Digital Trends

Yamaha YSP-4000 Digital Sound Projector

January 28th, 2008 | by Brandon King

Decoding and DSP Options

There are several decoders built into the YSP-4000. Neural Surround, by Yamaha, discretizes the audio source into 5 channels and aids with expanding stereo sources to cover the entire listening area. As far as supported codecs, there’s Dolby Pro Logic IIx, Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital EX, DTS Digital, DTS-ES (matrix and discrete), DTS Neo:6, and DTS 96/24. Yes, that’s a whole bunch of decoding for such a small package. Notably missing is Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD – the formats used by Blu-ray and HD-DVD. The reasoning behind the lack of support is that the YSP-4000 supports 5 virtual sound beams, while the higher-fidelity codecs support 8 channels. For 99% of the users out there, 5.1 channels should be enough for the recommended room dimensions.

It should be noted that the YSP-4000 supports only HDMI 1.2a. If you are using an HDMI 1.3 setup (source and display), you should run the HDMI out from the source directly to the display, set the source to output bitstream or Dolby Digital, and use an optical or digital coax connection to the sound projector for audio. This setup retains the extended color depth offered by HDMI 1.3 while making the sound compatible with the sound projector. We fully expect the next update to the YSP family to support HDMI 1.3.

Seven DSP environments allow the user to switch between several soundfields. Three Movie, three Music, and one Sports setting disperse audio throughout the room with different audio characteristics.

Beam modes include 3 Beam, 5 Beam, 3 Beam + Stereo, 2 Channel Stereo, 5 Channel Stereo, My Surround and My Beam. There is also a Night Mode which attenuates large spikes in volume. We found that “5 Beam” mode was all we needed for movies. Music sounded the most immersive in “5 Channel Stereo” mode. 

Analog video sources can be upscaled to 720p or 1080i over the HDMI interface and the HDMI passthrough feature will preserve 1080p data. Again, avoid placing another HDMI switch in the mix, as the HDCP handshaking will flake out and lock out the output. Also note that there is no audio output, and audio is not sent over the HDMI out connection. This can be an issue if you will be using the YSP-4000 with two or more speaker zones.

There is no place to connect external speakers, for obvious reasons, making the sound projector a single environment device. If you wish to power a second set of speakers, you will need a separate receiver. This means that there is no central volume control, and the added speakers will be entirely controlled by the added receiver, and the YSP speakers will be controlled by the built in receiver.