The Yamaha True X System Review: A Comprehensive Analysis

Like many soundbars that have come out over the past 15 to 20 years, I was a bit skeptical about this system at first. But overall, I would say it's not bad, perfectly fine. I mean, I think they'd sound great outside, but when you're inside, close up, a little shrill for my liking. However, when the surround speakers are involved with the whole system as a surround speaker, uh, I got none of that in fact - the Fidelity from the Soundbar is excellent! It's fantastic. And I definitely think it's right in line with a $600 soundbar and subwoofer combo. No shrill highs, plenty of detail, and plenty of clarity in the treble region, but not shrill or harsh, which I appreciate quite a bit.

The subwoofer is definitely quality uh for a bundle system like this. The system does rely quite a bit on the subwoofer for all of the low mids and even part of the mid-range, but it doesn't call attention to itself. So long as you don't put it in a corner where it's going to get naturally boomy and easier to localize, uh it gets pretty deep um it's fairly tight and it's not a cheap boomy home theater in a box subwoofer I was really really pleased with it overall. The system sounded great.

Now, I think these surround speakers are going to be best at close range, I don't know that you would want to position them much further than say five to six feet uh they're just too small to have the presence that you would need sure, you'll hear surround cues there but you're not going to get the enveloping surround uh effect that you would want to get if they're that far away. Keep them close.

As for the Atmos effect from the system, uh not a whole lot of dome of sound or top down sound uh happening at least not in this particular space, uh then again we also have ridiculously high ceilings with sound absorption panels up there, so we'll try it in a different spot and see if that changes anything. Like I said, this is not a full review, so I'm not really in a position to uh compare this Soundbar system to others in its price class.

However, I will say that the novelty or at least the uniqueness and the utility of having surround speakers that can function as independent Bluetooth speakers goes a long way with me. I think it's uh I don't know, I think that's something that we should have had a long time ago like I said at the beginning of this video, I don't know why we had to wait this long to get it.

But I would highly recommend the system for anybody who likes the idea of being able to repurpose the surround speakers in their home theater system and use them for something else. It's a great idea and it works really really well here overall. I'm going to have to give this system probably somewhere between a 7.5 and an 8 honestly, and that's taking everything into consideration - the cost, the Fidelity, the ease of use, and the functionality and features that come with it.

It's slim, it's sleek, it's non-intrusive, and it offers a very big sound. The subwoofer is uh kind of a shining star of this show actually, which goes a long way for me as well. So yeah, that's my take on the Yamaha True X system. I think anybody who needs a sleek compact home theater system with a little extra utility 100% needs to check this out.

Thanks as always for watching everyone what do you think of this not quite review? We can definitely do this more with some other products that definitely deserve some attention but maybe don't need a super deep dive. Let me know down in the comments, and don't forget to like And subscribe - I'll see you on the next one, and until then here's two other videos I think you might like

