Yamaha YAS-203 Sound Bar with Bluetooth and Wireless Subwoofer

I did a lot of research here on Amazon before buying this sound bar. I looked first at Toshiba, as I have a aged Toshiba 32" flat screen and they have their own home theater products. Or did. Everything they have here on Amazon got pretty bad marks. And the Toshiba system that was supposed to match my old TV no longer seems to exist. So I looked at Sony. I have a long and happy relationship with Sony. Sony got good comments from users with Sony flat screens, not so good from others. So I looked at everything else. It seems most TV manufacturers have their own home theater stuff and some sounded fine but also proprietary - that is, they are designed to go with their own brand. So I looked at non-TV manufacturers home theater and sound bars. In my price range, there were two systems by brands well-known to me. One was Logitech and the other was the YAS-203. Biggest difference: Logitech has wired satellite speakers along with the main front speakers and a wired woofer - and most of the reviewers we using it with a PC. The Yamaha condensed their front speakers to a bar and the woofer is wireless (still need to be plugged into a power outlet, but the system connects wirelessly.) Also Yamaha makes musical instruments and the majority of the comments on Amazon were favorable.So, keeping in mind that old Toshiba, the YAS turns out to be perfect. Took only a few minutes to set up. One Toslink optical cable (included, BTW) in from the TV, one coaxial optical cable in from my Sony Blu-Ray DVD player. There is also a red/white analog input available. The sound is amazing. The stereo is amazing. The surround is amazing. It was, in short, amazing :0)>Don't know from Bluetooth, as a I hate cell phones and my tablet is a Surface. I can plug that into the Toshiba and stream Prime and Xfinity (the tv has no cable.) The Sony Blu-Ray has a Netflix ap.So, if you have a relatively small TV, this may be for you. If you are dubious about the quality of the bar, woofer combination, keep in mind that Yamaha also makes musical instruments (electric pianos, synthesizers.) They know speakers. The woofer is particularly impressive.The YAS remote offers pairing for other remotes but I skipped that. I also did not have to pair with the woofer. There are buttons on the remote marked Surround and Stereo. Surround is for modern movies and TV shows. Stereo is best for older stuff (pre-90s, I'd say.) When the unit is on, it signals whether various features are on or off by flashing its LEDs - three flashes for on, one for off - which I find handy. "Clear Voice" does make voice clearer, but I suspect that it does this by raising the mid range, which doesn't do a lot for overall quality, especially with older films and TV shows which were all mid range to begin with. "Bass Extension" increases bass, which I haven't found necessary. "Uni Volume" probably adds a peak limiter but I don't use it. "Audio Delay" syncs up the unit if there is a delay - there wasn't. There are separate input buttons to choose the TV, Blu-Ray/DVD drive and/or an analog device of your choice. (Anything already plugged into your TV comes to the bar with the TV button.)All that said, I do not live in apartment. This thing was so "theater" when I first tried it (Iron Man 1) that I went outside the house to make sure it wouldn't bother my neighbors. I was honestly surprised that the dog next door wasn't barking...

We've been using the sound bar for about six months now. It sounds great. The bass is solid without being boomy. The midrange and treble are transparent. The Clear Voice feature really does make dialog easier to understand. It makes movies sound so much better than the internal speakers on the TV!It also connects to my laptop or phone via Bluetooth without any problems. It connects stably and reliably, and the sound is very good. I have had no problems with it, and I appreciate being able to use it to listen to music without having the TV turned on. The phone app gives much more nuanced control over the audio processing by the sound bar (to optimize various sources and control the simulated surround sound). Tip: If you want to use the phone or tablet to control the sound bar, press the Bluetooth button when you turn it on to connect to the phone, then press the button corresponding to the source you plan to use.The IR pass-through feature is also useful and reliable. The bar does block the IR remote receivers on the TV, but the IR pass-through makes this a non-issue.Overall, a great improvement to the TV at a reasonable price.

After reading lots of reviews on inexpensive sound bars I decided to go with this system, which has received universal acclaim. I think if you have appropriate expectations, you will find this to be a great system.quick version: It sounds as good as you could expect for a system of this price. No soundbar, including really expensive ones, is going to be better than even the cheapest brand name "home theatre in a box" when it comes to filling a room with directionalized sound. I would have given this system 5 stars if it had HDMI control. Also, if you're concerned about dolby, you should figure out if your television set sends the original audio signal out or one that has been converted to 2 channel. If your set does the latter, you should plug it directly into the media source if possible.Full versionFirst impressions:Product is packaged nicely. The gloss finish on the main speaker seems like a fingerprint magnet (which is ok, you probably won't be touching it much) and also makes it feel kind of cheap. Well it is relatively cheap on the price scale, so no hard feelings there. Comes with everything you need to get started.Setup:Physically setting up the system wasn't difficult at all. Simply set the main speaker where you want it and plug the optical cable (it comes with one) into your source - in my case the television itself. The subwoofer is wireless but needs a power source of course. I have mine just to the side with the cable box, but bass isn't really directional, so you could put it wherever you think is most convenient. I will say that the main speaker cord could be longer.When I turned on the system, the subwoofer connected automatically without any issue. I had to wade through some TV menus to turn off the set speakers and route the audio to the soundbar. Obviously the ease of that depends on your TV. My set allows the unfiltered multi-channel signal to pass through, which the speakers will attempt to recreate (more on that later). Once I was getting sound, I had to turn my focus to remote controls. Probably the only major downside of this soundbar is that it doesn't use HDMI control. Instead, you train it to respond to the same signals as your TV remote. The training was easy enough - you start the sequence and then press the appropriate buttons to program - but it makes for some needlessly annoying moments at times- If I don't have the TV remote pointed at the right angle it might "miss" one or the other, resulting in me having to walk up there and manually turn on one or the other. It also renders the cable box remote useless for this purpose; I think the burst it sends to the TV is too short to capture both the TV and the soundbar reliably- Anytime I change the volume I get a message from the TV that "the volume is fixed." (Of course it is, I turned off the speakers). But with HDMI control you could actually get visual feedback on the TV as to your volume level.Operation:Assuming you got your remote programming sorted out, it's pretty easy to use. Instead of a slick-looking LED screen, all your information is given by a few status lights in the front. A quick look at the manual can orient you as to what they mean. It's not very complicated. The remote allows you to adjust the volume and bass level. Basically I just cranked up the bass level and put the remote away in a drawer. There are some other more advanced audio profile settings you can play with, but you need to download an app to your phone and connect to Bluetooth - another downside, though I'm sure in the end, it gives you more options than you would find in competing products.Sound:On most flat panel TVs, the speakers are in the rear and pointed down. Also the drivers have to be pretty flat to fit inside the screen. In other words, you have laptop speakers which are pointed backwards. If you're expecting this soundbar to replace even your $300 home theater in a box, you are going to be sorely disappointed. Instead, it's more like someone took some small speakers, spaced them apart, and pointed them in the right direction + added a subwoofer - all this without the hassle of an extra amplifier or superfluous wiring. But that is not an indictment of this product, it's just a simple fact when it comes to soundbars. You can't expect it to be as loud and you can't expect comparable directionality. Yamaha claims that the subtle convex shape helps the bar to "throw" sound towards the corner to recreate a surround effect, but this will be a mostly untrue claim if you have an open floorplan. Overall, it makes the speech clearer and adds some much needed bass and depth. You could spend a lot more money on a higher-end soundbar, but at that point, I would say you are better off getting an actual 5.1 or 7.1 system