As people spend more time on the move, we don’t want to be restricted by wires and cords. Tools like Amazon Echo, and Google Home have made us all feel a lot more comfortable about communicating with technology, and countless companies are taking advantage. Like many of the leading wireless speakers available today, the Yamaha MusicCast fits neatly on most bookshelves or TV stands.
Similar in size to tools like the Soundcore Flare 2, the MusicCast has a sleek and seamless design that shouldn’t stand out too much in your living room or bedroom. There’s also a power input and screw section on the back in case you want to attach the system to your wall. The speaker supports both Bluetooth and Airplay, so you can play your music through your preferred services.
However, unlike many of the smart speakers on the market today, it’s missing a few things, like a voice assistant. The speakers do work with Amazon Alexa, but there’s nothing built-in for voice control. You can’t buy five MusicCast speakers and place them around your home for a complete sound system, however. You can use it as a standalone speaker, pair it with other devices, and build it into a compatible sound system.
The Yamaha MusicCast application system is also available, which can handle virtually any audio file you can think of. The Yamaha MusicCast app also has the power to link groups of speakers together so that they can all play music in a streamlined and synchronous way.
Aside from working with the MusicCast system, the 20 can also accept stereo streams from laptops, tablets, and more.
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Review: Sonos One versus Yamaha MusicCast 20
We vermelden het maar omdat de Play:1 nog altijd te koop is, en dat voor een iets lagere prijs. Ze weten dat in de strijd met multiroomgrootmacht Sonos je best zoveel mogelijk troeven uitspeelt, en het prijskaartje hoort daar absoluut bij.
Maar eigenlijk heeft de Yamaha-speaker zelfs dat draadloos netwerk niet per se nodig. Je kunt het meenemen naar de tuin en daar gebruiken om muziek af te spelen die rechtstreeks van een smartphone wordt gestreamd.
Maar je kunt ook ad hoc speakers samenvoegen zodat ze hetzelfde spelen. Sonos en Yamaha hebben elk een heel ecosysteem uitgebouwd waarin hun speakers passen.
Elk merk biedt dus verschillende toestellen aan die perfect met elkaar samenwerken. Je moet het aanbod zien als een doos van lego. Het achteraf toevoegen van een nieuwe toestel is bij Sonos en MusicCast kinderspel.
Je hebt dus een immense keuze bij MusicCast, waarbij het merendeel traditionele audiotoestellen zijn.
Niet iedereen heeft nog zin in een grote versterker met kabels en forse luidsprekers in de woonkamer. Sonos en Yamaha pakken het op dit vlak anders aan, en dat heeft met hun roots te maken: Sonos is begonnen als een softwarebedrijf dat ‘muziek luisteren’ anders wou doen, Yamaha is een rasecht hifi-hardwarebedrijf dat multiroom als een functie zag die hun toestellen moesten bezitten.
Die verschillende startpunten merk je bij het gebruik van de twee systemen. Voor wie snel en eenvoudig naar muziek wil luisteren is de Sonos-boodschap daarom heel aantrekkelijk. Bij Yamaha heb je meer aanraakknoppen die duidelijk gelabeld zijn. Heel af en toe brengt Sonos speciale kleuredities uit, zoals recent in modieuze HAY-uitvoerigen.
Ze stralen weliswaar muziek breed uit, maar je plaatst ze toch best met hun voorkant gericht op de plaats waar je muziek wil beluisteren. De Sonos-speakers zien we tegenwoordig vaak opduiken als muziekoplossing aan het plafond bij horecazaken.
Dat is ook interessant voor bepaalde ruimtes in je woning, zoals de keuken. Met name de oudere Play:1 is daarvoor populair omdat je hem makkelijk kunt ophangen.
De Sonos One heeft achteraan geen schroefdraad meer, maar er zijn wel beugels beschikbaar. Dat merk je in heel wat liedjes, vooral als er van één kant naar het andere wordt gemixt. Zowel Sonos als Yamaha zullen roepen dat een enkele luidspreker van hen ook stereo afspeelt. Yamaha daarentegen heel veel geleerd (onder meer van Sonos…) en heeft een app gebouwd die goed in elkaar zit.
Vooral als je rekening houdt met wat audiobedrijven qua apps typisch uitspoken. Alles is heel helder en je moet weinig stappen nemen om ergens te raken. Als je eigen bestanden en abonnementen op meerdere streamingdiensten gebruikt blijkt de universele zoekfunctie van Sonos een enorm pluspunt. Maar daardoor word je geconfronteerd met meer opties en kan de app iets complexer overkomen.
