Yamaha YHT 1840 review – A detailed study

Yamaha YHT 1840 5.1 home theatre package is a dream come true kind of gadget. Home theatre is a dream for many. Having a good home theatre means you get to immerse yourself in the movie much more. A study shows that having a good video with bad audio is less tolerable than having a bad video with good audio. Hence, a home theatre is a must for the movie-watching experience. In this Yamaha YHT 1840 review, I detail every aspect of this home theatre system.

The Yamaha YHT 1840 home theatre package is the budget model of an awesome proper home theatre setup. It has an AVR of HTR 2071 and a speaker package NS P-40. This is a perfect home theatre package for starters and small rooms.

Lets see the detailed review below. Before that let’s run into some basics first. Trust me, it is not at all boring.

But, if you wish to skip straight to the review, click the link below.

Yamaha YHT 1840 review

What is a home theatre system?

As you may know, Home Theatre is a collection of surround sound audio and video equipment that brings the features of a theatre into your home. Normally it consists of an array of speakers and a projector or a TV. Somehow as time passed by, manufacturers started to mention speaker setup as home theatre system. As of today, you can safely call a system with at least three discrete speakers and a subwoofer system as a home theatre system or a 3.1 home theatre system.

But a 5.1 home theatre with surround sound is the popular choice.

5.1 Home theatre System

Although 3.1 system with a left, right, and a center speaker is enough for movies, 5.1 is often considered as the basic system. It consists of five speakers. They are 

• Left speaker
• Right speaker
• Centre speaker 
• Right surround sound speaker
• Left surround sound speaker and
• subwoofer

They produce sounds all around you and therefore give you an immersive experience for movies or music. There are bigger 7.1, 9.2 are available. Now, you have Dolby Atmos and DTS X compatible Home theatre systems in the market. The range starts from 5.2.4 where 5 denotes the basic 5 channels (The fronts, center and surrounds). 0.2 denotes dual subwoofers. 0.4 denotes the satellite speakers that are placed in the ceiling. In the article, we are going to discuss the basic 5.1 channel system.

Yamaha YHT 1840 review

Appearance

The main AVR is not slim. For that matter, not even close to slim. Yet, it looks very elegant. There is a dot matrix display to let you navigate through the menu or to see details about what format is being played. It has a large volume jog wheel. It is an infinite rotating digital wheel. You can see the unit is glossy on the top and very attractive. There are a number of buttons on the front face including source select, tone controls, FM tuner, etc. On the rear side, you get the connectors.

The speakers are cute as well. It has all glossy finish with a matte speaker grill cloth. They look tiny but large for satellite speakers. All the speakers except the center speaker are bass-reflex speakers.

The centre is a sealed enclosure. Speaking of the enclosures, the form factor is long and easily compliments the elegance of any TVs where the speakers go underneath.

Speakers

Yamaha YHT 1840 comes with Yamaha’s NS-P40 speaker package. It is a great looking AV receiver. It consists of 4 identical satellite speakers and those are used as front speakers and surround sound speakers, one centre channel speaker, and a subwoofer. Except for the subwoofer, all the other speakers, including the centre ones, consist of a full-range drive for both bass and treble duties.

What is a full-range driver?

Full-range drivers are a kind of loudspeaker that can produce a complete spectrum of sound. These speakers cover anything between 60Hz and 20kHz. That way, the speakers have no problem reproducing bass, mids, and trebles. Also, it gives good imaging because of the single-driver setup. The supplied speakers are enough for front and surround sound duties.

subwoofer

In a surround sound home theatre, the subwoofer is a very important component. The subwoofer supplied one is a passive subwoofer. This subwoofer is powered by the AVR itself. The subwoofer has a 6.5-inch long-throw woofer that can reproduce bass best in class. The subwoofer is a ported type. Therefore the smaller woofer produces pretty big sound. Being a bass-reflex design, it will give you a deep and tight bass. I liked the bass for the price. It is not muddled but well damped and tight. Can listen to layers of music. Bottom line is, it is a good subwoofer.

