Yamaha YSP-5100 (photos)

The Yamaha YSP-5100 sound bar has an outstanding assortment of features and best-in-class virtual surround, but it's very expensive and doesn't sound much better than the step-down YSP-4100.

Matthew Moskovciak

Covering home audio and video, Matthew Moskovciak helps CNET readers find the best sights and sounds for their home theaters. E-mail Matthew or follow him on Twitter @cnetmoskovciak.

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Matthew Moskovciak

June 4, 2010 12:47 p.m. PT

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Yamaha YSP-5100

More than any other sound bar available today, the Yamaha YSP-5100 delivers a single-single speaker home theater solution without making too many compromises. It's one of the few sound bars that actually does a credible job of creating virtual surround-sound effects, and it's packed with almost as many features (four HDMI inputs, analog video upconversion, automatic speaker calibration) as a standard AV receiver. It's also a powered unit, so it may be bulky, but it's a more simplified approach than unpowered sound bars that require a separate AV receiver.

As much as we liked the YSP-5100, we ultimately have a hard time giving it an unequivocal recommendation. It's currently selling for about $2,000, which is much more than its competitors and doesn't include the price of a separate subwoofer--which many competing systems include. Furthermore, when we tested it side-by-side with the almost identically featured YSP-4100 ($1,700 street price), we found no appreciable drop-off in sound quality. Yamaha's high-end digital sound projectors are excellent products for the niche they serve, but we'd recommend buyers in this price bracket still go with the cheaper YSP-4100.

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Connectivity

Along with similar the YSP-4100, the YSP-5100 offers by far the most connectivity of any sound bar home theater system that we've tested. Most important are its four HDMI inputs, which should be enough for all but the most complex home theaters. Most sound bar HTIBs don't have any HDMI functionality, but it's worth pointing out that two much cheaper options exist: Sony HT-CT150 (three HDMI inputs) and the Panasonic SC-HTB10 (one HDMI input).

The rest of the YSP-5100's connectivity is generous, too. Three digital audio inputs along with two stereo analog audio inputs are enough to handle any older, non-HDMI devices you still have.

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Remote

The included remote is serviceable, although we found the button layout and tiny labels disappointing at this price level. Unfortunately the most important control, volume, is lumped in with two other commands (TV volume and channel); we would have preferred a large rocker button set off from the rest of commands. If you're spending this much on a sound bar HTIB, you owe it to yourself to pick up a quality universal remote.

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7.1 pre-outs

It's not included on the chart, but the YSP-5100 also includes 7.1 pre-outs, although it's hard to imagine anyone using them. Adding an amplifier and a separate speaker system--then just using the YSP-5100 as a switcher--eliminates nearly all the benefits of having an all-in-one sound bar in the first place.

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Basic graphical user interface

The YSP-5100 features a basic, text-based graphical user interface (GUI), so you can make adjustments using menus on your HDTV. Aside from the YSP-4100, we're not aware of any other sound bar home theater system that offers a GUI (excluding systems with a built-in disc player).

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Input assignment

The YSP-5100 also has a generous allotment of "input labels" (such as "HDMI 1" or "Aux 1," allowing you to connect and switch between seven total devices using the sound bar. That's much more than a standard sound bar home theater system, which usually maxes out around three.