Je moet er niet aan twijfelen: Sonos is de absolute kampioen qua ondersteuning voor streamingdiensten. Elke dienst die we kunnen bedenken is in de Sonos-app aanwezig, zelfs een ingebakken Spotify-functie.
De Sonos-app presenteert muziek bij muziekdiensten wel mooier, vooral op een tablet. Dat doet het trouwens enkel op zijn nieuwe speakers, zoals de Sonos One.
We kijken vooral uit naar de ondersteuning voor Google Assistant, iets dat Sonos op CES in januari gedemonstreerd heeft en ook Yamaha dit voorjaar zou uitrollen.
Je moet van kleine speakers zoals de Sonos One en MusicCast 20 niet het ultieme qua geluidskwaliteit verwachten. De DSP’s in beide speaker comprimeren het geluid dan behoorlijk, waardoor dynamiek verdwijnt. Ga je een feestje bouwen of een café volstouwen met speakers, werkt dan eerder met meer Sonos One- of MusicCast-speakers dan enkele stuks heel luid te zetten.
In een neutrale omgeving klinken de Sonos One en MusicCast 20 eerlijk gezegd niet enorm anders. Tegelijkertijd kun je niet om de beperkingen van het concept heen. Zowel Sonos als Yamaha zijn heel goed in de indruk te geven dat er veel bassen uit hun speakers komen, maar echt diep duiken ze niet. In onze grote open keuken met tegelvloer kan Trueplay geen redding brengen, maar in de woonkamer wel. Ze neigen naar ‘uitstekend voor de prijs’ als je twee stuks combineert tot een stereopaar. Sonos is ook ontegensprekelijk degene met het breedste en mooist gepresenteerde aanbod aan streamingdiensten – al bestaat het aanbod ook uit veel nichediensten, dus dat is een relatief voordeel.
Wat we echt heel sterk vinden is het MusicCast-platform, dat veel flexibeler is dan Sonos.
Yamaha MusicCast 20 Review
Verdict This isn’t the best-sounding speaker in its class, but you do get special surround sound features. Buy several speakers from the MusicCast line-up and you can turn them into a stereo pair or a surround sound setup.
Its bass is a lot shallower than that of the Sonos One or Riva Arena, and a traditional driver array makes its delivery sound distinctly ‘mono’ next to some more dynamic models.
The speaker grille curves around the front and sides, building up to a lip that sits a little above the glossy plastic top plate.
The top plate in particular is not quite a visual match for the Sonos One, as it’s dotted with capacitive buttons, each with a descriptive icon. Most will probably just set it down on a surface, but there’s a cut-out on the back to let you hang it from a wall easily, and a threaded mount socket below to interface with a stand.
To use the most unusual feature of the lot you’ll need a Yamaha home cinema receiver with MusicCast, though. This lets you delegate different channels of a surround sound mix to a multi-speaker MusicCast setup: no more speaker cable to worry about. Were you to tear the speaker grille off the Yamaha MusicCast 20, you’d find a two-way active driver setup. Big radiators like this can often result in surprisingly impressive bass for the cabinet volume. You’re left with the impression Yamaha spent too much time thinking about the 20 as a satellite speaker. This driver arrangement also leaves the MusicCast 20 with a narrower sweet spot, because the highly positional treble information is only thrown out from the front.
It can go loud enough to fill mid-size rooms, there’s no harshness of note and there’s reasonable detail in the upper-mids. While some of that Sonos mid punch is contrived by clever driver management and processing, the results are compelling. However, you should hear good results if you use a couple of MusicCast 20 speakers or build them into a larger surround setup. This isn’t the best-sounding speaker in its class, but you do get special surround sound features.
Yamaha MusicCast 20 review
With the growing popularity of smart speakers, like the Amazon Echo and Google Home, and tons of great-sounding wireless speakers like the Sonos One, the future of home audio is clearly wireless. At over $230 (£199, AU$349) the MusicCast 20 speakers aren’t necessarily cheap – especially when you consider the fact that they’re not as smart as the likes of the Echo or Sonos One – so are they still worth investing in?
The speaker is a little larger than the Sonos One, but not overly so, and it still features a sleek and stylish design that won’t stick out too much.
Unlike some of the other smart speakers out there, you won’t get a voice assistant on the Yamaha MusicCast 20, which is probably the biggest omission. One of the big selling points for these particular speakers is that they work with some new Yamaha receivers for surround sound. While they’re a bit limited, we actually quite liked using the speakers in a surround system – they sounded pretty good as surround speakers, and while it took us a minute to properly set them up considering you have to change the settings in both the app and on the receiver, once we did we found that they worked very well.
