Digital Trends

Yamaha YSP-4000 Digital Sound Projector

January 28th, 2008 | by Brandon King

Features and Design

As gadget-minded aesthetes, we love our plasmas and LCD TVs for their clean design and simplicity. While some enjoy the macho, raw power of gigantic floor-standing speakers that could blow grandma’s dentures clean out of her mouth, others want sound to just flow smoothly from the walls. After dropping a pretty penny on a flatscreen TV, how do you get the sound you need to really make those DVDs, HD-DVDs and Blu-Ray discs spring to life without running wires throughout the entire living room? Enter the Yamaha digital sound projector.

The concept is simple and brilliant: Mount an array of small speakers in one central location and aim them such that they reflect sound off the walls. By doing this just right, the effect can fool the listener into thinking there are speakers positioned around them at all angles. If you’re a tech geek scorned by previous interesting=sounding speaker technology that never delivered, you’re probably skeptical – a perfectly healthy reaction. Therefore we’re happy to put the Yamaha YSP-4000, the flagship model by the company that invented the genre, through the same scrutiny as a full-fledged 5.1 speaker system, and compare the sound quality and localization to a number of speaker configurations.

Note that the YSP-4000 features two larger midrange drivers separated by 40 small, but powerful, motorized drivers. Power is rated at 2W x 40 and 20W x 2, and a total of 120W. If you’re familiar with speaker power numbers, you’re probably already scratching your head. Well, hang on, because nearly everything about this sound projector is unique. And if you’re already inclined to stop reading, here’s a little spoiler: Somehow it all works out in the end.

Image Courtesy of Yamaha