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enI am utterly baffled as to why it took so long to finally get this product this is  something that I expected to see 7years ago and technically speaking it  was probably feasible at least that long ago but you know what I'm just  going to set all that aside because I'm just thrilled that it's finally here nowwelcome back everyone I'm Caleb Denison and as you can probably tell today we're checking out  a soundbar system the Yamaha True X BAR 50A sorry I got to look because I can't memorize that name  anyway this portion of the system is not actually what I'm so excited about what I'm excited about  is right here wireless surround speakers but Caleb you say wireless surround speakers have existed  for a really long time yes they have but these are battery powered but Caleb you say wireless  battery powered surround speakers have existed for quite some time yes they have but these are  different these are also Bluetooth speakers yeah makes sense right I mean why hasn't this product  existed before look here's the deal in case you don't follow soundbars like I do for quite a while  now we've had Soundbar surround systems that came with wireless surround speakers the addition of a  rechargeable battery to power them is more recent uh JBL has been selling a soundbar that did that  for a few years now but for whatever reason no major manufacturer at least not as far as I'm  aware has ever taken those wireless battery powered surround speakers and armed them with  Bluetooth so that you could take them out of your living room and use them in your bedroom or your  bathroom or at the campsite or at the beach or wherever you might want to use Bluetooth speaker  it seems really OB obvious doesn't it and yet I I I did a little bit of research before I started  this video just to make sure maybe I didn't miss a product and if there is another system out there  that does what well what these speakers do uh I haven't found it a lot of Soundbars have Bluetooth  in the description but what they're referring to is your ability to stream uh audio via Bluetooth  to the Soundbar and the rest of the system as a whole none of them as far as I'm aware let you  take your surround speakers one or both of them and tote them wherever you want and just use them  as a regular old Bluetooth speaker I mean I'm all about utility if a piece of technology can notot  be a unitasker I think that's an Alton Brown term uh that is all the better for me so yeah I know  that surround speakers for a lot of people are kind of a treat uh I even know folks that kind  of hide them until they actually want to use them and then they bring them out well these you you  can hide them if you want to or you can use them in other areas of your house pretty simple right  so at this point all the Soundbar has to do is not suck and I'm going to be pretty excited about  it something tells me that it's going to go beyond just not sucking I think I should give it a little  bit more credit before we even unbox it because Yamaha has not made a terrible Soundbar ever as  far as I can recall everyone that I've tested has been at least decent and at best absolutely  stunning uh this one has a lot of the fun stuff that you would hope to see on the box um it's a  support Spotify connect and apple AirPlay uh which means that it's going to accept music over Wi-Fi  and not just Bluetooth it also supports Amazon you know who um along with Dolby vision and Dolby  Atmos so you can connect devices to the Soundbar and then run a signal up to your TV if that's how  you prefer to do things it also supports Arc and eARC so that you can just run everything into your  TV and then dump an audio signal down to the Soundbar I'm sure there are some other features  that I'm missing but we're going to discover those in just a minute for now I need to unbox this  thing which let's be honest unboxing sound bars is maybe my least favorite thing to do because I mean  I get it this packaging probably makes sense for a soundbar but this whole armchair style get up is  just uh with all these tabs and everything it's a pain in the butt anyway so we'll show you a little  bit of that uh you can see some of my frustration but oh almost forgot one thing just a second ow  ow ow ankles uh these wireless charging pads for the surround speakers uh so that the speakers can  just sit on them and run off of uh Power uh if you can plug them in uh or as I said before you can uh  remove them and run them off batteries all right let's start unboxing this thing and uh see how  it sounds because like I said before as long as it's decent this is a must buy kind of thing forme okay so it looks like USB B is what powers these guys I must assume that's  what's in this it's not just manuals the cable no cables not in here okay so maybe the cables  are in the speaker boxes let's hope so otherwise I shall feel very put out is  that a quote from um Die Hard otherwise I shall feel very put out I'll find out soon  almost time to watch die hard because as we all know Die Hard is a Christmasmovie cool so it looks like it's just like a one button press thing that kind of converts  it from being a surround speaker to a solo speaker one thing I've not figured out yet  and I will is whether or not you can join the two surround speakers as a stereo pair uh of bluetooth  speakers and here is that power cable that I was hoping to find out unfortunately it is USB-A to USB-C it's a little unnecessary bulk in this day and age I don't know what do you guys think are  we ready to just like ditch USB-A finally I know we all have a ton of wall warts that you know power  USB-A but like kind of feel like we can move on all right I got to be honest these are a little  bit smaller than I thought uh they were going to be maybe it's because the Box you know yeah  I'm sorry but check out that box so look that speaker looks way