Yamaha YAS-706 MusicCast Wireless Multiroom Sound Bar - Review 2022

Yamaha'southward YAS-706 soundbar comes with an eyebrow-arching $899.99 cost tag, merely its unassuming design hides a remarkably robust set of features and stiff operation. You lot won't get authentic environs sound without separate satellites (though its 7.1-channel simulated surround fills a room quite capably), simply yous do get balanced, powerful audio with multi-room wireless streaming and a two-port HDMI switch. It's powerful enough to make action movies feel truly thunderous, with enough sculpting and high-mid/loftier frequency finesse to make your music tracks pop regardless of genre.

Design

Yamaha doesn't go out of its mode to make the YAS-706 look stylish, but its simple, accented pattern is a solid footstep upwards from the typical bare blackness planks many soundbars wait like. The 37.4-by-two.9-by-v.1-inch (HWD), 11.ix-pound speaker features a flat front and meridian covered almost entirely in grille clothe, with gunmetal-colored metal accents around the bass ports on the left and right sides. The grille cloth covers two 2.1-inch woofers, two 3-inch subwoofer drivers, and four 0.75-inch tweeters. A sleeky blackness plastic strip runs downwards nearly the full length of the pinnacle panel near the back edge holding indicator lights and button locations.

Yamaha YAS-706

A row of ix LEDs on the acme strip evidence the soundbar's status and indicate the active audio source and whatsoever wireless connections. A series of familiar icons for input pick, power, and volume control sit on the plastic strip to the right of the lights, simply these aren't the controls; a row of plastic buttons sit on the back console of the soundbar well-nigh the height edge in line with the icons, letting you lot know which button does what without having to look direct at the back of the device. The arrangement's all-encompassing connections sit in a recess on the back and include two HDMI inputs; one HDMI output; coaxial, optical, and RCA audio inputs; an Ethernet port; a subwoofer port (unnecessary if you use the included subwoofer wirelessly, but the option is skilful to have); and a USB port for service.

You tin utilize the soundbar sitting on a flat surface in front end of your Tv, or mounted on the wall. It's designed to work both sitting flat and mounted vertically, thanks to drivers angled out of both the front and summit panels. Keyhole mounts on the bottom let you mount it easily, if your entertainment eye is built around a wall-mounted Boob tube.

While the soundbar has some visual style, the wireless subwoofer is completely unassuming. It'due south an 11.6-past-11.8-by-12.ane-inch, 20-pound black cube with solid, apartment walls on the elevation and sides and a plainly black grille fabric on the front console covering the five.25-inch forrad-firing cone commuter. The back panel holds an indicator light, a pinhole push button for wireless syncing, and a wired audio input.

Compared with the subtly stylish soundbar and the minimalist subwoofer, the YAS-706's remote is clunky and ugly. It's a blackness plastic rectangle covered in all the rubber buttons y'all need to use the soundbar with any input or audio preset. Unfortunately, the book control buttons are tiny and relegated near the lesser of the remote, when they should be prominent and easy to find under the thumb. That awkward control placement and the individual buttons for every audio input and listening mode makes the remote feel very cluttered and unintuitive to use.

Connections and Streaming

As an HDMI-capable soundbar, the YAS-706 can take audio through an HDMI connectedness if your TV has an Audio Return Channel-enabled HDMI port (ARC), and serves equally a two-input HDMI switch to effectively add some other HDMI port to your TV instead of taking one away (though yous'll need to remember which remote to use to access the video sources connected to the soundbar and not the TV). The HDMI switch function can laissez passer through upward to 4K video, and then your Ultra HD Blu-ray players, PS4 Pros, and 4K-capable media streamers volition work merely fine with the soundbar.

Also its extensive wired connections, the YAS-706 is a capable wireless speaker arrangement also. For basic wireless music playback from your smartphone or tablet, yous can stream via Bluetooth. If you want a more than powerful listening experience with multi-room, multi-speaker functionality, you can also stream over Wi-Fi through Yamaha'south MusicCast platform. MusicCast lets you treat the soundbar as an AirPlay speaker, or utilise the free Yamaha MusicCast app to play music from Deezer, Napster, Pandora, SiriusXM, Spotify, or Tidal. You lot tin also access Internet radio stations, and assign them to one of three dedicated buttons on the remote for admission without using your mobile device.

Music Performance

The YAS-706 is quite capable of playing music at very loud volume. It handled our bass examination track, The Knife's "Silent Shout," at floor-shaking maximum levels with no distortion. Cranking the subwoofer upward fabricated the system feel booming, and the soundbar on its own put out enough sound to disrupt the residue of the test lab through the walls of our sound room.

The dense mixes of The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion's "Bellbottoms" and David Bowie's "Dead Man Walking" come through with plenty of depth and force on the YAS-706. The punchy guitar strings and raucous crowd thanks in the opening of "Bellbottoms" become enough presence and clarity, while the languid vocals stay crisp and in the front of the mix. The industrial sound of "Dead Man Walking" is energetic and layered, with the cacophonous drumbeat and electric guitar notes both remaining distinct as they slam against each other. Bowie'southward voice is clear and can be easily heard over the residuum of the track, fifty-fifty with the subwoofer making the thumping drums sound a bit more aggressive than they otherwise would be.

Film Performance

The YAS-706 lacks rear satellites to provide accurate surround sound, but it uses Yamaha'south Air Surround X-treme audio processing to produce a simulated seven.1-aqueduct surround audio field. It makes the soundbar sound very large, easily filling the room with racket that sounds like it's coming from sources placed wider than the width of the speaker itself. However, like about simulated surround sound technology, it doesn't provide authentic directional imaging. Yous'll feel surrounded by the audio, but yous won't be able to pick out specific sources coming from the far sides or backside yous; for that effect, you need a soundbar with rear satellites.

Yamaha YAS-706

Pacific Rim sounds large and bombastic on the YAS-706. The wireless subwoofer and the soundbar'south born 3-inch subwoofers create imposing force when giant robots and kaiju fight. At default subwoofer levels and at medium volume the soundtrack gets plenty of power without outright shaking the walls. Cranking up the volume and subwoofer push button out the ultra-depression frequencies for a neighbor-disturbing rumble. College frequencies aren't lost in the process, and everything from voices to the sound of glass shattering comes through clearly over the powerful smashes.

Watchmen's soundtrack is total and clear on the soundbar, with voices hands discernible no matter how heavy the scene's pelting or how detatched from humanity the person speaking is. Fine sound effects like flashbulbs and machine doors are crisp and clean through the college frequencies, and the ominous atmospheric background noise in darker scenes is prominent without getting in the way of dialogue.

Strong Audio, Loftier Toll

The Yamaha YAS-706 soundbar is impressive in that it handles music equally as well as information technology does movies. Along with the wireless subwoofer, the system produces sculpted, balanced audio that makes action movies experience thunderous and music sound natural. Yamaha'south MusicCast app lets y'all integrate the soundbar in a multi-room setup, and the YAS-706 works with Bluetooth, AirPlay, and Spotify Connect for plenty of streaming options.

The $900 price tag is undoubtedly high, just this is a very capable, subtly stylish, great-sounding speaker organization worth your consideration if information technology's in your budget. If you want powerful sound and multi-room audio in a jumpsuit speaker system without a separate subwoofer, the Sonos Playbase sound slab is a compelling alternative. And if you want to save money just nevertheless want a solid soundbar, the Polk Signa S1 packs Bluetooth music streaming, a wireless subwoofer, and a fairly balanced sound in a parcel that costs less than a quarter as much as the YAS-706.