Yamaha Audio MusicCast 50 Wireless Speaker for Streaming Music, Compatible with Alexa (Black)

Absolutely love this speaker. The finish is very streamline and clean looking and the sound is terrific. Great lows, clean highs. I have two of these and can pair them to play the same source, or as left and right for even more stereo separation. I have them in separate rooms in an open floorplan and the sound is immersive. I really appreciate the synchronized output, as nothing is more annoying than a slight delay between speakers (ok, a long delay is more annoying, but I digress). The musiccast software is terrific and with my total of 4 compatible devices, I have the full house audio experience without running any wires. While not cheap, these rival similar priced speakers from other manufacturers. Setup was easy and the app allows for a lot of flexibility. I never use the limited buttons on the speaker except for initial setup. Super convenient that it's fully controlled via the app, which allows me to place the speaker high above the cabinets in my kitchen allowing me to enjoy the sound without it being in the way. Everyone that visits looks around for where the music is coming from. Overall a great purchase, I may buy more or try the smaller "20" in the future.

I am familiar with the music cast so the setup is quick and easy. I like the default sound settings in my first set up and listening to my music. Music cast app gave me the ability to fine tune my listening preferences. My speaker is set up with my ethernet cable and the streaming status is very solid. I like the performance. I can hear and feel the dynamic of sounds in distinct fashion. I mainly use it to streaming music. It also has Bluetooth capability, and it can works with google home. It is a versatile speaker. With several speakers, they can set up for surround sound qualities for TV entertainment. (Yamaha Audio Receiver is required).

I love the sound and connectivity. No cloud necessary, everything handled in my local network. Have a receiver, record player and a lot of these speakers in my home.

I added the MusicCast 50 to my already existing system that includes an RX-V485 A/V Receiver and 2 MusicCast 20s. To my RX-V485, I have a Bose Acoustimass 5 series ii plugged in. I use the MusicCast for tv watching and for listening to music throughout my small house. Compared to the MusicCast 20s, it has very rich sound but not loud sound. To add it, I used the "Add New" option in the MusicCast App settings. My phone is an android.

