Yamaha True X Surround 90A review: I’ve never experienced Dolby Atmos like this before
Fantastic Dolby Atmos is the pinnacle of a good soundbar. If you ask me, all of the best soundbars must have excellent surround sound to be considered great.
The Yamaha True X Surround 90A, then, fits that mold perfectly. This behemoth soundbar, subwoofer, and rear system will set you back a massive $3,500, but you’ll get Dolby Atmos worthy of a movie theater.
Even so, with an MSRP of $3,500, there’s very little room for error. Unfortunately, the True X Surround 90A’s dialogue performance doesn’t quite meet expectations. But is that a worthy sacrifice for truly the best Dolby Atmos I’ve ever experienced? For the full story, keep reading this Yamaha True X Surround 90A review.
Yamaha True X Surround 90A review: Cheat sheet
- What is it? A premium soundbar with rears, a sub: 5.1.4 channels
- Who is it for? People with $$$ and a home theater
- What does it cost? $3,499 / £2,295
- What do we like? This is one of the best Dolby Atmos performances I’ve ever experienced
- What don’t we like? With an MSRP like this, there’s little room for error, and the dialogue performance isn’t good enough for $3,500
Yamaha True X Surround 90A review: Specs
|
Price |
|
|
Connectivity |
HDMI eARC, Wi-Fi, Optical, HDMI, Bluetooth |
|
Weight |
Soundbar: 24.3 pounds / Subwoofer: 28.0 pounds / Rears: 2.2 pounds each |
|
Dimensions |
Soundbar: 46.5 x 3.4 x 5.6 / Subwoofer: 9.5 x 14.9 x 16.3 / Rears: 3.5 x 8.6 x 3.5 inches |
|
Colors |
Black |
|
Subwoofer |
Yes |
|
Dolby Atmos |
Yes |
|
Channel |
5.1.2 |
Yamaha True X Surround 90A review: Price & availability
The Yamaha True X Surround 90A is an expensive soundbar. To date, this is the priciest soundbar I’ve ever reviewed. In the U.S., the True X Surround 90A will set you back a whopping $3,499 from B&H Photo Video. You can pre-order it from Crutchfield for the same price.
In the U.K., you’re looking at £2,295 from Yamaha direct. The 50A is available from premium retailers like Peter Tyson, Richer Sounds, and Sevenoaks, but this is not the same soundbar. I tested the 90A.
You can also buy the elements individually. The True X Surround 90A is the name of the entire sound system; if you want the soundbar and subwoofer alone, it’s called the True X Bar 90A and is $2,799 from Crutchfield. I would recommend getting this if you’re trying to save money, as I don’t think the surrounds are worth an extra $700.
I’m not going to sugarcoat it: $3,499 is ridiculously expensive. Not just for this soundbar, but for any soundbar. If you have nearly $4k to spend on a home cinema system, you should probably just invest in something like Dali’s multi-speaker setup.
The JBL Bar 1300X is the best soundbar system I’ve ever tested — it’s just $1,699, which is mighty cheap in comparison. Although the Yamaha has better Dolby Atmos, the JBL option is better at handling dialogue.
You might also want to check out Samsung’s Q990F, which, at $1,999, feels cheap in comparison.
Yamaha True X Surround 90A review: Design & controls
- LED screen
- Lovely remote
- Very long
As you might expect from a $3,499 soundbar, it’s massive. And heavy. Our review unit shipped to our testing lab on a pallet and had to be delivered by a semi-truck. It took two people to get this soundbar set up in our testing studio, and neither of those people were me. It was genuinely too heavy for me to pick up. So, if you consider yourself quite weak, you’ll need help getting this behemoth in action.
Another thing you might expect from a $3,499 soundbar is quality, and boy, that’s what you get with the True X Surround 90A. This soundbar is well-made, with high-quality mesh casing and a smooth, weighty subwoofer. On top of that, the remote is gorgeous, with tactile silicone buttons and a decent heft to it. All things you would want from something that costs triple my rent.
However, this high price means there’s very little room for error. If this is the most expensive soundbar I’ve ever tested, it should be the best soundbar I’ve ever tested. The rear speakers don’t look like they cost $350 each.
Let me explain. The True X Surround 90A is $3,499. Just the soundbar and subwoofer is $2,799. That’s a price difference of $700, meaning each rear is $350. These speakers are tiny — just 3.5 x 8.6 inches. They’re also quite lightweight, which makes them feel a little cheap. The Samsung Q990F rear speakers feel much weightier — and that soundbar is $1,500 cheaper.
