I spend a long time researching what soundbar to buy and I landed on the YAS207.The sound quality of the YAS207 is incredible. The Virtual DTX does many movies justice. It's not quite 5.1 but for a soundbar it's a pretty impressive feat to pull of sending sound to the rear when there are no rear speakers! IO fired up a few movies to test out the surround and boy was it good. The sub produced a good thumping cinema sound and the dialogue is clear.
Likewise for music, the vitual x adds an extra dimension to the sound, like you're standing in the middle of the stage with the vocals and instruments surrounding you.
If I ended there, this would be a 5 star review. However, the YAS207 has a significant design flaw. And that is the subwoofer crossover frequency. I noticed this firest when I was watching Graham Norton on medium volume. The sub seemed to cut off when there was someone talking in a low voice. Typicall these voice were male but also apparent with female voice. It was VERY annoying. One minute the sub was producing the low bass frequency, as it should. Then suddenly it would cut out. It drove me mad. I then tried other talk shows and also movies where there was periods with just dialogue and no sound effects and the issue was still there.
I tried different HDMI lead, optical lead etc. The only thing that fixed it was to jack the volume up way to high. Which is a problem, because when the bass does kick in and there's some music/sound effects the room shakes. I started doing some research on the internet and various forums. Turns out i'm not the only one. Others have had the same issue. These only become apparent during quiet dialogue/talking.
I tried to contact Yamaha tech support but they did not return my call/emails. I did read on a forum that someone did hear from Yamaha. The issue lies in the frequency that the sub kicks in. The below is a response from Yamaha to someone on avsforums:
"The sub-woofer on the YAS207 crosses in at 180Hz. To place this in context the YSP1600 and YSP2700 cross in at 500Hz. The YSP5600 ranges from 80Hz to 120Hz and the older YAS207 (being the YAS203) crossed in at 150Hz.
Unfortunately, because the drivers have been engineered to work within the parameters of specific frequencies, it's not possible to just release a firmware to change it. The cross over point is more defined by the actual hardware (speaker drivers being used) and not software.".
If you use this for movies and play it loud (over 25% volume) you'll be happy. It's a great buy. But if you want to use this for watching talkshows, dramas at a moderate volume. For instance at night or when you don't want to annoy the rest of the house, then give this a miss.
I have just requested mine to be returned and now I have to go back to the drawing board to research whic sound system to buy. A real shame because it does produce lovely sound, but this massive oversight makes is not fit for purpose.
Bookmarks