Tim
06-12-2018, 21:30
Popped into Richer Sounds today just to have a look at one of these, no intention of buying it, just interested. However, they had an open box offer on the only one they had in stock. It looked pristine so 5 minutes later I was walking out with it on the promise of a 7 day trial. Normal price is supposed to be £299.00 but most places sell it for £249.00, unless you can find a cheaper open box offer like I did.
Yamaha WXC-50
https://www.superfi.co.uk/images/product/medium/46838_1_.jpg
Got to say I'm impressed, Spotify sounds extremely good through it. I have it connected with a Mark Grant cable to the Coax input on my Rega DAC and it sounds better than Spotify does via my music server, which is surprising. It's the same width as the Rega, so it's sitting happily on top. It does have it's own 24/192 ESS Sabre DAC, but I haven't tried that yet.
I haven't even opened the manual, the remote or downloaded the Yamaha MusicCast app, I just plugged an Ethernet cable into the back, connected it to the DAC and powered it on. I went into the settings via it's IP address through a web browser, changed the ID name to YamahaWXC50 and that was it. Next I fired up Spotify on my mobile and there it was, listed under Devices Available as YamahaWXC50. I really wasn't expecting it be that simple or sound as good as it does. It also appears in my JRiver players list as it's DLNA certified, so even better. It'll stream from a NAS or a network PC too, I can confirm it works with JRiver Media Center (ver. 23) as a network DLNA renderer once you have DLNA turned on in the options (JRiver options). Also plays Tidal, Deezer and Qobuz, but I don't have any of those, I just want it for Spotify and don't intend to use the MusicCast app.
Very happy bunny, now I don't have to shut down JRiver and open up Spotify on my Music Server (and vice versa) every time I want to change the player. That used to bug me as I couldn't share the same connection on the DAC with both running. I did try a Chromecast Audio via Toslink, but the sound quality was meh compared to my server, not bad, just not as good. This is significantly better than both - I listen to Spotify quite a lot already, but I think that's going to increase with this little box of tricks.
Quite content with what it's doing already and intend on keeping it, but for a bit of fun I might plug it into my Quad 405-2 tomorrow, as it's a pre-amp as well.
For the money I would say this could save a lot of folk some hair pulling as an alternative to a Raspberry Pi, if you wanted a simple streamer. Once you add HAT boards, cases and power supplies to a Pi it could cost about the same (or more), depending on the board you put on top.
Streaming and file based audio has come a very long way since I adopted it as my primary source 7 years ago. It's now very simple, very affordable and the sound quality per pound can be quite remarkable.
https://youtu.be/ovrS88tddmo
Yamaha WXC-50
https://www.superfi.co.uk/images/product/medium/46838_1_.jpg
Got to say I'm impressed, Spotify sounds extremely good through it. I have it connected with a Mark Grant cable to the Coax input on my Rega DAC and it sounds better than Spotify does via my music server, which is surprising. It's the same width as the Rega, so it's sitting happily on top. It does have it's own 24/192 ESS Sabre DAC, but I haven't tried that yet.
I haven't even opened the manual, the remote or downloaded the Yamaha MusicCast app, I just plugged an Ethernet cable into the back, connected it to the DAC and powered it on. I went into the settings via it's IP address through a web browser, changed the ID name to YamahaWXC50 and that was it. Next I fired up Spotify on my mobile and there it was, listed under Devices Available as YamahaWXC50. I really wasn't expecting it be that simple or sound as good as it does. It also appears in my JRiver players list as it's DLNA certified, so even better. It'll stream from a NAS or a network PC too, I can confirm it works with JRiver Media Center (ver. 23) as a network DLNA renderer once you have DLNA turned on in the options (JRiver options). Also plays Tidal, Deezer and Qobuz, but I don't have any of those, I just want it for Spotify and don't intend to use the MusicCast app.
Very happy bunny, now I don't have to shut down JRiver and open up Spotify on my Music Server (and vice versa) every time I want to change the player. That used to bug me as I couldn't share the same connection on the DAC with both running. I did try a Chromecast Audio via Toslink, but the sound quality was meh compared to my server, not bad, just not as good. This is significantly better than both - I listen to Spotify quite a lot already, but I think that's going to increase with this little box of tricks.
Quite content with what it's doing already and intend on keeping it, but for a bit of fun I might plug it into my Quad 405-2 tomorrow, as it's a pre-amp as well.
For the money I would say this could save a lot of folk some hair pulling as an alternative to a Raspberry Pi, if you wanted a simple streamer. Once you add HAT boards, cases and power supplies to a Pi it could cost about the same (or more), depending on the board you put on top.
Streaming and file based audio has come a very long way since I adopted it as my primary source 7 years ago. It's now very simple, very affordable and the sound quality per pound can be quite remarkable.
https://youtu.be/ovrS88tddmo