Don’t get me wrong: the True X Surround 90A is beautifully well-made and high-quality. The LED screen is bright and helpful, as it tells you exactly which input and listening mode you’re using. This soundbar will look at home on any high-end TV/AV setup — emphasis on the phrase high-end.
Yamaha True X Surround 90A review: Features
- 4K passthrough
- Tons of playback modes, including ‘Surround:AI’ and ‘Clear Voice’
- Individual surround controls
I’m sensing a theme here, but as you might expect from a $3,500 soundbar, the True X Surround 90A has loads of features. I can’t fault any of these except ‘Clear Voice’ mode, as the dialogue performance wasn’t as adept as you might want.
Using either the MusicCast app or the remote, you can activate: ‘Clear Voice’, ‘Bass Extension’, ‘Surround:AI’, ‘3D Music’, ‘Straight’, ‘Stereo’ and individual surround controls. By far the best sound mode was ‘Surround:AI’, as this extended the height and width to mind-blowing highs.
One feature I missed was a room calibration tool. JBL, Samsung, Sonos and Klipsch soundbars all have a room calibration mode, either proprietary (JBL, Samsung, Sonos) or via a third-party (Klipsch, which uses Dirac). This sends sound waves between each element and advises you where to place each speaker for optimal performance.
As I test all soundbars in a purpose-built, soundproofed testing room, the soundbars have the ideal environment for excellence. However, if you have a house with particularly high ceilings or a weird layout (free-standing walls or a non-rectangular structure) you might need a room calibration tool.
Aside from the ‘Clear Voice’ mode, the other sound features are excellent. I’ve never experienced Dolby Atmos like this, and if you’re a surround-sound fiend, you’ll want to hear it.
Yamaha True X Surround 90A review: App
- MusicCast app
- Painless setup, a pleasant change from other brands
- Direct music streaming with Spotify, Qobuz, and more
After the headaches that are Denon’s HEOS and Sonos’ universally panned app, it was a pleasant surprise to download Yamaha’s MusicCast to find that it simply works. The app immediately recognized the soundbar, and that was that. Glorious.
You can adjust tons of stuff in the app: subwoofer volume, tone control, and activate any of the listening modes. You can do this via the remote, too, so downloading the app isn’t essential, but it’s a nice addition.
Here are a few screenshots from the app itself, so you can see what I mean.
Yes, you can also stream music directly from your phone to the soundbar itself. MusicCast links with Spotify, Qobuz, Tidal, Deezer, and Amazon Music. There was a touch of latency when playing music through the soundbar, but I found this didn’t negatively impact my overall experience.
Yamaha True X Surround 90A review: Sound quality
- Mind-blowing Dolby Atmos
- Expansive — width and height — sound
- Disappointing dialogue
I test every soundbar with ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ on 4K UHD Blu-Ray (and then two extras), TV shows on Netflix, and music on Qobuz.
Full disclaimer: I had major HDMI issues with the True X Surround 90A at first — in that there was no sound at all. This is likely due to my model being a pre-production version, but if you experience issues too, I fixed it by activating both HDMI Control (CEC) and pass-through mode. This is what worked for me on my LG G5.
Movies
To test movie performance, I started with ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ in ‘Surround:AI’ mode. The first thing I noticed was the bass. The diegetic (in-scene) sound effects of whirring jet engines rumbled through the subwoofer with immense power. Even so, this didn’t overpower the high-frequency diegetic sounds such as reversing trucks and whipping ropes.
The True X Surround 90A’s soundscape is almost incomprehensibly wide. I’ve never experienced an expansive sound like this before: I felt like I truly was in ‘Top Gun: Maverick’, waiting my turn to fly my fighter jet.
In the opening scene, every component worked together. The jet engines didn’t overpower the softer metallic clinking sound effects; the bass-heavy synth track didn’t fight for dominance over the roaring planes; every sound up and down the frequency range earned its place.
However, the dialogue performance wasn’t as adept as one might hope. To check if it was merely a ‘Surround:AI’ issue, I switched to ‘Clear Voice’. This increased the volume of the upper mids, but the dialogue wasn’t overly clear.
Even so, the Dolby Atmos performance here was excellent, with Maverick’s radioed dialogue sounding like it came from directly behind me. When Maverick took off, the plane sounded as if it were genuinely flying over my head.
In dialogue-based, non-action scenes, I found the dialogue perfectly audible. However, in action scenes, the dialogue was often overpowered by diegetic sound effects or the soundtrack. This is unfortunate for a $3,500 soundbar, but if you care more about bombastic action and Dolby Atmos, you won’t be disappointed.
