mini home theater

I bought the YHT-450 to replace my Klipsch Promedia 4.1's. The amp in those burned out, probably due to the lack of external heat sink on the subwoofer where it is housed. It always made me nervous when the back panel of the subwoofer got too hot to touch. I was in no hurry to drop $350 on the newest Promedias.

I saw the YHT-450 at Best Buy. The wooden speaker boxes with piano black
finish caught my eye. Next to it, the silver plastic systems looked like
cheap garbage. I couldn't find any reviews online, and the specs were
reported inconsistently, even on the manufacturer's site. What a mess!

I did observe that the included receiver (HTR-5740) retails at $299 and
the subwoofer (YST-SW015) is $99, so I took a chance and bought it online,
figuring that I could just use my Klipsch satellites if the included speakers
turned out to be garbage.

The packaging is impressive. It just screams "quality!" In the big box are
four separate boxes, apparently retail packages for the receiver, subwoofer,
mains, and rears. My cats loved it.

Here are the specs, straight from the included documentation:

Mains(2): 6 1/2" pulp cone, 3 1/5" pulp cone, 4/5" soft dome, 50Hz-28kHz
Center(1): 2 x 4" pulp cone, 4/5" soft dome, 80Hz-28kHz
Rear(3): 4" pulp cone, 1/2" balance dome, 90Hz-28kHz
Sub(1): 6 1/2" cone, 70W, 30-200Hz, variable cut
Receiver: 6 x 85W

My sound review is based solely on performance with cd audio. The 2.1 sound is very good! The larger woofers in the mains give body to the sound that my old Klipsch satellites lacked. The subwoofer is only fair, not delivering much below 40Hz. It does flesh out the uneven low-end response of the mains. With the cutoff set to the minimum value of 50, the sound is mostly crisp and cIear.

I plugged in two of the rear speakers to the front channels to see what they
could do. The mids are too strong. My old Klipsch satellites sound better.
The center speaker has the same tweeter as the mains, so it probably has more presence - I didn't try it as a main.

The receiver is powerful, with no noticeable distortion even at high volume.
I don't see where the advertised 700W comes from - I count 585W - but it's
plenty loud. I don't want much more than low distortion from the amplifier and I have no complaints here

In summary, I'm quite happy with this purchase. The piano-black finish on the speakers is gorgeous and classy. CD audio through the mains and the subwoofer sounds good enough to justify the price I payed, $407.55 delivered. The rear speakers are mediocre; a system sporting five of these would get 3/5 at best. Thankfully Yamaha came through with a nice-sounding pair of front speakers. I will eventually replace the subwoofer with one having better range. I give this 4/5, 5/5 if somebody will come steal the three shabby rear speakers from me.