back to article Watch out Sonos! Here's the second coming of Yamaha MusicCast

Ever had a great idea but not everyone seemed to think so? That was pretty much what happened to Yamaha when it first launched MusicCast back in 2003. A CD-ripping music server with wireless client speakers and Ethernet too, if needed. What a great idea. Yamaha MusicCast A cast of thousands... not quite but Yamaha's …

  1. clanger9

    Looks nice, couple of questions...

    These multi-home streamers tend to have a few underlying niggles which they may have kept quiet about the the demo.

    1. Will it handle gapless playback? This is just about possible with uPnP (but not always). Linn added some (proprietary but open) extentions to produce OpenHome (http://www.openhome.org/wiki/Oh:Overview), but only Linn seem to use it.

    2. I presume it does multi-room synchronous playback? This is hard to do reliably over wireless, especially if you also deal with issue #3. Sinos has this pretty well covered.

    3. What is the buffering delay/lag like? AirPlay has huge delay, which means it's not much use for directly connected video. Linn get around this issue by reducing the delay (at the expense of reliability) for video sources.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Looks nice, couple of questions...

      Airplay is crap, why? it uses the existing Wifi network instead of forming its own. So yes, that means Sonos has to be plugged into your router via ethernet, but that just means a small cheap box plugged into the router.

  2. This post has been deleted by its author

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Happy

      Re: Good luck to Yamaha with this

      NS10's were pretty crap, they just became trendy because some high profile producers happened to use them.

      DX7 was good in ways with "realistic sounds", but had a very thin sound. But it was impressive for the time, but very quickly superseded, but like the NS10's because the people on top of the pops had them EVERYONE had to have one, depite often being used for totally the wrong thing (bass lines spring to mind)

      Pianos are pretty good, can't comment on flutes, drums and sax's, but their recorders are crap.

      And as for motorbikes....

      1. This post has been deleted by its author

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Good luck to Yamaha with this

        Reference speakers aren't really supposed to sound good or bad. Just be dependable and their limitations well known.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Good luck to Yamaha with this

        Very thin sound?!?!?!

        The FM sub bass is legendary, plus nearly every song in the 90s seemed to be using DX bass sound.

        1. Deryk Barker

          Re: Good luck to Yamaha with this

          "plus nearly every song in the 90s seemed to be using DX bass sound."

          And that's a good thing?

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Good luck to Yamaha with this

      Plus they gave Dave Smith the Sequential name back.

    3. Toastan Buttar
      WTF?

      Re: Good luck to Yamaha with this

      You mention the DX-7 and ignore the classic CS-80?

  3. freemansteve

    What old junk this is!

    Why not look at Entotem's Plato system which is far more useful.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      And at £2500 a lot more bleeding expensive......

      And from their site:

      "Plato can store DVDs/film formats (converted on a PC first and then transferred by USB to Plato)"

      How quaint.

      1. freemansteve

        Fair point, but it depends if you like music or prefer copying your treasured Die Hard movies from DVD's, if people still like using those.

    2. Frenchie Lad

      Dreams

      Look at Entotem's site and you'll understand why Plato has a long way to go before matching a Squeezebox let alone a Yamaha or Sonos system.

      1. Deryk Barker

        Re: Dreams

        I would say Sonos still has a way to go before it matches the - alas discontinued - Squeezeboxes, which can play 24/96 audio, which Sonos cannot.

  4. breakfast Silver badge
    Unhappy

    Deep time

    "Eternity was mentioned frequently, and you can’t get more life-enhancing than that, surely."

    They are onto a winner here. What could be more life-enhancing than the fact that from the perspective of any sufficiently long timescale our lives are no more than the tiniest flicker, of no possible impact or value, just a momentary sputter of energy in the endless river of meaningless dust.

    Thanks Yamaha, my life feels a lot enhanced.

  5. deive

    Did they mention bringing any of this to any of their older models? I've only faily recently got a RX-V675!

  6. earl grey
    Trollface

    NS1000's all the way

    Now, get off my lawn!

  7. captain semtex
    FAIL

    So near yet so far...

    23 products... yet they still missed the equivalent of the Sonos Connect: AMP... otherwise I would have been interested (note: receivers are not the same thing).

    This allows you to use your own speakers (e.g. in-ceiling speakers). However, the Sonos Connect: AMP is also a costly solution and doesn't support hi-res audio... so I'm exploring a Raspberry Pi with Hifiberry or IQaudio solution instead.

  8. long-in-tooth
    Megaphone

    I'll wait, thankyou

    Those prices look painful.

    I'll wait until the leftovers are on sale in B&M at under £25.

    My £200 bluetooth speaker cost me under £20

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