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Yamaha's latest turntable streams multi-room audio via WiFi
You can pair a turntable with a multi-room audio setup (Sonos even offers a bundle), but that usually means wiring your record player into that setup at some point. Yamaha thinks it can do better. Its newly launched MusicCast Vinyl 500 turntable uses WiFi to stream records wirelessly to MusicCast speakers in your home. If you don't insist on that distinctive vinyl sound, the machine will natively stream digital services like Spotify, Pandora and Tidal.
Yamaha's smart pianos work with Alexa and teach you how to play
Of the many things we expected to see at IFA 2017, cutting-edge instruments weren't one of them. But Yamaha is using its time in Berlin to showcase the Clavinova all-electric smart pianos, which use an iOS device and LEDs above each key to teach you how to play. With the Smart Pianist application, which will also be available on Android next year, you can learn how to play tracks in real-time thanks to blue and red lights that will come on every time you're supposed to hit a key. (Red LEDs are placed above white keys, blue above the black ones.) Not only that, but if you can read music, there's a chord chart being displayed on the iPad in real-time for whatever song you're playing.
MusicCast is Yamaha's answer to Apple Airplay and Google Cast
There's no shortage of WiFi-networked speakers for consumers, but Yamaha wants to bring its own solution and products to the market. Enter MusicCast, the audio manufacturer's version of Google Cast or Apple Airplay, which lets you use an app to wirelessly play music across multiple devices in a home (or office) -- so long as they're all connected to the same WiFi network. Of course, this isn't only designed to be a competitor to Google or Apple's technology, with Sonos being another main player in the space. But Yamaha hopes to stand out by offering MusicCast on more than just speakers. According to the company, its High-Fidelity-ready tech will also work with streaming services, internet radio apps and Bluetooth devices, as well as external sources like set-top boxes, sound bars and Blu-ray players.
Yamaha's MusicCAST2 wireless distributed music system gets one better
Sonos has been sitting pretty at the top of the wireless audio distribution space for quite awhile now. Today Yamaha is fighting back with a totally refreshed (and very Sonos-like) Musiccast2 system that supports up to 32 rooms of WiFi-based distributed audio from sources such as Rhapsody, Internet radio, or tracks stored on your Mac, PC, USB sticks, Bluetooth devices, or networked shares. iTunes support is enabled via a bundled TwonkyMedia Server in the $500 MCX-RC100 Network Music Commander remote control (above) with 3.5-inch LCD, touch-sensitive trackpad, and GUI that displays details such as album art and song information from all your MP3, WMA (no lossless or PRO), AAC (no Apple lossless or FairPlay DRM), FLAC and WAV audio files. To distribute the audio, you'll need a $400 MCX-A300 (amplified, just add speakers) or $400 MCX-P200 (non-amplified for AV connection) Network Music Player placed in each room where audio is desired. The MCX-P200 can also function as a universal IR remote with multiple IR outs to control other devices in the AV rack via IR flashers or the MCX-RC100 remote control. So yeah, it gets expensive, but it's easy and quick and won't require a sledgehammer, wiring, or sheetrocking skills. Our only reservation is with Yamaha's choice of straight-up 2.4GHz 802.11b/g to link the audio compared to the rock-solid, customized-802.11n mesh created by Sonos -- nobody wants a microwave to harsh their mellow, dig? More component pics after the break.