We’ll get into actual sound quality a little later, but as with any wireless speakers, using a stereo pair can seriously heighten the listening experience. Thankfully, once speakers are paired or set up in a surround system through the Yamaha app, however, they do all play your music.
The bass extension doesn’t seem to extend as low as we would have liked, which ultimately results in a slightly less full tone compared to some other offerings, but all except the biggest mega-bass fans should still be perfectly happy with what’s on offer here. The high end is perhaps the weakest frequency range on the Yamaha MusicCast 20, but it still doesn’t sound all that bad. It sounds a little more natural than some other smart speakers, despite the fact that it doesn’t extend quite as low or high as we would have liked. We also recommend this speaker to those that don’t mind the lack of digital assistant and who want a slightly more natural tone.
Yamaha MusicCast 20 and 50 Wireless Speakers Review
There is native support for The MusicCast 20 and 50 are powered, all-in-one speakers that – while able to operate in various modes that we will come to – are, first and foremost, standalone devices. They are additionally Alexa compatible so, with the right supporting hardware, you can shout at them and have every aspect of your life recorded for marketing purposes.
If you find yourself using a streaming service that isn’t one of these, you can, of course, send that information via v4.1 AAC capable Bluetooth or AirPlay. Yamaha seems to have recognised this is the case and equipped the larger speaker with some standalone features to enable a more solitary existence.
Yamaha MusicCast 20 Wireless Speaker Gear Review
You could hear the faint drum hits during “The Shire” and “Bag End”, which you wouldn’t normally notice on a regular digital copy or other devices. On the first track “Prologue: One Ring to Rule Them All”, there are quite a few big crescendos with bass and cymbals during the battle sequence and these little speakers caught all the instruments and percussion moments clearly and with depth.
This song slaps the bass constantly and these speakers project each pluck and strum flawlessly with a surprising amount of richness. Other digital sounds and Michael’s gravely rock voice only rounds out this amazing song on every level, which these speakers play very well.
Yamaha MusicCast 50 Speaker review: Loud and clear
Unveiled in the summer of 2015, Yamaha’s MusicCast series was one of the most prolific of all wireless multiroom ecosystems, with no fewer than 23 compatible audio devices — including traditional speakers, sound bars, subwoofers, amplifiers, and complete Hi-Fi systems. The latter, equipped with two soft dome tweeters and two woofers, promises to “blow you away with explosive audio” for movies, and “room-filling, dynamic sound” for parties. About DXOMARK Wireless Speaker tests: For scoring and analysis in our wireless speaker reviews, DXOMARK engineers perform a variety of objective tests and undertake more than 20 hours of perceptual evaluation under controlled lab conditions. With a global score of 136, the Yamaha MusicCast 50 secures a comfortable position among our speaker ranking, only 11 points away from the top-scoring device to date.
The speaker offers good maximum volume, sharp attack and strong punch, consistent tonal balance, great bass precision, a wider sound field than other devices with similar specifications, and very few artifacts overall. All those attributes make it particularly useful for watching movies, partying, relaxing at home, and listening to podcasts or music before sleeping.
While high-end and low-end are slightly lacking, the excess of low-mids, although improving punch, can create a muddy feeling. Further, since the MusicCast 50 is a front-firing speaker, the sound — especially treble and upper mids — isn’t evenly distributed at 360°.
The Yamaha MusicCast produces a very consistent tonal balance in most scenarios, especially when relaxing at home, entertaining friends, partying, and even in difficult acoustics such as a bathroom. Midrange frequencies (mids) are well reproduced in all use cases, except at loud volumes where low-mids prominence and resonances affect clarity and convey a muddy feeling.
Compared to the Google Home Max, bass response could dig a little deeper, as shown in the graph above. Our dynamics tests measure how well a device reproduces the energy level of a sound source, taking into account attack, bass precision and punch.
Attack is fairly sharp, especially when listening to classical music, jazz, Asian pop, and when watching movies. Sound is unevenly distributed around the speaker, with considerable loss of treble and upper mids at the rear of the device.
Here are a few sound pressure levels (SPL) measured when playing our sample recordings of hip-hop and classical music at maximum volume:
The Yamaha MusicCast 50 delivers balanced and loud dynamics and wider sound compared to the competition, with very few artifacts overall. Its strengths make it a useful speaker for partying, watching movies, listening to music or podcasts before sleeping, or simply when relaxing at home — even in complex acoustical settings such as a kitchen or a bathroom. On the other hand, at loud volumes, attack is not as sharp, slight bass distortion and midrange resonances appear, and lack of extension (both high and low) tamper with the sound reproduction.
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