Want to know more about the subwoofer? please check here.

The AV receiver

AV receiver or AVR is a short form for Audio Video Receiver. AV receiver is also called as amplifier in layman terms. The main job of the AV receiver is to receive either or both audio and video signals, process it, and sends the output. This AV receiver has 4k Ultra HD and HDR video passthrough. It means, the AV receiver can send up to 4k Ultra HD resolution of HDR video signal from a source like Amazon Firestick, Nvidia shield, or Apple TV to a TV or projector that can show 4k ultra HD contents. It also has an inbuilt upscaling feature. This means it converts 1080P or lower to 4k Ultra HD resolution.

Also, the AV receivers can receive audio formats like DTS, process them, and sends output to the inbuilt amplifier. This amplifier then drives the speakers. It also has the following features.

• Equalizer and loudness correction
• Bass management
• Tone controls
• Number of input sources
• Enhancer
• Bass boost and many more.

Equalizer

This AVR has a 7 band digital equalizer. You can set the the EQ for all speakers including surround sound speakers except for the subwoofer. 63 Hz, 160 Hz, 400 Hz, 1 kHz, 2.5 kHz,6.3 kHz, 16 kHz Each band can be varied up to 10 decibels on either side. The loudness correction comes with a distance tool. We need to input the distance between the speakers and the listening position and the system will adjust the loudness and delays. This is a very convenient way to adjust to the system performance.

Bass management

This AV receiver has awesome bass management. Bass management is a feature of the AVR that takes the bass frequencies from other channels and redirects it to the subwoofer. You see, Bass is omnidirectional. You can tell where is the high-frequency and mid frequencies are coming from. But, you cannot or your ears cannot interpret where the bass is coming from. Therefore, all the bass from all the channels like front, centre and surround speaker boxes is filtered and sent to a big driver in the subwoofer box and it plays out the bass efficiently.

Tone controls

Tone controls are to adjust the bass and treble of the whole system. You can either bypass it or increase/decrease up to 6 dB of volume. This is a way for quick tweaking

Number of input sources

This AVR has 4 HDMI ports and all are HDCP 2.2 compatible. It also has analog ins, spdif inputs, and optical Toslink inputs. This enables you to connect all sorts of audio-video equipment to it.

Enhancer

It is a feature particularly available in Yamaha receivers. The algorithm detects the lossy formats like MP3 and it tries to expand it dynamically so that what you hear is better than original.

Bass boost

There is a special button on the remote which enables bass boost functions. It just boosts the bass notes and mid-bass so that you will get a punchy sound. Even though the supplied speakers are 3 inches in diameter, they are full-range speakers. So, they enhance the mid-bass slightly.

Crossover

The crossover has to be set for the subwoofer so that the Left surround speaker, right surround speaker, right front speaker, left front speaker, and centre speaker works independently well with respect to the subwoofer. You can set this crossover as t various values and experiment for the best performance. There is no set-and-go value, as it depends on the room and speaker placement.

Now that we have seen some terms of this Home Theatre. Lets dive little more deeper.

Menus

The system comes with plenty of features. It has a well-detailed menu that setup is piece of cake. The menu is easily accessible with a dedicated ‘menu’ button and an ‘option’ button on the remote. Let’s see some menus now.

The main menu has access to all other parts of the menu system.

Configuration screen has the adjustments to turn the subwoofer output off, size of speakers, crossover and other stuff related to bass management.

It comes with a 7 band Graphic equaliser for all the channels except for the subwoofer.

This is where you turn on HDMI-CEC, ARC input etc. The receiver even has a 4k Ultra HD upscaling option.

Here, you have the option of setting up DSP, lipsync. The system even consist of a dialogue enhancer which is very very good.

Press the option button on the remote and you will get this menu

The system comes with a tone control for both bass and treble. You can boost or cut up to 6 db on each.

There are many preset DSP processing available. You can manually edit them here.

