If you’re on the lookout for a comparatively cheap approach to improve your TV’s sound whereas including Alexa to the combo, the Yamaha YAS-209 makes for a gorgeous choice. Armed with a wi-fi subwoofer, an easy-to-use distant, and Alexa onboard, the $350 YAS-209 delivers spectacular sound given it value, to not point out the comfort of controlling the soundbar’s quantity and queuing up tunes with voice instructions.
That mentioned, we had been much less impressed with one of many YAS-209’s signature options: its DTS Virtual:X-powered 3D encompass mode, which sounded distractingly harsh to our ears. We may additionally do with out the bass-boosting Bass Extender mode, and we’re bummed Alexa doesn’t have extra direct management over the soundbar’s options.
Configuration
The Yamaha YAS-209 is a 2.1 soundbar, which implies you get left and proper audio channels (delivered by two 1.75-inch drivers per channel) in addition to a subwoofer for deep, typically booming low-end sound. Because there aren’t any devoted encompass audio system, the YAS-209 depends by itself digital encompass modes in addition to DTS Virtual:X expertise to simulate encompass results.
The speaker can be lacking a devoted heart channel, which implies dialog should arrive over the left and proper channels. We’ll cowl how the shortage of a middle channel impacts dialog within the efficiency part of our evaluation, however needless to say a 2.1-channel configuration is frequent for soundbars this cheap. If you need a soundbar with a devoted heart channel, anticipate to pay no less than a pair hundred bucks extra.
Measuring 36.6 x 4.3 x 2.5 inches, the central soundbar unit can sit in entrance of your TV, or you may mount it on the wall with assist from a pair of rear mounting holes and the included mounting template. (Screws aren’t included.) The wi-fi 16.5 x 16 x 7.5 subwoofer can sit just about anyplace within the room; throughout my exams, I sat it behind and barely to the left of my TV cupboard.
Yamaha’s pricier soundbars assist the producer’s MusicCast multi-room audio platform, which lets you add wi-fi encompass audio system to the combo along with audio system in different rooms. Unfortunately, the YAS-209 doesn’t assist MusicCast, which implies you received’t have the ability to improve it with wi-fi surrounds or join it to different Yamaha MusicCast-enabled audio system.
Inputs and outputs
The YAS-209’s inputs and outputs are fairly typical for a soundbar on this value vary. In a nutshell, you get an HDMI enter, an HDMI out with ARC (audio return channel), an optical Toslink, an ethernet port, and a USB service port. All 5 of the ports are positioned in a rear cavity on the left aspect of the soundbar, whereas a port for the removable energy wire is in an identical cavity on the precise.
Ben Patterson/IDGThe Yamaha YAS-209 options an ordinary set of inputs and outputs, together with an HDMI ARC output, an HDMI enter, an optical output, ethernet, and a USB service port.
Speaking of the HDMI ports, the soundbar helps each 4K and HDR10 passthrough, in addition to HDCP 2.3 copy safety.
Setup and set up
Setting up the YAS-209 was a comparatively painless expertise. After inserting the soundbar in entrance of my LG C9 OLED TV, I related the HDMI output to one in all my TV’s HDMI inputs and I then related my Apple TV 4K to the soundbar’s HDMI enter. You’ll have to produce your individual HDMI cable as Yamaha doesn’t embody one within the field.
If you need to join a number of video sources to the YAS-209, your greatest is to attach them to your TV’s HDMI inputs after which join the TV to the soundbar through your set’s HDMI ARC port, assuming it has one. (If you got your TV in the previous couple of years or so, it in all probability does.) If you have got an older, ARC-less TV, you may nonetheless join your video sources to your TV after which ship audio to the soundbar through the included Toslink cable.
The draw back of utilizing HDMI ARC or an optical cable to attach your video sources is that neither assist lossless audio codecs like Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD Master Audio; for that, you’d want each a TV and a soundbar that assist HDMI eARC (or “enhanced” ARC), the next-generation model of HDMI ARC. The reality {that a} funds soundbar just like the YAS-209 doesn’t assist eARC isn’t terribly stunning, on condition that the function solely began showing in merchandise this 12 months.
