I recently owned the YSP-800 and liked it, but returned it because I was going to hold off on a surround system as I see more important expenses coming to me in the near future, not because I was dissappointed.
Here's what I wrote to someone else who PM'ed me about my thoughts. If this doesn't fully help you, just reply and I'll tell you what I can:
First off, let me tell you the best way to find out for sure if it is going to be any good in your room---> Buy it at Best Buy and test it out. They have a 30 day return policy, and all I had to do was return it saying it didn't work correctly with the shape of my apartment. I myself had it for about 3 weeks, and liked it. You could maybe even use their 30% or 15% off open box coupon to buy it when they put it out again.
I can't remember the exact measuremnts of my room right now because I am at work, but it is a small room, and my sofa was against the back wall (less than 10' to the back). My room is like a large rectangle on top of a trapezoid, but the sound was mostly bouncing off of the rectangle shaped part of the room.
For starters I tried out the auto-setup which sounded good, and I did hear things coming from all sides. I mostly used the Superbit 5th element, and the original star wars trilogy with Hayden christiansen at the end (maybe the second to last release of these movies). I also used the movie Spy Game which wasn't big on effect, but had a cool sound track. The 5th element and the star wars movies worked really well, but Spy game sounded awkward occasionally with actors voices, but worked really well on the musical part. There was a part when the Rob Redford and Brad Pitt are outside by a train, and the quality of their voices really stunk, but the musc sounded great. I bet that has to do with how the dvd is encoded, and possibly a weak center channel that was only calibrated for about 6 feet of distance.
The star wars movies even allowed you to calibrate your thx surround system putting out sound as if they were individual speakers and the sound did move around the room as it appeared they did on the dvd. My left surround channel was a little off, but that's because the room was a little odd shaped there. Also, my right channel was bouncing off of metal blinds, but they didn't seem to affect the sound any.
There was a whole world of difference when I used the custom setup however. I can't say it improved scenes like the one in Spy Game, but the sound was fuller and it seems I focused the beams more accurately for a full effect. You will probably need to get the measuring tape out on this one, and having a second person to hold everything would probably be more accurate. I did it alone in about 30 min, but ended up with great results that were worth it. The manual will basically tell you what all the calibration parameters mean, which can get a little confusing, but still doable after rereading it a couple of times.
Overall the sound quality you'll get out of the speaker is great, it's very crisp, and can get very loud. I'm guessing the range of loudness will be a great help when you try to fill a larger room. I was surprised at how low I had the volume set for my small room, but when I raised the volume, I saw how clear the sound stayed, but it was just too loud for my small room, especially coupled with just a $200 sony 12" subwoofer.
YOU WILL NEED A SUBWOOFER. And don't use the optical cables they give you. I've never tried to do much in the way of comparing cables, but I noticed a really big one in this case with the optical, even though it shouldn't matter with a digital signal. Monoprice is where I got my cables.
Back to the Sub though, I only bought the Sony because I had no intention of keeping it for over 30 days, and it was the cheapest one in the store. It did sound really good though and filled my small room with more than enough rumbling base in the flying, and space battle scenes of Star Wars. I was looking to go with HSU's $250 sub because it was only an 8 inch, and apparently has superior sound to most other subs you can compare it too. But the YSP suffers without a sub because it has to put it's resources elsewhere to create bass, but still quality sound.
The last thing to consider is the surround field that is created. I could move around anywhere on my 10' long couch and here all the surround effects. This is great for a small to medium sized room where the sweet spot may be very directional to only those sitting in the correct location.
Here's what I wrote to someone else who PM'ed me about my thoughts. If this doesn't fully help you, just reply and I'll tell you what I can:
First off, let me tell you the best way to find out for sure if it is going to be any good in your room---> Buy it at Best Buy and test it out. They have a 30 day return policy, and all I had to do was return it saying it didn't work correctly with the shape of my apartment. I myself had it for about 3 weeks, and liked it. You could maybe even use their 30% or 15% off open box coupon to buy it when they put it out again.
I can't remember the exact measuremnts of my room right now because I am at work, but it is a small room, and my sofa was against the back wall (less than 10' to the back). My room is like a large rectangle on top of a trapezoid, but the sound was mostly bouncing off of the rectangle shaped part of the room.
For starters I tried out the auto-setup which sounded good, and I did hear things coming from all sides. I mostly used the Superbit 5th element, and the original star wars trilogy with Hayden christiansen at the end (maybe the second to last release of these movies). I also used the movie Spy Game which wasn't big on effect, but had a cool sound track. The 5th element and the star wars movies worked really well, but Spy game sounded awkward occasionally with actors voices, but worked really well on the musical part. There was a part when the Rob Redford and Brad Pitt are outside by a train, and the quality of their voices really stunk, but the musc sounded great. I bet that has to do with how the dvd is encoded, and possibly a weak center channel that was only calibrated for about 6 feet of distance.
The star wars movies even allowed you to calibrate your thx surround system putting out sound as if they were individual speakers and the sound did move around the room as it appeared they did on the dvd. My left surround channel was a little off, but that's because the room was a little odd shaped there. Also, my right channel was bouncing off of metal blinds, but they didn't seem to affect the sound any.
There was a whole world of difference when I used the custom setup however. I can't say it improved scenes like the one in Spy Game, but the sound was fuller and it seems I focused the beams more accurately for a full effect. You will probably need to get the measuring tape out on this one, and having a second person to hold everything would probably be more accurate. I did it alone in about 30 min, but ended up with great results that were worth it. The manual will basically tell you what all the calibration parameters mean, which can get a little confusing, but still doable after rereading it a couple of times.
Overall the sound quality you'll get out of the speaker is great, it's very crisp, and can get very loud. I'm guessing the range of loudness will be a great help when you try to fill a larger room. I was surprised at how low I had the volume set for my small room, but when I raised the volume, I saw how clear the sound stayed, but it was just too loud for my small room, especially coupled with just a $200 sony 12" subwoofer.
YOU WILL NEED A SUBWOOFER. And don't use the optical cables they give you. I've never tried to do much in the way of comparing cables, but I noticed a really big one in this case with the optical, even though it shouldn't matter with a digital signal. Monoprice is where I got my cables.
Back to the Sub though, I only bought the Sony because I had no intention of keeping it for over 30 days, and it was the cheapest one in the store. It did sound really good though and filled my small room with more than enough rumbling base in the flying, and space battle scenes of Star Wars. I was looking to go with HSU's $250 sub because it was only an 8 inch, and apparently has superior sound to most other subs you can compare it too. But the YSP suffers without a sub because it has to put it's resources elsewhere to create bass, but still quality sound.
The last thing to consider is the surround field that is created. I could move around anywhere on my 10' long couch and here all the surround effects. This is great for a small to medium sized room where the sweet spot may be very directional to only those sitting in the correct location.