Performance

The performance of YHT 1840 is where it beats out the competition like Sonys. The AVR has a built-in burr brown DAC (digital to analog converter) which is way ahead of Sonys. It produces 70 W RMS and 130 W peak and this is more than enough to drive speaker packages like NS p40, which has a poor sensitivity of 84db (Higher the sensitivity, easier to drive). The sound is crystal clear. Being a full-range driver the sound it produces is awesome for the price. 

The subwoofer is very good. They do not sound muddy or boomy like Sonys. You will get a well-articulated, dynamic layered sound. Bass reflex comes to play and the unit packs punch above its weight. 

Music performance

Suppose you are buying this Home theatre to listen to music, don’t. Please invest in a decent stereo system with value-for-money amplifiers like Cambridge audio AXR 100. If it is expensive and you can buy a relatively cheaper amp like Cambridge audio AXC 35. Paired with a decent speaker it will blow the yamaha YHT 1840 out of the water in performance. For music, stereo system is better.

But if you’re into both movies and music or movies alone, you can buy this Home theatre system.

I played Aerosmith’s, I don’t want to miss a thing, and it sounded gorgeous in stereo mode. The presence of the guitar is well-pleasing, and the coherency of the song is intact. 

I played ABBA’s dancing queen and the unit excelled once again. The voice came out smoothly and the overall tone was very very musical although there is an edge on the high-frequency side.

Bass

The bass is good. With the subwoofer, the bass of this receiver has good depth and tightness. You won’t get a lot of bass which is muddy like other budget home theatre systems. But what you get is a good quality textured bass. The advantage of this Home theatre system is that you can always upgrade your subwoofer for a better one. But, you get the necessary bass from the subwoofer that comes with it.

Mids

The mids are crystal clear. The midrange comes from the full range speakers and they are of good quality. They produce a decent amount of body and bite which improves the perceived clarity. It has a good musical sense to it. Most of the sound comes from the centre speaker and the centre speaker that comes with the this HTiB is sealed. That means a solid centre speaker performance.

Movie dialogues sound amazing and crystal clear. So are the songs. You will get a much better sound that a similarly priced sound bar for sure.

Highs

There is no separate tweeter that comes with the speakers in YHT 1840. No. But, the provided speakers are of full range. As said earlier, full range speakers produce bass, mids and treble from a single driver. And it works. The treble is smooth and sweet. It has good air and necessary sparkle on the high end.

The only gripe is that it doesn’t extend to 20,000 Hz like a proper tweeter. But most people cannot hear over 15,000 Hz and there isn’t a lot of substance in that range. The speakers sound fantastic and you will have a good experience with both movies and music.

Movie performance

It was excellent. I played MAD MAX Fury roads and the engine revving sound from the start is layered and well detailed. The drums, electric guitar, truck engine, and everything sounds wonderful for the price.

The unit also has Dolby prologue mode. It, if the played song is a stereo or Dolby stereo, the processor converts the song into 5.1. I’m not a big fan of it. But, the system did a nice job. Everything that came out in the center image during the stereo playback was found in the center speaker when prologue was activated. For multi personal listening, it is a sure thing. There are three mods of Prologic given in this AVR. The music mode, movie mode, and also a game mode.

Eco mode operation is also very good, and there isn’t a big difference in performance. Eco mode operation lowers power consumption of the home theatre by as much as 20%.

Bass performance

The bass performance is great in this system. You can increase subwoofer levels, use the bass boost function, and use Tone controls to dial up the bass. Hence, the overall bass performance is very satisfactory.

Please don’t expect boomy strong bass out of the system. Although you get slightly less in volume as far as bass is concerned, the bass which you get is of good quality and accurate. You can enjoy music and movies a lot with its bass performance.

The bass amplifier lies in the AVR itself. Additionally, it has a subwoofer out and you can add a more powerful subwoofer down the lane for improved bass performance.

Want to know more about the subwoofer? check here.

Setting up Yamaha YHT 1840

Do you know many buy a 5.1 system and set them up incorrectly?

The setup is very easy. Just follow the below article of ours and you will be rewarded with a good sound quality.

Click here to know how to setup the 5.1 system correctly.

