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Woochifer
03-15-2005, 05:17 PM
Yamaha won an award at CES for their new Digital Sound Projector, which looks like another drop in the current flood of wall-mounted center speakers, but is actually a one-piece HTIB that hooks up to external AV sources. This HTIB is supposed to create a 5.1 surround effect from a single speaker. Other companies, such as Hsu and M&K, have created similar products, but the Yamaha takes things a step further by integrating the speaker with the amplification and processing circuitry.

Personally, I've never seen anything quite like this before. It has two mid/woofer drivers plus 42 tweeters, each of which are driven by a separate digital amplifier. Seems like they are using the crossover network to create time and phase alterations. On the surface, it reminds me of the Bose 901 because of how it uses wall reflections to create the ambient effect. But, this is different because the effect is not designed around mimicking a larger space, but rather to create a surround effect with one speaker. It's also different because of the integrated digital crossover and amplification, which is akin to the approach that Meridian and NHT are using with their most advanced speaker systems.

No idea how the thing actually sounds, and at $1,500 it is not exactly cheap. But, it seems like a very interesting product with a lot of the newer design approaches bundled together into a single box.

http://www.yamaha.com/yec/YSP1/images/ysp1_grilleoff_anim_01.gif

This is just weird looking when you get behind the grille. I dunno about this animated image -- kinda disturbing actually!

http://www.yamaha.com/yec/YSP1/

http://www.mksound.com/images/speakers/mains/MPS-45/mp4512FR_nogr_dvd675x300.jpg

This is M&K's all-in-one speaker system. Unlike the Yamaha, this is a one-piece speaker that hooks up to a conventional receiver or amplifier. It too is designed to create a surround effect with only one speaker. It cost $650

http://www.mksound.com/mp4512.htm

hershon
03-15-2005, 05:47 PM
This unfortunately seems to be the new trend. Where do these companies all get the same ludicrous ideas at the same time through Osmosis or just good old corporate espionage! There is a similar device that goes for $100 retail that USA today reviewed last week in their busness section in their weekly technology column. I think I'll pass!



Yamaha won an award at CES for their new Digital Sound Projector, which looks like another drop in the current flood of wall-mounted center speakers, but is actually a one-piece HTIB that hooks up to external AV sources. This HTIB is supposed to create a 5.1 surround effect from a single speaker. Other companies, such as Hsu and M&K, have created similar products, but the Yamaha takes things a step further by integrating the speaker with the amplification and processing circuitry.

Personally, I've never seen anything quite like this before. It has two mid/woofer drivers plus 42 tweeters, each of which are driven by a separate digital amplifier. Seems like they are using the crossover network to create time and phase alterations. On the surface, it reminds me of the Bose 901 because of how it uses wall reflections to create the ambient effect. But, this is different because the effect is not designed around mimicking a larger space, but rather to create a surround effect with one speaker. It's also different because of the integrated digital crossover and amplification, which is akin to the approach that Meridian and NHT are using with their most advanced speaker systems.

No idea how the thing actually sounds, and at $1,500 it is not exactly cheap. But, it seems like a very interesting product with a lot of the newer design approaches bundled together into a single box.

http://www.yamaha.com/yec/YSP1/images/ysp1_grilleoff_anim_01.gif

This is just weird looking when you get behind the grille. I dunno about this animated image -- kinda disturbing actually!

http://www.yamaha.com/yec/YSP1/

http://www.mksound.com/images/speakers/mains/MPS-45/mp4512FR_nogr_dvd675x300.jpg

This is M&K's all-in-one speaker system. Unlike the Yamaha, this is a one-piece speaker that hooks up to a conventional receiver or amplifier. It too is designed to create a surround effect with only one speaker. It cost $650

http://www.mksound.com/mp4512.htm

Woochifer
03-15-2005, 06:09 PM
This unfortunately seems to be the new trend. Where do these companies all get the same ludicrous ideas at the same time through Osmosis or just good old corporate espionage! There is a similar device that goes for $100 retail that USA today reviewed last week in their busness section in their weekly technology column. I think I'll pass!