bigger on the box than um it  does in real life still you know we'll check the price on these again but I think for the  price that you pay and for their flexibility and utility probably going to be all right um I do not  however expect massive amounts of surround audio uh from these though I think they're going to be  mostly just kind of backfill I will say though that uh if this idea takes off and a bunch of  people buy this Yamaha system I would like to see yaha make a bigger surround speaker just  take the take the whole premise and boost it to be a bigger surround speaker I mean they're cute  like if you're wanting a surround speaker um that isn't going to call a lot of attention to itself  and would be easy to hide uh there certainly that you know what never put it past Yamaha or  Bose or even JBL to be able to you know manage to a lot of punch out of a speaker of a smallersize all right so that's the surround speakers and the charging plates oh this is my least favorite  part of everything so let's see don't cut yourself Caleb this ridiculous box needs to be able to open  from the bottom you know honestly if I didn't need to repack this whole thing I'd probably  just tear it apart there we go when and doubt muscle it out what do we have here uh mounting  plates for keyhole style mount one power cable for the sub one for the Soundbar and a little remote  now let's see if we can get to the main event what have I missed here God have I mentioned how much I  hate these things I feel like people won't return a soundbar just because it's such a hassle I mean  TVs are easier to deal with than this all right here's our sub let's see what we're working withhere all right driver's there I'll look up the specs later but I'm going to say that is  H I'm going to guess a five and a/4 in maybe six we'll take a look here in a second a USB port for  firmware updates firmware update your sub what a world we live in let's go ahead and set you over  here for now build quality is respectable uh the the Cabinetry bites back um it's got kind of a  anthro site sort of coating on the outside uh anti-fingerprint which is nice uh so it's not  gloss black um and uh yeah it feels like you can't really remove the speaker Grill cloth  but it's side firing the subwoofer is and what else forward ported but slim you know you can  slide this off to the side of the entertainment center and it doesn't call a ton of attention  to itself all right Soundbar time will it be smaller than it looks in the Box you go over  there um no it's about what I expected just rip it off like a kid at Christmas right yeah all  right so there's our Soundbar we'll get some pretty b-roll shots of it um it does have up  firing uh drivers very small ones simple little command interface at the very top and then on  the back looks like we've got one HDMI in and one out which doubles as the arc port um and it is  e-ARC compliant there's also an Ethernet jack uh in case you don't want to connect it via Wi-Fi  um there is an optical port in here interesting that they're still including an optical cable but  not an HDMI cable I think it's time to convert honestly and then uh yeah real simple keyhole  style mounting system so a couple of screwsin drywall anchors and you're set it's not that  heavy um it's respectively heavy though uh like it's it's going to be fine for keyhole mounting  but it's got enough heft to it that I I feel like this is not a piece of junk and that's  really really important uh also really nice thick padding on the bottom uh to isolate it  from your media cabinet if you're placing it right on the media cabinet as we will be doing  today all right well at this point I think uh it's time to get this plugged in powered up  um connected I'm sure there's an app so we'll want to see what's up with the app and uh and  and then yeah I'm going to light this thing up and get some first impressions it's not going to  be a full review uh but I can tell a lot in about five minutes honestly on a soundbar like this um  again we're just kind of trying to gauge what the general product quality is um and uh see how these  surround speakers sound as Bluetooth speakers on their own going to be a lot of fun let's doit okay so I did manage to get everything set up uh and I got to experience the system for a  little while I have some good news to share but first some uh clarifications and criticisms the  clarification would be around the pricing uh of the system and the fact that you kind of have to  piece it together so the surround speakers the true X 1A surround speakers are sold separately  they cost about $150 right now as I'm recording this video which gut check U given their size I  feel like they should be 100 bucks each instead of 150 each uh but a surround pair is going to add  $300 to the price of the Soundbar and subwoofer which comes in right now at about $600 so right  there you're up to $900 for this system which is is fairly pricey then there's the charging pads I  think that the model number is cct1 a for those we'll have a link Down Below in the description  the charging pads are $25 each and I feel that uh maybe just don't get them uh it's an extra  50 bucks if you like the idea of having pads for the speakers to charge on great I kind of thought  you know it'd be really neat to just sort of have them be on their charging station in the surround  position but when your USB cable is only about uh you know 3 ft long or so and also not very pliable  it's going to be really difficult to plug in those charging pads where you would want to place your  surround speakers I mean this is just not long enough and also you need a little adapter so that  you can plug it into an outlet I would probably just skip them and use the the cable to charge  them when you need to because they do have about a 12-hour uh battery life obviously the louder you  play them they're going that that time will go