When you want to upgrade, you can change the speakers first and finally the AVR. This is the beauty of having an AVR setup. For more bass, you can go with a better active subwoofer like Yamaha SW 300.

The Video settings to get HDR video is also straight forward. However, this AVR doesn’t have much video options except for turning on upscaling, switching to 1080P etc.

Bluetooth

This is the only option that Yamaha YHT 1840 misses. No Bluetooth. Maybe because the Bluetooth system is of inferior quality and is okay for causal listening until the lossless Bluetooth format is introduced. LDAC, AAC, aptX offer great quality compared to A2DP and SBC. However, when this home theatre was designed, the cost to function ratio should have taken a hit and thus they would have excluded bluetooth.

However, You can add one for an extremely low cost. If you want a high-quality Bluetooth experience, you need to use something like a Logitech Bluetooth Audio Receiver. This will easily trump down any AVR with built in Bluetooth.

Power consumption

Unlike other home theatres, the power consumption is less and will not generate huge electricity bills. The power consumption details are not in the manual. But, in my home, the power consumption by this AVR isn’t huge, and I didn’t notice much spikes on my current bill. The standby power consumption is ≤0.3W.

Lets see some comparisons with a few popular HITBs in the market.

Specifications

Spec	values
Power	135 W per Channel 6 ohm
number of speakers	5 speakers and a subwoofer
number of HDMIs	four input and one output
4k untra HD HDR video pass through	Yes
Number of Analog Audio Inputs	Four
Number of Digital Coaxial Inputs	Two
Number of Digital Optical Inputs	One
Sound System	DTS and Dolby Digital Plus

Yamaha YHT 1840 vs Logitech Z906

Logitech Z906 is a THX-certified computer speaker. It sounds awesome. The subwoofer is huge and you will get earth-shattering bass.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t have HDMI inputs. hence, you cannot connect your fire stick or a Blu-ray player to it. On the other hand, it has an optical input. If your TV has an optical out, you can connect to it. Logitech Z906 has inbuilt DTS and Dolby decoder which is a plus.

Yamaha yht-1840 is similar to sounding minus bass. But Yamaha has whole a lot of features like HDMI, bass management and therefore it is a better value for the money.

Yamaha YHT 1840 vs Sony HT IV300

Sony HT-IV300 is said to be one of the best in the budget range. Is it really better than Yamaha HTR 1840? Let’s see.

Sony IV300 is a 1000W home theatre setup. But, in real life YHT 1840 performs better. TO speak about the bass, the bass in Sony IV 300 is too much. And, the bass is boomy too. The bass in Yamaha is smooth, precise, and layered. Also, the sound quality of the Yamaha setup is leaps better.

You don’t get proper bass management, equalizer, or any pro cinema DSP in Sony IV 300. They might sound loud but not in a good way. The only advantage of Sony’s is that it can decode Dolby True HD and DTS HD MA. But, that is not a deal-breaker. You cannot upgrades speaker in IV300 because those are 3ohm speakers and is not really as good as Home theatre speakers. To me, the Yamaha is the better choice between the two.

Yamaha YHT 1840 vs Yamaha YHT 3072

It is easy to pick up the winner here. Its Yht 3072. If you have the budget to go for YHT 3072, please go. In addition to what available in YHT 1840, you get the following.

• DTS HD MA and Dolby True HD sound
• An automatic room correction system with a mic
• More Watts
• Dolby vision passthrough
• A powerful active subwoofer

In my opinion, the additional stuff you would get from a YHT 3072 is totally worth it. The Automatic room correction is a game-changer and fixes a lot of room issues. At the same time, the active subwoofer takes the bass to a whole new level. The rest is identical to Yamaha YHT 1840.

Conclusion

Yamaha YHT 1840 is an awesome piece of home theatre for the money. It can be upgraded simply by changing the speakers and subwoofers slowly rather than changing the whole system at once. This way, it brings a tremendous value for the money. If you ask me, Yamaha 1840 is worth every money spent. It is far far better than any similarly priced home theatres or Sound bars.

Frequently asked Questions

Thanks for reading