Audio Video News

Yamaha’s iconic DSP-A1 was named one of the year’s best products in the December 1998 issue of Stereo Review, predecessor to Sound & Vision.

Reviewer David Ranada wrote:

“I rarely encounter a component like the Yamaha DSP-A1 ($2,599) that incorporates the best the audio industry can do in many areas at once. At a measured 116 watts per channel with all five channels driven simultaneously, the DSP-A1’s power-amplifier section has enough oomph for all but the least sensitive speakers in the largest listening rooms. Equally important is its unusually low background noise level. The resulting enormous dynamic range perfectly suits the DSP-A1’s built-in Dolby Digital and DTS decoding.

As if that weren’t valuable and rare enough, the DSP-A1 contains the most refined versions of Yamaha’s Digital Sound Field processing that I’ve heard since the technology’s introduction in 1986. As I said in my review, when used on music this multispeaker ambience-generation system “has the uncanny ability to move you into the same acoustic space as the performers.” Nothing I’ve seen since then has displaced the DSP-A1 from its position as my favorite home theater amplifier.