Yamaha YAS-203 Review - Soundbar - Tom's Guide

Our Verdict

Yamaha'due south YAS-203 soundbar creates a big, immersive sound while keeping the cost affordable.

For

Wide field of sound
Rich bass
Clear dialogue and vocals `

Tom's Guide Verdict

Yamaha'due south YAS-203 soundbar creates a large, immersive audio while keeping the toll affordable.

Pros

+
Wide field of sound
+
Rich bass
+
Articulate dialogue and vocals `

Audio enriches the grand illusion of video entertainment, making for a more immersive motion-picture show- or TV-watching feel. In your abode, yous tin can't beat out a full 7.one or five.1 domicile theater environs sound arrangement for sucking you lot into a film, simply those setups can be costly and hard to use. Yamaha's YAS-203 soundbar aims to take the hurting and cost out of home theater sound, producing large sound at an affordable price.

Blueprint

The YAS-203 looks like many soundbars: a long, shallow bar that'southward designed to be placed below or above your TV. At 35 inches wide, the YAS-203 should fit well with almost moderate-size sets, those between 42 and 32 inches. Placed under a 55-inch Panasonic P55ST60, it appeared overmatched, though the sound turned out to exist big enough to work with a screen that size.

The unit features easy-to-access audio connections on the dorsum: optical digital, coaxial digital (labeled BD/DVD) and analog RCA stereo. Information technology also includes Bluetooth for streaming music from a computer or mobile device. The YAS-203 lacks HDMI inputs or outputs, which means you can only control sound, not video inputs, and in that location's no on-screen brandish for setup or status.

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Instead, the Yamaha relies on green indicator lights on the front of the main soundbar to indicate which sound input is agile, every bit well as whether surround sound is engaged. Those at-a-glance indicators are convenient, but when you're trying to admission deeper features, such equally specific surround modes specialized for movie, music or sports, you can't tell which way you're in. You have to turn to a mobile device and the free Dwelling Theater Controller app for that.

The principal unit features two 2.13-inch drivers, slightly smaller than the 2.36-inch drivers in Sony'south HT-CT370. Only the YAS-203 makes the most of those (run across Audio Operation for more most that). The Yamaha's 12.5 10 11.5 ten xi.four-inch wireless subwoofer is larger than those that come up with the Sony HT-CT370 or Vizio S4251w-B4 v.1 surround soundbar, and the Yamaha product produces amend bass as a result.

Setup and Use

The YAS-203 was uncomplicated to set up. I connected the included optical-digital cable from my Tv set to the back of the unit of measurement; the wireless subwoofer connected with the main soundbar as before long equally I plugged in the subwoofer.

The YAS-203 tin can decode Dolby Digital and DTS signals, though I found that my Idiot box wasn't passing these signals through to the soundbar. Instead, I needed to connect my Blu-ray actor directly to the soundbar; I used the coaxial digital input for that.

The soundbar offers a few settings on the remote (or inside the Home Theater Controller app, available for iOS and Android) that you tin use to customize for your environment. You can adjust the subwoofer level and use the "bass extension" feature to add more depression-end to the mix. You tin also engage Clear Vocalism to boost dialogue. The Univolume button is aimed at late-nighttime watching, and promises to prevent volume levels from spiking suddenly. Yous tin can too use sound delay if the video and audio expect out of sync.

The app makes it much easier to tell levels and which of the 5 surround-sound modes you lot've engaged: Goggle box Programme, Moving picture, Music, Sports or Game. I plant Picture and Music offered the best sound quality. The app itself could use refinement, though; I frequently received error letters in Chinese when I launched the app on my iPhone.

Yous tin can program the unit to respond to the book controls of your Goggle box's remote, meaning you don't have to turn to the Yamaha remote as oft. Fifty-fifty better, the soundbar has a built-in IR repeater; this is handy if the soundbar blocks your Television receiver's IR sensor — it repeats the signal through an emitter on the back of the soundbar.

Audio Operation

For a relatively modest soundbar, the YAS-203 produces a large sound. Not only does information technology become enough loud plenty to fill a medium-to-large room, it also creates the illusion of a broad field of sound — the audio spreads out before you. This makes watching movies and Tv set a more than immersive experience.

While I watched Justified, the YAS-203 produced clear dialogue, and I had no trouble understanding Boyd Crowder's thick drawl. The subwoofer produces amend item in low-end effects than smaller units, such as the 1 that comes with Sony's HT-CT370. Instead of just a dull rumble as the Batmobile raced through Gotham in The Night Knight, I could hear the safety-on-the-road details that create the upshot.

When decoding Dolby Digital or DTS, the YAS-203 actually shines. During the gild scene shootout in John Wick, the soundbar nicely handled the deep, throbbing soundtrack and the clatter of gunfire, producing a rich soundscape that complemented the on-screen action.

For music, the YAS-203 takes advantage of aptX technology to ameliorate the quality of Bluetooth sound streams. The subwoofer once more profoundly enhanced the listening feel, pumping out the bass line that drives D'Angelo's "The Charade." Vocals on songs such as "Uptown Funk" past Mark Ronson featuring Bruno Mars sounded clear and bright, as did the horns. The midrange tones on some songs fell flat, simply overall the soundbar is on par with others in the price range as a music organisation.

Bottom Line

With impressive audio in an affordable parcel, the Yamaha YAS-203 makes an attractive selection to bolster your TV'southward sound. Information technology's elementary to set up and employ, though some people may prefer the more feature-rich Sony HT-CT370, which costs merely $50 more and includes HDMI inputs. Only the YAS-203 delivers more-detailed bass and a wider field of sound — of import aspects of the sound experience.

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Michael Gowan covers soundbars, TVs, portable speakers and other audio- and video-related topics for Tom's Guide. He's written about music and engineering for more than 20 years for a raft of publications including Wired, Men'south Journal, PC Earth and Macworld. When he'south not reviewing speakers, he's probably listening to one anyway.