Yamaha YHT-34 Home Theater in a Box
September 2001
by Markkus Rovito
The Total Package
Home theaters, once a privilege of the snooty upper crust only, now come in hatchback-friendly boxes. Sure, expensive high-end systems are still superior, but with boxed packages such as the Yamaha YHT-34, Joe Commoner of modest income can grab a boxed TV dinner out of the icebox and sit down to a DVD movie in full 5.1 Dolby Digital or DTS sound for under $1,000. These home theater-in-a-box systems are so rampant now that they even get their own acronym. We'll call them HTBs from here on.
HTBs usually come in two types: a collection of separate components packaged together, or an integrated system designed from the ground up as a package, in which the DVD player and receiver are often fused into one component. The YHT-34 is of the former configuration. With a full-size receiver and DVD changer in traditional black, it is not the hippest or most streamlined HTB, but its price/performance ratio is more than enough to merit serious consideration from the budget-minded film and music connoisseur.
The 5.1 surround sound speaker system consists of four identical, wall-mountable L/R speakers and one tabletop center channel speaker, each with 3.5-inch woofers and 0.5-inch dome tweeters. Together they have 120 watts of total power. The speakers are magnetically shielded, so you can place them next to a TV without causing picture degradation. A Yamaha YST-SW45 70-watt subwoofer completes the system. It has a Volume knob and a High Cut knob, which should be turned to at least 120 Hz, because that is the center channel speaker's minimum producible frequency. The other four speakers begin producing frequencies at 150 Hz.
The subwoofer plugs into the back of the receiver, a Yamaha HTR-5450. Loaded with connections on the back panel for CD players, a VCR, cable or satellite box, cassette recorder and more, the receiver also has a front auxiliary input section intended for video cameras or game consoles that includes composite A/V, S-Video or digital optical inputs. Plenty of speaker wire and an RCA cable for the subwoofer come with the system, as well as a video and optical digital audio cable for the DVD player.
Yamaha's five-disc DV-C6280 DVD/CD/VCD player completes the package. The PlayXchange function makes it possible to change four discs while one is playing. A healthy array of search and playback options include five forward or reverse search speeds, as well as slow motion and frame-by-frame in forward or reverse. It will also send signals to its digital and analog outputs simultaneously so that you can feed two receivers or amps at a time. An on-screen menu appears as a thin strip atthe top of the screen and displays information such as the track number, time remaining or disc time remaining of a CD, chapter number of a DVD and other items. You can also perform shortcuts such as entering in a specific time for a DVD to begin playback. A setup menu allows parents to block playback of DVDs of a certain rating without a password. Of course, the DVD title may or may not support this, and crafty kids who read the manual will discover how to erase the password.
The Total Package
Home theaters, once a privilege of the snooty upper crust only, now come in hatchback-friendly boxes. Sure, expensive high-end systems are still superior, but with boxed packages such as the Yamaha YHT-34, Joe Commoner of modest income can grab a boxed TV dinner out of the icebox and sit down to a DVD movie in full 5.1 Dolby Digital or DTS sound for under $1,000. These home theater-in-a-box systems are so rampant now that they even get their own acronym. We'll call them HTBs from here on.
HTBs usually come in two types: a collection of separate components packaged together, or an integrated system designed from the ground up as a package, in which the DVD player and receiver are often fused into one component. The YHT-34 is of the former configuration. With a full-size receiver and DVD changer in traditional black, it is not the hippest or most streamlined HTB, but its price/performance ratio is more than enough to merit serious consideration from the budget-minded film and music connoisseur.
The 5.1 surround sound speaker system consists of four identical, wall-mountable L/R speakers and one tabletop center channel speaker, each with 3.5-inch woofers and 0.5-inch dome tweeters. Together they have 120 watts of total power. The speakers are magnetically shielded, so you can place them next to a TV without causing picture degradation. A Yamaha YST-SW45 70-watt subwoofer completes the system. It has a Volume knob and a High Cut knob, which should be turned to at least 120 Hz, because that is the center channel speaker's minimum producible frequency. The other four speakers begin producing frequencies at 150 Hz.
The subwoofer plugs into the back of the receiver, a Yamaha HTR-5450. Loaded with connections on the back panel for CD players, a VCR, cable or satellite box, cassette recorder and more, the receiver also has a front auxiliary input section intended for video cameras or game consoles that includes composite A/V, S-Video or digital optical inputs. Plenty of speaker wire and an RCA cable for the subwoofer come with the system, as well as a video and optical digital audio cable for the DVD player.
Yamaha's five-disc DV-C6280 DVD/CD/VCD player completes the package. The PlayXchange function makes it possible to change four discs while one is playing. A healthy array of search and playback options include five forward or reverse search speeds, as well as slow motion and frame-by-frame in forward or reverse. It will also send signals to its digital and analog outputs simultaneously so that you can feed two receivers or amps at a time. An on-screen menu appears as a thin strip atthe top of the screen and displays information such as the track number, time remaining or disc time remaining of a CD, chapter number of a DVD and other items. You can also perform shortcuts such as entering in a specific time for a DVD to begin playback. A setup menu allows parents to block playback of DVDs of a certain rating without a password. Of course, the DVD title may or may not support this, and crafty kids who read the manual will discover how to erase the password.