What $100 device? I doubt that this is the same thing.

A one-piece five channel speaker has not been around that long, and this Yamaha device uses a similar digital crossover/amplification approach to what Meridian and NHT have incorporated into their high end speaker systems, except without the adaptive EQs that are built into those systems.

hershon
03-15-2005, 06:58 PM
Trust me its the same thing in principle from another company being sold to poor people for $100 & it was reviewed in USA Today last week in their business section. I'll see if I can search USA Today's archives for you.





What $100 device? I doubt that this is the same thing.

A one-piece five channel speaker has not been around that long, and this Yamaha device uses a similar digital crossover/amplification approach to what Meridian and NHT have incorporated into their high end speaker systems, except without the adaptive EQs that are built into those systems.

hershon
03-15-2005, 07:06 PM
Sorry, a bit of a screwup. Its actually a $100 Receiver that does this. Here is the review:

"Surround sound from a paperback-size box? It's not fiction
How do you get vibrant home-theater sound — the kind usually found in a five-speaker system — when you're using only a pair of speakers? According to the arithmetic practiced by an Australian company called Xitel, two already equals five.

Fuzzy math? Let me provide perspective.


The Xitel SoundAround.

Besides a TV and DVD player, the typical 5.1 home-theater system consists of five (and sometimes six) speakers, with each one sending separate audio. Now, Xitel has introduced Soundaround, a $100 box the size of a paperback novel.

When hooked up to a DVD player, a video game console or a stereo TV, Soundaround promises to deliver a surround-sound experience worthy of the neighborhood multiplex. It's supposed to achieve such levels of sound even though the audio is emerging from just two ordinary speakers on your TV.
The bottom line

Xitel Soundaround
www.xitel.com

$100, 3 stars out of four

Pro: Small, inexpensive box delivers virtual surround sound from just two speakers. Simple installation.
Con: Virtual sound effects may not live up to expectations of movie junkies who demand perfection.

Granted, this is all r"elative. The folks at Xitel concede that under any circumstances, better speakers produce better sound. And the most serious audiophiles will continue to demand an expensive hi-fi setup.

But Xitel has fashioned a way for the masses to get inexpensive but dazzling home theater. (Quick note: I'm not factoring in the cost of a television.)

I tested Soundaround in my house on two TVs and two DVD players. I watched scenes from a wide range of DVD movies: Austin Powers in Goldmember, Die Another Day, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Hellboy, Ice Age, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, The Commitments, The Manchurian Candidate, Standing in the Shadows of Motown, Pirates of the Caribbean, Shrek 2 and Toy Story.

I took in all the explosions, singing, crowd noises and footsteps from those movies. I listened first through the TV speakers and later with an excellent pair of Shure earphones.

Setting up a regular home-theater system can be a chore. If you live in cramped quarters, space becomes an issue. Even if you have room for all the speakers, it's hard for the average consumer to determine the precise "sweet spot" to place each one. Another hassle: You usually have to run a tangle of cables or wires to each of these speakers. Wireless home-theater speakers exist, but they've generally received only so-so reviews.

Over the years, engineers have come up with several ways to simulate surround sound and thus reduce speaker (and cord) clutter. About 16 months ago, I gave high marks to an elegant "home theater in a box" solution known as Niro 1.1 Pro, from a company called Nirotek America. (Home-theater-in-a-box systems supply everything you need except the television.)

It consisted of just three components, so there was less need for wiring. Niro included a combination progressive-scan DVD player, AM-FM tuner and digital amplifier. All of it occupied one 2-inch-high box. It also came with the requisite subwoofer (to provide bass). But the pièce de résistance was an under-5-inch-tall lone speaker that could be placed anywhere, indoors or out. (Atop the TV proved best.)

Watching DVDs through that system, I felt immersed in the action on screen. I couldn't detect that the sound was essentially coming from that single speaker (with an assist on lower frequencies from the subwoofer).