My original review below is more favorable. After a few more days using this I found that the MusicCast support needs more baking. I have another musicCast device that works very well. When I introduced the MusicCast 50 into the mix, even though I was not pairing the devices, MusicCast seemed to get confused. Airplay also was behaving oddly .... like really oddly. Like playing via airplay from Amazon music seemed to be playing faster. MusicCast stopped recognizing my MusicCast 50 and had to remove and add the device. I was getting frustrated.The next day I stopped into a Bose outlet. I'm generally not a Bose fanboy ... high price for what you get. But this Yamaha is very expensive too. So I took a look and listen of course. I listened to the Bose Home Speaker 500. It looks like the MusicCast 20 ... so smaller than the MusicCast 50. I was skeptical but let me tell you ... It sounded about the same as the MusicCast 50 to me. Also it seemed to have better app integration for me. E.g. It supported Amazon Music in addition to Pandora, Spotify, TuneIn, ... and intriguingly it had Alexa support. So I took it home for a test run.Like I said, it sounds pretty darn close to the MusicCast 50 so that was good. But it was the app support and easy install that blew me away. The initial setup was flawless and intuitive. Yeah I got the Yamaha up but It took a little head scratching (good thing I'm a bit of techy) ... like really it tells me to connect to a private yamaha network to finish the install AFTER the initial connection on the main network timesout ? .... geese. And then you kinda sit there waiting to see what happens next and then it seems to work ... But man , its not a good setup but was able to get through it. On the Bose it just was one two three done. wow. No private network. Just connect and sign into apps.The Bose also had more presets (6 vs 3).But the BIG BIG separator is Alexa. I never used Alexa before so was not biased. I am now an Alexa Fan boy :) !!!I could just tell it to play my favorite station or genres and Alexa would go off and find the station or music where it could find it. It defaults to Amazon Music for music search but you can have it default to Pandora/Spotify etc.Now its like ... who needs preset buttons?! It totally changes the ease of use and flexibility of the device. Not the least of which is its a full Alexa implementation .... so "Alexa , whats the weather today?" :) :)So you know the rest of the story. The MusicCast 50 is back in the box , ready to be returned.One final note. I do have to comment on the "expert" reviews here that state the MusicCast 50 has near audiophile sound. Its not even close!. Its a good table top sound for sure and competes well in that space ... thats it.Original Review:Got this for my bedroom (about 200 sq ft space). I already have a musiccast receiver (n602 nice!) and an older yamaha avr which supports airplay (but not musiccast). I like Yamaha obviously and wanted something smaller for bedroom that had musiccast support ... or at least airplay. The Musiccast 50 looked like it fit the bill albeit a high bill ... this a very expensive table top speaker. I was able to get an open box unit for $375 and still cringed a bit. So for $500 it had better be very good.Having read reviews both here and elsewhere I got the impression that the sound was very big and impressive. So my expectations were high. I found that the sound was not quite that impressive though. This is still a relatively small speaker by any standard. It does produce a full sound FOR A TABLETOP speaker but in no way approaches the full sound of my receiver and tower speakers. So do not get your expectations that high. Its good for what it is. I'd say comparable to a Bose wave radio or the (older) cambridge soundworks radio I have. It met my needs for what I wanted though .... but I think its price is very much on the high side for the sound alone.Here is a summary of my results so far:I was able to set it up quickly so no issues there.I was able to sign in to my Pandora account and play my stations without issue.I was able to connect via airplay and play my Amazon Music just fine.I was able to link it to my other MusicCast receiver very easily (just to see if it worked as I did not plan to operate it that way).There were a few quirks with Musiccast that are not issues on my n602 receiver:When using the net radio tuner I was not able to find some local stations. my n602 had no issues. The firmware was up to date so that was not the issue. Called customer service ... no help yet (I might get a call back ... so jury is out on customer service). But I figured out the problem .... the Musiccast 50 radio search software (or the database of stations) is a little more restrictive .... e.g. Using the n602 I could search for nhpr and get all the local nhpr stations in the state. The Musiccast 50 would find nothing. I later thought to try the specific call letters of an nhpr station (e.g. WEVO) and viola ... there it was. phew. So there are software differences between Musiccast devices. Not so bad after all though. Surprising that there might be differences in software behavior between devices.Another quirk was switching between airplay from my iphone and native Musiccast playing on the device. On my n602 the receive might be playing Pandora natively. I could then play something from my iphone using airplay and the device would simply and automatically switch to airplay and play. The Musiccast 50 got confused when I did this. I'd try airplay on my phone ... tell it to play on the Musiccast 50 ... but the 50 did not switch to airplay automatically. I would have to either shut the 50 off and then try airplay or go into MusicCast app and switch the device to airplay. Inconvenient for sure but at least airplay works. Hopefully this will be fixed .I'm guessing there are other quirks as well.So my overall impression is that is a good sounding system for a table top. Certainly not stunning and one should temper their expectations. It fits into the streaming music model very well and I think the MusicCast app and ecosystem is very easy to setup and use.I do think $500 is expensive for a device with this sound level though. If I did not want MusicCast and airplay support I'm guessing I could have found an equivalent sounding wireless setup for less money.But it is pretty and looks well built and for the $375 I got it for.... I'll be keeping and enjoying it.

Sound is good for the size. Like the shape and multicast to have music in my whole house with several of them

2 stars for a great speaker that plays music well and syncs to the Musiccast app flawlessly; however, I purchased 2 of them for the Musiccast wireless application for watching movies/TV. They were supposed to give me surround sound through WiFi, but no amount of fiddling with settings could get them to give better than a 2-3 second lag in audio behind whatever was showing on the TV. I switched wires, ports, how the speakers were paired to the receiver (a Yamaha R-N303), but it never played nice. Unfortunately returned for refund, because I really wanted them to work.

I purchased this Yamaha Audio MusicCast 50 Wireless Speaker for my use in my basement. Its a real beast! Works well with my other Yamaha Audio MusicCast speakers. Great sound all around. Excellent.