Yamaha YHT-391BL Home Theater in a Box

3 Responses to “Yamaha YHT-391BL Home Theater in a Box”

1. M. Lantin says:

   October 13, 2009 at 2:47 pm

   I wasn’t impressed at all with the quality of this HTIB. My first problem was that I couldn’t get the HDMI to work. I plugged in my cable box and couldn’t get the video or audio to work. I checked all my connections and still nothing. Finally I plugged my cable box in using component cables and was able to get audio and video.

   I already knew at this point I had to return it since I have several things I needed to plug in and simply using component connections wouldn’t work for me, but I thought I’d test out the sound anyway. I’ve got a fairly large living room that extends out to the kitchen and I found out that the subwoofer was not strong enough to fill the room. This would probably be a good system for a small bedroom or a game room, but I would not recommend it if you have a large living room and are looking for that ultimate home theater experience. I decided I’ll just spend a little more money and get a unit that has an HDMI repeater rather than having to deal with component and optical cables.
   Rating: 2 / 5
2. JANE O'CONNOR says:

   October 13, 2009 at 3:13 pm

   We are really pleased with this Home Theater in a Box system. The smaller speakers aren’t as noticeable on our walls, yet put out plenty of sound. Our room is very open with high ceilings, and we just wanted a little boost on volume and quality of sound which we got from this total package.We had to find mounts for the speakers that we could adjust, but other than that we are really happy.I would recommend this system for anyone wanting mold to medium sound projection. Great buy for the money.
   Rating: 4 / 5
3. D. Roberts says:

   October 13, 2009 at 3:46 pm

   This was my first surround sound purchase so the review is based on the basics. So far I’ve had this system for a couple of months and have no real complaints. The sound is a definite upgrade to my TV speaker and it is relatively easy to use.

   Since this was my first setup I was a little worried about the complexity seeing as I had a DVD player (component), blu-ray player (HDMI), cable/DVR box (component) and a Wii (composite) and I wasn’t sure how that would all work. It was fairly easy to get set up, it took a few hours to get the speaker wire cut, trimmed and plugged in and the components wired up. When I turned it on there was no sound so I had to go back and check connections and such, after doing that I had sound. Kind of. The Blu-ray ws hooked up via the HDMI pass through and an toslink cable and I could not get any picture or sound no matter what I tried. Eventually I gave up and hooked up the player directly to the TV. When I did that I have sound and picture so all is well. I had the same problem with the Wii. Hooked it up on the front of the receiver as the instructions said but no picture or sound. Since the TV speaker is fine for the Wii games I have I hooked it directly into the TV.

   Once I had everything working I was a bit confused about why when using the DVD and cable box I didn’t have the full range of sound selections, just pro logic or 2 channel. What I didn’t realize was that I needed optical cables to get the full range. After I connected them up with coaxial and toslink cables all was good. I really can’t complain about the sound. It’s a hige step up from the TV speaker, the sub sounds great and doesn’t need to be turned up that high and generally I’m pleased. I’m not so pleased with the component switching though. When run though the receiver the picture from the cable box was awful. The colors were off, there was a lot of noise in the picture and generally made watching the TV an unpleasant experience. I thought it was the cable from the receiver to the TV because it was a cheap one but I didn’t have the same problem with the DVD player which was also going through the same cable. Once again I unhooked the box from the receiver and hooked it directly to the TV.

   Since I got the system for sound rather than convenience or video processing I’m not really going to mark the system down too much for the issues I had but if those are things that are essential to you then maybe think twice about this system. I like the fact that it’s essentially a home theater in a box but is really just a pre-packaged component system. So when I need to and can afford to I can swap out individual pieces of the system rather than having to ditch the whole thing. I would say if you are looking for an inexpensive, entry level, component based sound system then give this a look.
   Rating: 4 / 5