receiver, as I if not don't have room for a separate secondary, 3) its discrete left, aptly, and center channel speakers, 4) its digital win over audio input, to which I could connect my Squeezebox Touch, and 5) the flexibility to enlarge rear channel speakers in the future. I chose not to build my own system by individually buying an affordable receiver and passive sound bar primarily because of the integrated secondary.Overall I'm impressed with the sound and happy with the purchase. I currently keep the L, R, C lecturer levels at zero, but have the subwoofer at +2; I have in cooperation Bass and Treble at +5. I mind all video on the "Movie" surround manner with the "Clear Voice" feature on, and discover the sound to be great and the dialog to be, well, clear. I did at first discover all the surround sound fields to be a bit odd-sounding, but felt the same with a previous Yamaha receiver and have since acclimated to Movie manner. I do think it's a bit much for Yamaha to claim "powerful 7.1-channel surround sound" starting this 3.1-channel system, flush with their "AIR SURROUND XTREME" functionality, but that said I'm happy with the sound and do discover it to be full and enveloping. Just recently I was won over someone was knocking on our entrance, enough so to repeatedly pause the movie to get on to sure (they weren't).For music I choose to skip the surround modes and stab with plain old "Stereo" manner. Again, I do be in this world in a smaller space, but feel pretty in no doubt the sound could easily impart a larger room. I also have a Squeezebox Boom, which itself is small but has awe-inspiring sound, and the YHT-S401 is competitive in quality. I don't try to envision how it might compare to a larger sound system, as I'm usually too lost in the music to bother. I was concerned that the sound bar didn't have tweeters, but am impressed by its high-range reproduction lacking them. The bass is also full and doesn't vibrate the schooner shelves on my TV stand (which have rubber bumpers bottom); it however might be a bit boomier than I'd like, if I were being picky (which I'm not, as I enjoy it). I did recently discover made known that the Clear Voice feature works in Stereo manner, and that it makes the sound more full, less hollow.Some other points:- I was disappointed there wasn't an OSD for the volume, but I can easily think it over the volume level on the receiver.- I house of protection't had mixture or other issues with the gears I have connected by way of HDMI.- As a replacement for of using the thinner lecturer cable that came in the box, I used thicker 16 gauge wire. This means I have three cables running to the sound bar, but with them bundled it's not that bad and worth the potential boost in sound quality.- I was planning on hanging the sound bar bottom my TV, but decided not to because the spring clips are located such that the sound bar brackets would have roofed them up. I would have preferred if the mounting holes were further gone starting the spring clips.- Regarding its physical dimensions, I think the sound bar is deeper than comparable passive sound bars, but that might be a good thing in stipulations of sound quality.- I use a Harmony remote, and because the input selectors on the OEM remote are non-standard it took a bit to get on to it set up (i.e. there are separate buttons for different inputs, but each needs to be pressed multiple times for an individual input).- This is true of other similar setups, but annotation that if you mind a video source that originates at your TV (e.g. Netflix), it's possible the HDMI ARC input will not send sound back to your receiver; in such a case you'll also need to connect a digital optical cable, and the sound will likely be down-sampled to stereo and sent as PCM. I'm guessing the receiver has the ability to then take that signal and approximate surround sound, but I house of protection't checked nor tested it.- This is the single element I have that doesn't connect to the Internet or have apps. Not sure how long that will last even if, as soon I'm sure I'll be able to mind Netflix on my fridge and toaster (and if not, I'm throwing them made known, as they're useless!).
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thor3After searching and reading all kind of reviews for about 2 weeks, I got confused and frustated in get a decent soundbar for my bedroom. I am a fan of the good quality signal and video. I didn't want to open holes in the walls to run the satelite speakers wires because my wife will kill me,so I decide to look for a good hardwire ( no wireless subwoofer) soundbar with a decent review. I was opening to any brands. I already have a powerfull and excellent YHT492UBL system in the living room together to a 3D Blu-ray and a 55" LED 3D TV and HD channels from my provider, so I know about quality. Because this unit ( YHT 401BL) is new in the promote and almost none review I was so scare, but I took the risk. Oh my lord!!! it's unbelivable the sounds. The projection of the expandable surround signal is very clear and realisty. The subwoofer is part of the receiver ( I was scare about this too), it's giving the perfect balance, clear of the BOOM sounds without distortions. I coonected it to a 42" LED 3D samgsum TV 7000 series and I feel so happy about it that at this time I am, writting a review. If you close your eyes like I did and get inside the room with the system on , you could think that you are listening the most expensive surround system in the promote. I know is no cheap, but worth every penny. Buy it, you won't regrete it.
