Pink Mongoose
Novice Member
I had a look, the speakers look lovely, if a bit expensive, but not clear where to buy in the UK.
That still wouldn’t get me a dac for anything not CCA. My tv, or my MacBook for instance, or my Blu-ray player.
The WXC begins to make a bit of sense.
Agreed. I thought long and hard about purchasing the Yamaha WXC50. It has many competitors. Apart from the obvious multi-room/app stuff it has a digital out for connection to a decent dac – a crucial feature that is omitted from so many other music streamers/servers at this price point. I've lived with it for a few months now and the sound quality is extraordinarily good (with external dac!).HI joe. I had it connected through the optical input.
I didn’t try it through the usb input. I did use the USB for an SSD full of music though and when I got used to the idea it was very useful.
I would have preferred two optical inputs so I’d have one for the Blu-ray/tv. But I had a spare optical switcher anyway so it wasn’t a problem.
Top class item the WXC50.
can any Pre amp be connected to any power? Or is there other considerations - such as input/output voltages.
You're wise to consider this aspect of matching pre to power amps. Some products don't conform to the 'normal' hifi line-level voltage outputs and inputs. And then there's the professional line-level (or whatever it's called) equipment that usually works at higher voltages.
According to the specifications, it's good news in that the Yamaha pre amp outputs a nominal 2V (with low output impedance of 470 Ohms) and your Technics amp requires only 1V (with a high input impedance of 20 kOhms). That's a decent match in my book as I use DAC's with outputs of 1.2V and 2V into my active speakers (effectively a power amp input with input level control) that require 0.775V for full output.
You probably won't use the second half of the Yamaha's volume control much.
Thanks - Pretty much confirms what my thinking was. Unless something else crops up before Thurs Peter Tyson will be delivering a new Yamaha ready to start running in over the weekend.
I'd be interested to hear what you make of it - assuming you go ahead with the purchase.
Thanks - Pretty much confirms what my thinking was. Unless something else crops up before Thurs Peter Tyson will be delivering a new Yamaha ready to start running in over the weekend.
I've now accepted that I'm unlikely to ever wirelessly connect my daughter's Yamaha WXC50 to my VAULT2 so will need to share my music files by using the Yamaha's USB port instead. The largest memory USB stick available appears to be 128GB. Does anyone know of a USB device with a larger memory – that might work with the Yamaha? Many thanks in advance.
OK - Finally had time to set this up as a Pre amp with the Technics SEA1010 power amp coupled with my Tannoy Signature Revolution DC6T's.
Fed from my Marantz CD spinner - on simple listening quality indistinguishable from the Technics pre-amp.
Fed from Spotify via wifi - a big improvement over using any of my devices via a hard wire connection to the Technics.
But.....
Volume is an issue - in two ways - firstly even on max it's probably only 60% of the output using the technics pre-amp. Dissapointing. Secondly there's nowhere enough fine control over volume using the app (using the front volume knob seems slightly better) - it's either nothing, near silence, quiet , ok or full on. Each 'step' is a big jump from the previous, especially once past half way.
I'm hoping there' some more tweaking / setting up to be done via the web based interface rather than the app.
Is that the firmware update 2.60? I have a single WXA50 which works fine but I haven't begun to look at multiroom yet. I was looking for acceptable speakers to use with the musiccast. i might need to look again at that...
By chance I changed all the settings a few days ago to exactly what you have mentioned above. I found it strange that Yamaha had all the enhancements on, rather than default to off. I found that the bass extension was awful with my MA Silver 1's and the change when I turned it off was really noticeable.
View attachment 1069936 View attachment 1069935
The WXc is best used as simply as possible. That means almost every ‘enhancement’ utterly done away with. Forever.
First make sure that whatever kind of speaker you are using, set the ‘speaker type’ to floorstanding. The rest is nonsense.
Next. ‘Enhancer’ = off. Because it doesn’t. It simply muddls the sound. It might, conceivably sound ok on a quick listen, but it is distortion. Nothing else.
Next. ‘Equaliser’ = Bypass. It’s just even more distortion.
Next, ‘Direct’ = on.
This ( Directk on) will/should kill the DSP stone dead anyway. But still kill them all manually. They cannot be killed thoroughly enough.
Next. ‘Input setting’ = off.
And in the section headed ‘Volume’ make sure you have ‘Max volume’ set to 0.0dB and initial volume mode to ‘off’.
It will play at the last volume you used anyway. And, naturally, L/R balance to suit your lay out.
There was no difference detectable with any of four digital inputs I used regardless of the Jitter setting.
It might possibly be useful for an ancient, very early digital player or an errant DAB tuner. Otherwise a gimmick I think.
It’s feasible that you may like some of the ‘enhancements’, but they are poor. They may possibly be ‘useful’ for tiny, cheap speakers, but for even small real ones they merely distort.
A week or so getting used to the WXC-50 as a bare bones machine will quickly make this obvious.
I found it to be a first class preamp (bearing in mind it’s price, but only just) into expensive active speakers that should have been out of its league. A bargain imo.
Hope this helps.
What 3rd party control software are you using instead of Musiccast?This is kind of a nitpick, but I believe it's germane to the problem at hand. Yamaha Musiccast devices are fully DLNA compliant and Sonos partially so. It appears that Bluesound is the outlier here, which is a bit surprising, since they are the most expensive of the three.
I am currently taking advantage of the DLNA support in Yamahas to avoid having to use Yamaha's exceedingly poor control software. I am using (free) 3rd-party control software (which is far superior ) and sending the music over DLNA to the various Yamahas around my house, and bypassing Musiccast protocols entirely.
Your point about Yamaha and Sonos not having much incentive to support DLNA is valid, though, and I'm an example of why. If I were shopping for a device now, I'd have little to no reason to buy a Yamaha versus anything else that supports DLNA. That said, if Yamaha hired one or two competent software engineers ( to go along with their excellent hardware teams ) and fixed Musiccast, they could keep customers like me from straying.
What 3rd party control software are you using instead of Musiccast?