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Cables, manual and stands:
Cables
Yamada H8420 comes with full range of necessary cables including power cable, three pairs of RCA-RCA cables, three pairs of RCA-3,5 mm cables and five pairs of speaker cables. Two speaker cable pairs are a little bit thicker and longer than other and are meant for rear speakers. Signal cables are 1,8m long and leght of speaker cables are 5 and 8m. For a very clean install or big room cable lengths are too short but in most cases they are probably very sufficient.
Cable
Heads of speaker cables are tinned, which greatly helps cable installation. Shelling cable heads and loose fibres irritates me a lot so tinned heads is certainly very welcome. This is perhaps the most unforgettable detail on the whole system.
Manual
Installation guide provides installation and operating instructions and in addition to that technical specifications and solutions to most frequently problems. Installation guide is clear and pictures clear up things like in- and outputs layout and also optimal speaker placement.
ST-520 speaker stands
Well-shaped ST-520 speaker stands fit nicely either for front or/and rear speakers. Stands come with informative installing guide, which helps choosing right installing method for different type of speakers. So these stands are not just ment for Yamada H8420 speaker set but to other Yamada speakers too. Quite heavy lower part of stands keep stand and speaker well erected. Only slight problem is that you need few tools to assemble stands so that they are steady enough to hold a speaker. Screwdriver and right size wrench.
ST-520
Speaker cables can be wired through stands thus greatly decreasing the cable mess. Length of stands is also slightly adjustable and besides that, it also improves steadiness. My conclusion is that ST-520 speaker stands are very sufficient for what they are made for; holding small speakers. Only problem is that heavy and steady stands like these are rather made of steel than plastic and that generally means that they are not cheap. So it's 25 for pair, that's like 25 % addition to price of Yamada H8420 home theatre set.
Installation and using experiences:
Getting system up and running was easy task with clear instructions and small speakers are easy to locate even if you have very limited space available. I somewhat missed colour coded signal cables as three pairs of RCA-cables get mixed just too easily. This problem is surely familiar to most people who have handled any kind of older or modern audio systems. Just annoying little thing, not something to actually worry about.
After switching the power on, amplifier is on standby mode and few leds are shining brightly on the front panel. In standby mode all audio is off, but if I play my favourite music with soundcard volume levels turned very high, subwoofer starts to "leak" audio out. On actual power on -mode, subwoofer seemed to be very loud compared to other speakers. Even after I adjusted LFE-channel to minimum on my soundcard and amplifier, subwoofer is clearly audible. Due to fact that small satellite speakers just can't produce very low frequencies they are directed to subwoofer. So unplugging subwoofer input or adjusting its levels can't actually stop subwoofer to growl completely.
After few minutes of use the subwoofer started to grumble in an odd way. I even thought that it actually broke so I took it away from the box. Fast check exposed that a thin cable that was now loose, was actually a subwoofer signal cable. It was originally attached to subwoofer only by one fibre, no surprise that it didn't last long.
Yamada H8420
Yamada H8420
I soldered the signal cable tight back to the speaker. At the same time I had the opportunity to inspect the contents of the subwoofer box. In addition to normal padding there was amplifier unit, which had fuses for all channels separately and a very funny little connector for very a thin subwoofer cable. After this little repair, system worked flawlessly for a few days but then the blue main led on the front panel stopped shining. I didn't notice any other major problems during my tests though.
Sound quality:
Sound quality is quite subjective matter but I'll try to describe as well as possible what I observed during sound quality tests and on general usage. Listening normal 5.1 sound tracks was most pleasing. It really seems that H8420 is at its best where it is supposed to be. Surround sounds and sound directions are clear and subwoofer seems to keep low frequencies in tight control. I also checked frequency response manually by droving 20Hz-20KHz sweep trough system and it actually seemed to be very good. Only problem is that because subwoofer seems to produce quite high frequencys, also its placement is very important thing. If it is in a "wrong" place, some "not so low" frequency samples sound very odd.
Stereo music didn't sound as good as 5.1 movie sound tracks. Small satellites actually sounded very "small" and especially music styles like heavy, which has usually rich low frequency sound mat, sounded quite unbalanced. On the other hand pop music and other "light" stuff were actually quite nicely in balance.
I think that H8420 is suitable home theatre system. It is at its best on 5.1 DVD sound tracks but stereo mixed music tracks aren't so good. Taking into consideration low price and quite rich features I think Yamada H8420 is a very good purchase. Heavy and metal music listeners should however look elsewhere.
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