Next, you’ll want to attach the wi-fi subwoofer to the soundbar, a simple course of on condition that the 2 had been pre-paired out of the field. If, for some motive, the soundbar and subwoofer don’t join to one another mechanically, you may pair them manually by urgent and holding the subwoofer quantity management on the distant after which urgent and holding the pairing button on the subwoofer itself.
Last, however not least, you may join the soundbar to your Wi-Fi community (a requirement in order for you Alexa to work) by downloading the Yamaha Sound Bar Controller App to your iPhone or Android telephone. The app found the YAS-209 inside just a few seconds, after which prompted me to select my Wi-Fi community and enter the password. Once I entered my Wi-Fi credentials, the soundbar related to my wi-fi community with none points. If you like to attach the soundbar to the web through a wired connection, you may all the time use the ethernet port.
Controls and distant
Along the highest of the soundbar are touch-sensitive buttons for activating Alexa, adjusting the quantity, switching inputs, toggling the facility, and muting the microphone. The final is useful when you don’t need Alexa listening in throughout a film or chiming in each time she thinks she hears her identify.
Ben Patterson/IDGThe Yamaha YAS-209’s distant isn’t backlit, however its important controls are straightforward to search out at midnight.
The small, light-weight distant isn’t backlit, however the important controls—particularly soundbar and subwoofer quantity and the Clear Voice and 3D Surround modes, which we’ll element in a second—are straightforward to search out at midnight. The distant additionally has buttons for the soundbar’s numerous inputs, sound modes, and the bass-boosting Bass Extension mode (one other function that we’ll cowl momentarily), whereas an Alexa button within the top-left nook wakes Amazon’s digital assistant whereas quickly dialing down the sound.
Disconcertingly, it will possibly take a number of clicks of the distant’s quantity buttons to make the small white indicator lights (which do double obligation as standing lights and quantity degree indicators) that sit alongside the highest of the soundbar go up or down, which makes it appear as if the soundbar isn’t responding to the distant even when it truly is.
Ben Patterson/IDGThe standing lights on the Yamaha YAS-209 double as quantity degree indicators.
You also can management the entire soundbar’s options utilizing the Yamaha cell app, however the app’s complicated design makes utilizing it a chore. For instance, one display on the app permits you to change sound modes, toggle the 3D encompass mode, and modify the subwoofer’s quantity degree, however you’ll need to navigate to a different display to vary the primary soundbar quantity. If you need to swap enter sources, you’ll have to swipe your approach to yet one more display.
Ben Patterson/IDGYou can management the Yamaha YAS-209 utilizing Yamaha’s cell soundbar app, however the app’s interface is needlessly complicated.
Last, however not least, you may management the soundbar with a common distant, like one from Logitech’s Harmony line. If you’re a Harmony person, keep in mind that as of this writing, the YAS-209 has but to look in Logitech’s checklist of pre-programmed units (hopefully they’ll get round to including it quickly), though I managed to manually program some rudimentary instructions for the soundbar into my Harmony Companion remote.
Alexa, Spotify Connect, and Bluetooth
Alexa on the YAS-209 seems to be an attentive onboard companion to the soundbar, even with the quantity cranked. We simply want Alexa may train extra management over the soundbar’s native options.
On the plus aspect, Alexa had no downside listening to me, even with the sound dialed up or once I was all the way in which throughout the room. Indeed, even once I was talking in a gentle voice, Alexa nearly all the time awoke.
Unfortunately, Alexa doesn’t have loads of soundbar-specific abilities, and I had some hassle with those who she does have. Yes, you may ask Alexa to regulate the quantity, and it’s nice to have the ability to command Alexa to mute the sound completely when, say, the doorbell rings. But she bought confused once I requested her to modify enter sources, even once I used the precise phrasing (“Alexa, switch the input source to HDMI”) listed within the person guide. (I’ve requested Yamaha about this potential bug, and we’ll replace the evaluation as soon as I hear again.) I used to be additionally disillusioned that Alexa can’t change the YAS-209’s sound modes (like “Movies” or “TV Programs”) or activate Clear Voice or 3D Surround modes.
