Looks like a decent receiver with A/V functions and additional bells and whistles.
The only spec that I’m not comfortable with (and most likely due to lack of knowledge) is the Maximum Effective Output Power of 160 Watts @ 10% THD.
If this represents a peak output, then a sudden crash or crescendo at 10% THD would possibly be “clipping” the signals and not only sound like poop but potentially harm the drivers in your speakers.
But, as I said - the whole JEITA rating spec is one I’m not familiar with. Any audiophiles here to straighten out an old analog guy?
We’d have to know more about your current multi-room setup to say if this receiver will work for sure, but I’m guessing that it will do the job fine. This receiver is a 7-channel model and has the ability to do a zone 2 (additional pair of speakers listening to a separate source in another room). It can handle running 5 speakers in the main room and 2 speakers in another room.
Also, since this receiver supports MusicCast it gives you the ability to add more MusicCast devices (wireless speakers, sound bars, etc.) later to expand your multi-room audio setup. Check out MusicCast - Yamaha USA for more info.
stegosauria is correct. This receiver supports AirPlay and Spotify Connect. It also supports other audio playback options like DLNA music from your computer or a NAS drive. It won’t do video files though, so if you are trying to watch movies stored on your computer then you’ll need to connect your computer to the receiver or get another video playback device like you mentioned (Roku, etc.)
I have two speakers in my main room and then two speakers in 5 other rooms. I have my current receiver hooked up to a speaker selector to deal with the number of rooms that I have. I’m guessing that the connection would be the same, but I’m definitely intrigued by the additional features of the MusicCast!
Correct, MusicCast uses your existing Wi-Fi signal, so if your phone or other devices get bad signal strength outside then a MusicCast speaker would have trouble in that same location. Moving your router to a centrally located part of your house or adding an extra wireless access point might solve your problem though.
Correct, you can technically hook up an EQ if you went out of the main left/right channels into the EQ and then from the EQ to an external amplifier, however, the EQ would only work with the left/right channels and wouldn’t support surround sound. So it can be done, but I wouldn’t recommend it.
Also, keep in mind that this receiver has it’s own parametric equalizer (PEQ) built in for each channel. You can use the included YPAO microphone to run the initial audio calibration, then manually adjust the PEQ settings for each speaker.
Officially, you’ll only want to connect one pair of speakers to the zone 2 terminals. Unofficially, however, Yamaha receivers are known for being robust and able to handle multiple pairs of speakers as long as you are using a good quality speaker selector that uses impedance matching and is properly configured.
Thanks for the response. Is that just a 3 band parametric EQ? Can you create separate curves for each source (in addition to being speaker specific)? The reason I ask this is because I might want to have a different curve for audio sources vs Video sources. Thanks
We rate the receivers in a variety of ways since some dealers have very specific criteria. This allows them to compare different products and different brands all using the same criteria. The 1kHz, 1ch driven spec is recommended by JEITA and a few others as kind of an industry standard so we include that one, but I prefer the 20Hz-20kHz, 2ch driven spec that you mentioned before. As for specific significance of JEITA, it’s just a group that can recommend various standards.
Each channel has its own separate 7-band PEQ that is typically used to EQ the room and not for a specific source or type of audio. We do have higher model receivers like the RX-A1070 that have two different “Speaker Patterns”, so you could technically set up Speaker Pattern 1 for music and Speaker Pattern 2 for movies, but this model doesn’t have that feature. I hope this helps.
Nice to see Yamaha chiming in to answer questions. More companies/businesses should take heed and do the same. This makes me more likely to consider/buy Yamaha products.
Yes, all MusicCast models include both Bluetooth receive and Bluetooth transmit capability. As with anything Bluetooth it’s possible for there to be some delay, but it depends on what you’re listening to (YMMV). I’ve streamed music and there was no delay on my Bluetooth headphones, but I’ve listened to HDMI sources and sometimes experienced up to around 1 second of delay. It’s a convenient feature, but you’ll have to weigh the pros and cons.
We support a lot of different streaming options including AirPlay and Bluetooth, but it does not have the Chromecast ability built-in. I’m an Android user myself, so I just added a $35 Chromecast to one of the open HDMI inputs and it does everything I need it to do. I haven’t tried interfacing from my Google Home to the Chromecast, so I can’t speak to how well they work together but the receiver does support CEC so that may help.