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Osvaldo Nodarse "Ozzie"Purchased this flush though there arent loads of reviews out there for it. I looked-for a signal bar/ surround key to a tiny 10' X 10' room. I am using it including a 47" LED TV including the intention of i watch movies and do a little gaming on as water supply. I looked-for something including the intention of sounded like have a surround lacking the surrounds. Whats kind in this vicinity this element is including the intention of you have to the selection to add surrounds if you like. Since most of my time is any watching a trade show or before a live audience PS3/Xbox 360. I decided not to hook up the surrounds. The set up in the room is TV on one roadblock and my supervise ended on the other so except i put the surrounds pointing confidential i dont have loads of options. The bass is good and apparent; not earth shaking but you can extremely near believe it. My sub/receiver is on a ridge aptly below the TV. The audio coming from the three channels is stuck-up and comparable to other models in the 500 bread range. The kind thing in this vicinity this complex is the decoders importance you dont have to have a additional receiver to decode Blu rays etc... which is awe-inspiring. I was also looking at the Harmon Kardon which is a little cheaper, better sub; but it the stage in stereo release and doesnt decode no matter what thing. For the fee i dont believe you can beat this element. If you have any questions please reply and ill do my best to answer. All in all im extremely glad i made this purchase and have no regrets including this complex. I peek forward to using it when i aspire approximately entertainment.
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Michael S. Gossman "The Chef"Ok sound and the clear voice option works great. I was no longer asking my boyfriend "what did they just say?" every 10 mins. Sadly, the 3D video pass-owing to doesn't work with our ps3 & Panasonic ST 30 with HDMI 1.4 highspeed cables setup. We called tech help & they told us it must be plug & play, so we exchanged it hoping it was a defect. Sorry to say this was not the case. 3D works great when the ps3 is hooked frankly to tv, but 3D indicate dies when played owing to soundbar logic. 2D menus and make happy work fine owing to the logic, but soon as 3D indicate kicks in, it fails to push owing to the 3D video and only audio comes owing to the sounbar.In the end, if you don't plan to watch 3D, I'd rate it as 4stars (high and mighty you don't mind owning a product where not all functions work).
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LainYou will be hard-hard-pressed to find another solution for big sound in a small wrap that sounds as good as this Yamaha does.Here's my story. I ongoing with the Bose Cinemate. The TV wasn't pushing ample sound through its speakers, and we couldn't tell what anyone was adage. Very than doing lots of investigate, we opted for an pressing solution. We went to Butt and grabbed a Bose CineMate unit. It only had analog inputs, but it would enlarge on the TV's sound, so that's all that matters.2 years later, we're tired of the bad mix we made export the Bose. It's louder, but we still can't hear the dialogue very well on TV shows, movies, you name it. So I found a great deal on the Yamaha YAS-101BL sound bar. It sounded unbelievable compared to the Bose, and at half the cost! I'm a huge Yamaha fan, as I by now have a Yamaha horn, guitar, and some day dirt bike. So the Yamaha brand was a no-brainer.Roku TroublesHOWEVER! The one area that the YAS-101 wasn't able to keep up was with Roku make happy. We have a Roku 2 XS for Plex, Netflix, etc, and it's connected to the TV via HDMI. There is no optical out on the Roku box, so we couldn't wire it directly into the Yamaha YAS-101. The TV might have passed the Dolby Digital+ indicate directly to the YAS-101, but the sound bar wasn't able to decode the indicate. No sound from Roku = no dice.Enter YHT-S401I figured, since we need HDMI switching (Panasonic Blu-ray Player and Roku 2), we might as well get a soundbar that can in fact decode Dolby Digital+ AND batter HDMI. I'm a perfectionist for details, so I want the full digital indicate (TrueHD, etc) going to the receiver for decoding. So we sold the YAS-101 and bought the YHT-S401. Wow.The YAS-101 has unbelievable clear sound as it is. I listen to music on a pair of Sennheiser HD-595 headphones through a home-made O2 amp evenly, so I know what great sonic feature sounds like. The YHT-S401 is at least two times best than the YAS-101. The depth of sound is so rich and realistic that it really makes movie night all about the experience again!The built-in subwoofer provides the perfect amount of bass. It's not so much that