down I think you know 9 to 10 hours is probably  reasonable uh at almost any volume um but that's a great battery life that's that's good news right  like I imagine that you could take one of these speakers out uh and use it while you barbecue  dinner and then put it into the surround system and watch a movie and you'd still have plenty of  juice left to watch the football game the next day so that's that's pretty great um in terms of setup  I feel like um it could have been a little bit more intuitive I'm used to turning on surround  speakers in a soundbar and having everything just sort of uh connect automatically that  is not the case here uh to be fair there is a QR code on one of the many pieces of paper inside the  surround speaker that will direct you to online instructions uh for registering the surround  speakers with the Soundbar and once you find those instructions It's relatively easy but I went down  a little bit of a rabbit hole I'll take ownership for this my fault I thought thought that the key  was to download the Soundbar controller app from Yamaha which for whatever reason would not install  on my phone however it did install on my iPad and once I got it on there I realized I really don't  need you don't need the app at all I mean it's a fun interface but really you don't need it the  remote control uh gives you all the control that you need but I will say that once the system was  finally connected it worked flawlessly uh the the speakers has Bluetooth speakers let's talk about  that first that was intuitive I mean you know when you turn the speaker on it's already in Bluetooth  pairing mode I was able to instantly connect with my phone uh I had a listen using music and I'd say  it sounds good enough for a $100 Bluetooth speaker maybe not $150 Bluetooth speaker uh the base is  surprisingly good for a speaker of that size and I think that's because it's got passive radiators on  at least one side if not two kind of hard to tell by looking but by list ing it sounded like it had  a couple of Base radiators in there so that plumps up the low end uh it does indeed give a bigger  sound than you would expect from such a small speaker my complaint though was as a Bluetooth  speaker the treble was a little bit crispy and I mean like some folks are going to like that but  it was a little bit on the aggressive side it reminds me of some Yamaha receivers from like  15 to 20 years ago but overall not bad perfectly I mean I think they'd sound great outside it was  just inside at close range a little shrill for my liking but to my delight when they're involved  with the whole system as a surround speaker uh I got none of that in fact the the Fidelity from  the Soundbar is excellent it's fantastic uh and I definitely think it's right in line with a $600  Soundbar and subwoofer combo no shrill High plenty of detail and plenty of clarity in the treble  region but not shrill or harsh which I appreciate quite a bit the subwoofer is definitely quality  uh for a bundle system like this the system does rely quite a bit on the subwoofer for all of the  low mids and uh even part of the mid-range but it doesn't call attention to itself so long as  you don't put it in a corner where it's going to get naturally boomy and easier to localize  uh it gets pretty deep um it's fairly tight and it's not a cheap boomy you know home theater in a  box subwoofer I was really really pleased with it overall the system sounded great now I think these  surround speakers are going to be best at close range I don't know that you would want to position  them much further than say five to six feet uh they're just too small to have the presence that  you would need sure you'll hear surround cues there but you're not going to get the enveloping  surround uh effect that you would want to get if they're that far away keep them close as for the  Atmos effect from the system uh not a whole lot of dome of sound or top down sound uh happening at  least not in this particular space uh then again we also have ridiculously high ceilings with sound  absorption panels up there uh so we'll try it in a different spot and see if that changes anything  like I said this is not a full review so I'm not really in a position to uh compare this Soundbar  system uh to others in its price class I do think it's a little on the expensive side however I will  say that the novelty or at least the uniqueness and the utility of having surround speakers that  can function as independent Bluetooth speakers goes a long way with me I think it's uh I don't  know I think that's something that we should have had a long time ago like I said at the beginning  of this video I don't know why we had to wait this long to get it um but I would highly recommend the  system for anybody who likes the idea of being able to repurpose the surround speakers in their  home theater system and use them for something else it's a great idea and it works really really  really well here overall I'm going to have to give this system probably somewhere between a 7.5 and  an 8 honestly and that's taking everything into consideration the cost the Fidelity the ease of  use and the functionality and features that come with it it's slim it's sleek it's non-intrusive  it offers a very big sound subwoofer is uh kind of a shining star uh of this show actually which goes  a long way for me as well uh so yeah that's my take on the Yamaha true X system I think anybody  who needs a sleek compact home theater system with a little extra utility 100% needs to check  this out thanks as always for watching everyone what do you think of this not quite review we can  do this more with some other products that definitely deserve some attention but maybe  don't need a super deep dive let me know down in the comments don't forget to like And subscribe  I'll see you on the next one and until then here's two other videos I think you might like\n"