I remember being more wowed by Niro than I was at first with Xitel. But as I watched more and more, Soundaround grabbed me.

Watching Xitel-aided home-theater audio felt fuller and richer than watching a movie without it. (Listening through the Shure earphones, though, produced better results than listening on the televisions.)

Xitel compares favorably with Niro — and to regular home-theater-in-a-box-systems — in other ways, too. Soundaround lets you exploit the stereo gear you already own.

So there's no need to add pricey speakers or any other space-hogging components. It also costs less than one-fifth of what a Niro system similar to the one I reviewed now fetches (though without the extra gear Niro includes).

Xitel is versatile, too. It works with audio produced from a DVD player, PlayStation 2 or Xbox, satellite or cable set-top box, digital video recorder, even high-definition radio. Sound from those sources is processed through the Xitel box and then pumped to your stereo TV speakers, two-speaker hi-fi system, powered speakers or headphones.

How the virtual speaker effect works:

Xitel exploits the principles of psychoacoustics. That's a fancy way of describing how your brain perceives what your ears hear. Soundaround uses complex mathematical algorithms — I guess the math's not so fuzzy after all — to delay and vary the intensity of the audio coming through your main speakers.

In other words, you're tricked into thinking you're hearing true surround sound. Xitel combines sound technologies developed by SRS Labs (to provide surround effects, bass and dialogue clarity). And it's compatible with movie and video game audio produced by Dolby Laboratories and Digital Theater Systems.

Whatever funky calculations are happening inside the box, setting up the Xitel for a consumer is a breeze. You plug the supplied standard audio cables from the component you're using (DVD player, for instance) into the Soundaround box. Then you connect cables from that box to your TV or stereo. That's it.

With a simple remote control, you can toggle among any of three audio modes: bypass, in which no audio processing is done; stereo; and surround.

Indicator lights on the Soundaround show which mode you're in. You can also use the remote to increase or decrease the bass effect and to turn on or off the dialogue-clarity setting. There's also a switch to let you adjust for the size of your speakers.

Soundaround won't satisfy every film or video game junkie. But Xitel's reasonably priced device can produce just the kind of mind-jarring surround effects that, to a lot of people, will sound just right."

kexodusc
03-16-2005, 05:10 AM
That's one evil looking unit...I'm waiting for little spiders to crawl out of the tweeters and attack!!!
How the hell does "imaging" work on a one speaker system?

And I'd hate to be the poor bastard at Yamaha that got charged with designing a 44 driver crossover!!!

Woochifer
03-16-2005, 05:19 PM
Hersh -

That device you're describing looks more like a virtual surround processor for people who prefer to stick with two-channel. The Yamaha and M&K setups are different because they use the design of the speaker itself to create the spatial effects. M&K by going with a tripolar design, and Yamaha by using a digital crossover with 44 individual drivers.


That's one evil looking unit...I'm waiting for little spiders to crawl out of the tweeters and attack!!!
How the hell does "imaging" work on a one speaker system?

And I'd hate to be the poor bastard at Yamaha that got charged with designing a 44 driver crossover!!!

That thing does look sadistic, doesn't it? It looked like a prop out of any number of horror pics involving blood sucking __________ (fill in the blank).

The Yamaha uses individual digital amplifiers for each driver and I think the processing and crossing over all occur in the digital domain.

NHT is about to come out their Xb series speakers, which use a similar digital crossover setup along with an adaptive EQ. Supposedly this makes the speaker image virtually identically from an off-center position. Meridian has done this type of digital amp/crossover setup as well. I have a feeling that this approach is about to start trickling down, and it should be interesting to see if this catches on where active speakers had previously failed.

And like it or not, it looks like the wall-mounted one-speaker setup is a concept that very well could gain traction as the trend to wall-mounted speakers charges forward.

All in all, it looks like we're in for some very divergent product approaches in the next few years, especially if digital EQ-correcting speakers catch on.