you can't hear the dialogue, and it's not so little that you marvel why it's even there. It's just the perfect amount of bass to weigh out the rich highs and mids appearance from the three-supervise over speaker bar. You can chat the subwoofer level from -6 to +6. I just leave it at +1, and it sounds fantastic.The YHT-S401 hasn't had any vex decoding Dolby Digital+, DD, DTS, or DTS-HD. Those are the only formats I've terrified at it, but it can decode a whole handful more. It's nice that the receiver will show you what format it's decoding at all times. This logic plays audio from the Roku with no harms, so I'm a happy camper!By and large Sound ImpressionsThe sound that this logic is able to yield is really impressive. A lot of broadcast say that it's 'not great' compared to a 5.1 logic. I'm not a fan of surround seups (I very 2.1 - or soundbars), so I can't comment on that, nor do I want to.I turned on the notch scene from Fast Five (1080p, DTS HD) and a friend walked in the room from further than. His response was, "That sounded amazing from further than, and I'm not even in the room!" The sound reproduction is really, REALLY realistic from the YHT-S401. Movie soundtracks sound full and rich, and dialogue sounds exceptionally clear - even lacking 'Clear Voice' activated.By the way, the 'Clear Voice' feature is not just a attention-grabber - it will enhance the frequencies near human address, and it doesn't muck up the rest of the sound. I'm sure it was austere for the engineers to implement, but it works wonders in real world applications.Virtual SurroundThe way we have it set up, the TV/soundbar are in the confront of a tiled room; so the virtual surround doesn't gathering very well. I'm fine with that, even if, as the sound is so rich nonetheless. There are a few times - when I've been meeting directly in front of the unit - that I've noticed some surround equipment, but I like this logic more for its by and large sound feature, not the surround attempts.Another nice thing about it is that it comes with connections for all 5 speaker terminals, so if you want to add 2 surround speakers in the possibility, it's as easy as plugging in more speaker wire. If you want to use two uncommon left/right supervise over speakers, you can continue to use the soundbar as the center supervise over and hook up uncommon speakers to the front left/right channels. It's cool how double-jointed the logic is.ConsThe only con I can think of is that the highs aren't as crystal clear as I would very. The logic doesn't have dyed-in-the-wool tweeters, so it's understandable; and let me be clear, the sound from this logic is unbelievable clear. There's just a certain feature to ridiculously clear high frequencies that makes a sound logic PERFECT - and this logic doesn't hit those frequencies. I'll say it again, the highs are still amazing on this logic, but they just don't ring like they do appearance from dyed-in-the-wool tweeters. Since the movie-surveillance experience is not stalled by this, it doesn't affect my rating at all. For the money, this logic is fantastic.SuggestionsWhen you're streaming your music store, music sounds best in "Stereo" mode. There's a "Stereo Enhanced" and "Music" (probably ProLogic II) mode, but they don't re-erect the music in as raw a create as just plain old "Stereo" mode does. Try it - you'll see what I mean.
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Casey FridaySmall room, ultra-thin flat tire panel TV with sound with the intention of is predictable of today's new flat tire panels. The thinner they get, the worse they sound.I will preface by saying my logic has a full 7.1 channel Denon surround sound hooked up but we don't like to use it except for movies so I be inflicted with been incisive for a clad sound bar logic for everyday TV shows.So, I be inflicted with now purchased a Bose Solo which I had for 3 days and with no way to change the boom, boom boom of the bass, decided to return it to Bose. At that calculate bought a Boston Acoustic TVee 10 which worked extremely well but subdue no actual control over the sound levels for bass, treble and mid-array.So I purchased this Yamaha and should say I am pleasantly surprised. Full control of sound levels counting the sub-woofer, HDMI inputs with audio return channel and 3D support and a few other features which I planning would be the predictable gimmicks existing on today's TV's, Apparent Accent and Established Sound (to help with commercial number). Well, these features actually bring about on this soundbar logic.If you are looking for audio 10 times better than the speakers in your flat tire panel, the Yamaha is worth a try.
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J. JonesYamaha YHT-S401BL Front Surround Home Theater System 