That mentioned, you may ask Alexa to do something she will do on an Echo system or the Alexa app, reminiscent of play tunes, test the climate, management a suitable sensible system, or set an alarm. It’s additionally useful to have Alexa accessible on the soundbar when you’re utilizing an Alexa ability to your suitable common distant (e.g., “Alexa, watch Apple TV”).
Besides Alexa, the YAS-209 helps Spotify Connect, which implies you may route your Spotify tunes to the soundbar utilizing the Spotify app on any of your related units. Bluetooth can be a breeze; simply press and maintain the Bluetooth button on the distant to start out the pairing course of. I had no downside connecting my iPhone to the YAS-209 through Bluetooth, and you can begin streaming Bluetooth tunes even when the soundbar is in standby mode.
Performance
Being the funds soundbar that it’s, the YAS-209 comes with some inherent compromises. Besides its lack of bodily encompass audio system or assist for wi-fi surrounds, the two.1-channel soundbar lacks a devoted heart channel, which implies that dialog typically sounds prefer it’s bleeding out a bit from the left and proper channels. Mind you, I by no means had any hassle understanding what was being mentioned throughout a dialog scene, however I often discovered the slippery sound of the dialog—which, to be honest, is a matter with just about any 2.1 soundbar—to be distracting.
With the enterprise of dialog out of the way in which, let’s discuss in regards to the YAS-209’s total sound, which I used to be typically fairly pleased with. Teeing up the eye-popping opening titles from 1978’s Superman, I used to be impressed with the detailed, wealthy sound, together with some appropriately booming bass courtesy of the wi-fi subwoofer. Switching to the “Movie” digital encompass mode, I may hear delicate however unobtrusive encompass results because the streaking blue credit whooshed throughout the display, though the soundstage principally stayed centered in entrance. I’ve heard fuller sound from costlier soundbars, such because the $700 Samsung HW-Q70R, however the Yamaha YAS-209’s normal audio modes nonetheless sound much better than even the most effective built-in TV audio system.
DTS Virtual:X efficiency
The YAS-209’s greatest sonic draw (together with the cheaper, Alexa-less YAS-207) is its assist for DTS Virtual:X, a digital sound format designed to create immersive encompass results not simply on the edges and behind you, but additionally from above. DTS Virtual:X works with any sound supply, even these in plain-old stereo, and you’ll allow it on the YAS-209 by urgent the 3D Surround button on the distant.
We’ve praised the sound of Yamaha’s DTS Virtual:X-powered 3D Surround mode previously, so I used to be keen to listen to it for myself. But once I switched it on and performed the Superman opening credit once more, I used to be underwhelmed. Yes, encompass results sounded extra pronounced with DTS Virtual:X up and working, together with a faint peak presence. (You can’t actually anticipate to listen to detailed overhead sounds from a sound setup that lacks in-ceiling audio system or up-firing drivers.)
Unfortunately, these enhanced encompass results include a value, to my ears: a harshness that resulted in tinny, hole sound, together with dialog that was often marred by a distracting echo.
I watched quite a lot of scenes from films together with Kill Bill: Vol.1, Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, and Blade Runner: 2048, flipping forwards and backwards between the usual Yamaha “Movie” encompass mode and the DTS Virtual:X 3D Surround mode, and every time, I discovered that I most popular 3D Surround turned off. For me, the improved encompass results merely weren’t definitely worth the added audio harshness.
The YAS-209 comes with a pair different audio options that we’ve beforehand talked about: Clear Voice and Bass Extender. Clear Voice does what it claims: it boosts the sound of dialog, and whereas it isn’t delicate, it definitely ensures that you just received’t miss a phrase. Bass Extender, in the meantime, is a bass-boosting mode that, when you ask me, does little greater than swamp high- and mid-range audio with unneeded, thumping booms. It’s there in order for you it, however I left it switched off.