YAMAHA TSS-1 Pack

PC Home Cinema

Sniff... I only have a DVD-ROM player, accompanied by a stereo kit which is bound to have more than one person in stitches… not to mention the fact that I think it will be quite some time before I will be able to have a budget to be able to equip myself properly.

To these painful words that come to mind every time this “spiny” subject is brought up, Yamaha now propose an adequate solution to those of you possessing a PC and wanting to enjoy DTS and Dolby Digital sound for a rock-bottom price: the Yamaha TSS-1 pack.

The TSS-1 is made up of 5 satellites (anamagnetic), each delivering around 6 watts RMS, an active subwoofer with a power of 18 watts, as well as an external module, to be placed in a vertical position near the PC screen (different to other systems such as Sound Blaster 5.1 platinum, whose module has to be racked in the PC box).

Apart from its compact design, this mini audio-video amplifier takes care of the amplification of the five satellites and audio decoding. The TSS-1 includes a Dolby Prologic, Dolby Digital and DTS decoder, along with, as is customary for many AV amplifiers of the brand, a ”DSP” processor which manages three sonic effects.

Note that for the whole kit, Yamaha uses the "Active Servo YST" process, which consists in brief of boosting the cut-off frequencies of the subwoofer in order to give the whole thing a bit more punch.


Controls

In order to easily configure the kit, the TSS-1 disposes, apart from the buttons for selecting sources, modes, mute and test tone, of a series of potentiometers allowing the user to independently control the output levels of the central and surround speakers, as well as the bass box, while the Master volume controls overall levels. Given their design in anti-magnetic materials, the satellite speakers may easily be placed near a monitor or TV.


Interfacing

The TSS-1 disposes of a descent interface set-up in comparison to its competitors, including one optical, one coaxial and two analogue cinch connections.

The kit will allow you to hook-up the system to a computer as well as other sources such as game consoles, DVD players etc. In addition, Yamaha has equipped its TSS-1 with a headphone jack in the front panel of the machine with adjustable output volume.


The TSS-1 should thus delight those of you who don’t want to spend a major part of their annual wage to equip themselves. It is sold through most major retail outlets for the ultra competitive price of 259 Euros.