Execs

• Glorious music and film replay
• Excessive-quality Atmos simulation
• Subwoofer affords deep, managed bass

Cons

• No wi-fi streaming
• Not ‘true’ Dolby Atmos

While you’re shopping for AV gear you need to ensure it is not going to be immediately outdated. There’s so many various buzzwords on the market — spatial audio, WiSA, eARC — and but there’s one phrase that also looms giant in folks’s minds: Dolby Atmos. The $399 Yamaha SR-B40A is a 2.1-channel soundbar which might decode Atmos in a convincing manner, options a big subwoofer for further oomph and has a Bluetooth connection for streaming your content material. 

The electronics business might thrive on buzzwords and ever larger numbers — extra energy! extra channels! extra options! — however one factor that can at all times matter is efficiency. The Yamaha SR-B40A might not tick each field on the options guidelines, but it surely sounds higher than many soundbars that may. And that is price paying for. 

What it’s

Soundbars are ugly. So it’s written. Whereas some fashions just like the Klipsch Cinema 400 — with its wood field and uncovered tweeters — are designed to seize our consideration, most soundbars go for a plastic development and yards of grey fabric. The Yamaha SR-B40A retains with conference with a 35.85-inch vast field, draped in grey, which is 2.6 inches tall and 5.25 inches deep. There’s one faint concession to “design” with a burnished-looking energy button. Regardless of the presence of Dolby Atmos processing, this can be a 2.1 soundbar, and the principle unit options 4 1.8-inch drivers in stereo, plus two 1-inch dome tweeters.

One purpose to purchase a soundbar just like the SR-B40A is for its subwoofer — its bigger dimension affords a greater efficiency in music and films, particularly. The wi-fi sub contains a 6.5-inch driver, which is giant for this sort of soundbar. The cupboard measures 7.6 inches vast and roughly 16 inches sq..

Within the 1980s and ’90s, Yamaha pioneered using prolonged sound modes with its AV receivers, and the SR-B40A does provide quite a few completely different choices. Although you will not discover “Corridor in Vienna” right here, you may nonetheless get sufficient to cowl most varieties of content material together with: Stereo, Commonplace, Film, Sport and Bass Prolonged. The soundbar additionally contains the Clear Voice mode for making film dialogue extra comprehensible. It is price noting that whereas the bar is Dolby Atmos suitable it could possibly’t decode DTS, and it makes use of the corporate’s personal proprietary True Sound to generate spatial results.

Given the worth I’d have anticipated extra connections than are on provide — no analog enter, no Wi-Fi — although the SR-B40A contains digital optical, HDMI and Bluetooth 5.1. Sadly, the SR-B40 lacks the 203’s killer function — on-line streaming (plus Amazon Alexa). Whereas it is easy to interchange an onboard voice assistant with an inexpensive sensible speaker, there is not any substitute for Spotify Join. The B40A does have Bluetooth, however this technique is liable to disruption (“ding ding!”) or the music can merely reduce out if you happen to transfer out of vary.

Lastly, the Yamaha contains a credit score card-size distant that features all the performance you want. Until you turn between music and film mode quite a bit, you possibly can ditch it on your TV distant.

Efficiency

Whilst you ought to take the SR-B40A’s Dolby Atmos compatibility with a grain of salt, I did discover the Yamaha was able to convincing peak results in motion pictures. The massive subwoofer was additionally capable of present the low-end punch you simply cannot get from cheaper soundbars, and I discovered this was particularly efficient with music.

I pitted the Yamaha in opposition to the same Polk S4, which I had beforehand discovered to be a really versatile soundbar. The principle distinction between the 2 merchandise is that the Polk has a a lot smaller sub, and the distinction in efficiency was shortly noticeable.

I began with the film which has generated probably the most Oscar-buzz from 2023 — Oppenheimer — and it is nice for its dynamic punch and mumbly Christopher Nolan dialogue. Naturally, I skipped a number of scenes to chop to the chase — the ultimate check of the Manhattan Challenge. The scene begins in silence because it alternates between the ballooning of the mushroom cloud and the scientists watching nervously. The Polk was capable of ship Oppenheinmer’s notorious line “Now I’m grow to be demise, the destroyer of worlds” with larger readability than the Yamaha. A few of the background noise — papers shuffling was additionally extra discernible. But, it was right here that the Yamaha’s sub really got here into play. At 1:57, a personality is thrown by the pressure of the blast, and thru the Yamaha it was the primary time I’ve seen and heard a pressure truly pushing him. This wasn’t felt on the Polk, and its sub did not appear to have the grunt or latent energy of the Yamaha’s.

With the opening scene of Mad Max: Fury Highway, each the Polk and the Yamaha have been capable of ship a convincing sense of peak — making the disembodied voices of the intro zip across the room. Whereas the Polk made the room appear larger, the Yamaha displayed extra brute pressure and the voices have been extra targeted.

I additionally listened to Batman Begins to check each soundbars’ voice modes and located that the Yamaha was probably the most pure sounding. It was capable of keep bass results whereas protecting the dialogue intelligible Although the Polk has three completely different ranges these acquired progressively much less listenable and artificial. Individuals with listening to difficulties should still desire this degree of fine-tuning, nevertheless.

On to stereo replay, and the 2 soundbars have been evenly matched with most sorts of music, but it surely was with bass heavy tunes that the Yamaha was most at residence. Gorillaz’s Really feel Good Inc is the place the Yamaha lastly pulled away from the Polk. The SR-B40A is the soundbar if you happen to like loud, bass-driven music. It performed the music with an authority the Polk could not contact and with deep, punchy bass. The Polk sounded extra lopsided with this music with vocals that have been to date ahead as to be nasally.

Do you have to purchase it?

The variety of soundbars below $500 that may play “native” Dolby Atmos can nonetheless be counted on one hand, and whereas the Yamaha SR-B40 cannot be included on this listing, it sounds nice anyway. 

Whereas the corporate hasn’t but supplied something to interchange the implausible YAS-203, the SR-B40A comes closest, and the soundbar definitely has the unique’s reward for efficiency. In case you’re on the lookout for a TV speaker which delivers each sparklingly clear dialog and muscular music replay, then the Yamaha SR-B40A is one to think about.