YAS-101 Yamaha Soundbar.
A while back I bought a cheap Kogan TV which was very much a “that’ll do” purchase at the time. It’s been OK except for it’s weak sound from it’s little in-built speakers (the sound so tinny and weak that max volume is hardly audible during some movies). I’ve been meaning to buy a sound system for it, just haven’t been motivated to until now.
I initially looked into a surround sound system, but really hated the idea of having ugly black boxes all over the room. Then I stumbled upon soundbars, the new thing it seems. Thin, minimalist.
I opted to get this YAS-101 Yamaha Soundbar because I trust the Yamaha brand, it was cheap and it was an all in one (ie: no separate sub box).
It came with an optical cable to connect directly to my Foxtel box (not sure how to get it to work with my DVD player, or Wii or Playstation though and my TV doesn’t have optical out) and within 5 minutes I was up and running.
The unit sits in front of the TV’s IR receiver but the remote control signal is relayed to the IR flasher on the back, ensuring the signal to the TV is unaffected and best of all I can make do without an additional remote control as this unit has a learning function which worked perfectly with my TV remote control (which now controls the volume and on/off of this unit).
Sound is better in every way. Rich and full of depth in comparison to the TV’s built-in speakers. It has a feature called “UniVolume” which maintains a constant volume, great for automatically reducing the volume of loud advertisements (so good). It’s also got a surround sound feature which works really well (tested on Snow White and the Huntsman which was on TV last night, sounded fantastic). Another feature is “Clear Voice” which does a great job of just increasing the volume and clarity of voices (worked a treat and tested whilst watching UFC!).