After ‘Top Gun: Maverick’, I watched Elio. As this is less of an all-guns-blazing action blockbuster and more of an uplifting family movie with fluorescent, gelatinous aliens in place of ferocious jet engines, I found the balance between action scenes and dialogue better. The alien sound effects were particularly good. I could almost feel the squelchy, wet sounds on my skin.
Finally, I watched ‘How to Train Your Dragon (2025)’. Again, the Dolby Atmos performance was excellent, particularly in the cove scene where Hiccup and Toothless befriend one another. I could feel Toothless’ purring as if he were in the room with me.
I also have to mention the flight scenes. As with ‘Top Gun: Maverick’, the sound was expansive, with width and height that other soundbars simply dream of. The moments where Toothless flapped his wings sounded so real that I felt I was caught in a breeze.
While the dialogue performance wasn’t as strong as I wanted, the True X Surround 90A is genuinely the best Dolby Atmos soundbar I’ve ever listened to. If you can overlook slightly quiet dialogue in exchange for truly cinematic sound, the True X Surround 90A might’ve been made for you.
TV
After watching UHD 4K Blu-rays, I watched ‘Stranger Things’ and ‘Bridgerton’ on standard Netflix. As not everyone has tons of 4K Blu-rays, it’s only fair to test soundbars with basic 5.1, 1080p content, too.
In ‘Stranger Things’, the soundbar handled the combination of eerie synth soundtrack, diegetic sound effects like blaring phones and panicked footsteps, with the guttural inhuman growling of the demogorgons perfectly. I have nothing bad to say about this performance: the dialogue was clear and intelligible. The overall performance was perfect, much better balance across the frequency range than with 4K Blu-rays.
‘Bridgerton’ has less action, is dialogue-heavy, and has a string-based soundtrack. Again, no dialogue was muffled, and there was an equal balance of dialogue, diegetic sound, and non-diegetic sound (like OST). No element was fighting for dominance; everything settled in the soundscape perfectly. I was able to pick out soft high-frequency sounds like ruffling fabric and dainty footsteps even over the top of a loud OST.
Overall, the TV performance was much better than the movie performance. This is likely due to Netflix’s content using fewer ‘layers’ of sound (5.1 vs Dolby Atmos, for example), so less for the soundbar to juggle. Even so, you wouldn’t spend $3k on a soundbar to only watch 5.1 audio on ad-supported Netflix, though, would you? I wouldn’t.
Music
To test music playback, I streamed via AirPlay through Qobuz. I listened to ‘Billie Toppy’ by Men I Trust with the ‘3D Music’ setting enabled. Although I’m sure audiophiles wouldn’t appreciate the semi-fuzzy tone this inflicted, I really liked the immersive, warm sound effect that felt like the audio equivalent of a music embrace.
Afterwards, I listened to ‘Let It Happen’ by Tame Impala. The bass performance on this track was surprisingly excellent, with powerful, groovy bass that ran up and down the frequency range with gusto. I could hear the background vocals and flickering synths perfectly. I was genuinely really surprised by the sound quality here. Most soundbars are terrible for music, but not the True X Surround 90A.
Last, I switched genres to punk-tinged ‘Kick in the Teeth’ by Dream Wife. The rolling guitars and effusive female vocals worked in harmony together, and the guitar solo towards the end of the track was particularly effective.
Overall, the True X Surround 90A won’t disappoint if you’re after room-filling 360° audio. This is a high-quality, well-made piece of tech, with cinema-level surround sound. All I’m saying is that for $1,500 less, you could get Samsung’s best-ever soundbar (Q990F, 11.1.4 channel) or JBL’s best soundbar (Bar 1300X, 11.1.4 channel), neither of which struggle with dialogue clarity. So why wouldn’t you just do that?
Yamaha True X Surround 90A review: Verdict
I’m so torn. This review has been one of the hardest to write, because the Yamaha True X Surround 90A is a fantastic soundbar. I’ve never experienced Dolby Atmos like this. Very few soundbars can go head-to-head with a movie theater like this, but the True X Surround 90A is one of them.
However, for this room-filling, mind-bending Dolby Atmos, you’re sacrificing some dialogue clarity. Even with the ‘Clear Voice’ mode activated, I found dialogue tricky to pinpoint during action scenes in ‘Top Gun: Maverick’. Is that a fair trade, though? The only person who can answer that is you.
For those desiring the ultimate Dolby Atmos soundbar, you’d be mighty happy with the True X Surround 90A. It can truly bring your movies to life.
Source link
