How can you have music surround you constantly? Yamaha MusicCast, that's how. It's the latest and greatest multi-room music system on the scene. Here's our pick of ten reasons why it will make your life better.
1) All your music wherever you need it
Whether you to listen to the radio, your music collection or anything else, you can listen to all of it - wherever you like. That means the sound from your TV coming through your bedroom speakers or the DAB radio from the dining room playing in the garden. Everything is totally flexible, removing the limitations seen with other music streaming systems.
2) It supports Spotify and other streaming services
If you have a Spotify Premium account, you can connect up MusicCast and have access to all of your playlists, albums and favourite tracks through your speaker system. It works absolutely seamlessly - so that you'll have millions of tracks available for blasting out at a moment's notice.
3) You can play tunes from your own private collection too
If you still do things the old fashioned way, you can still play tracks from your computer or a network hard disk - simply tell MusicCast where to look, and you can have your entire library available in every room.
4) There's even radio and CD support
If you're particularly old-school you can even play CDs into the system. Just pick up one of the hi-fi- components which are compatible with the system and you can stream in CDs or other audio sources too, all in super high quality.
5) Oh, and you can move your TV audio around your house
One much underrated feature is the ability to move your TV audio around just as you can any other audio. Using the MusicCast soundbar, you can feed in your TV's audio output and have it come out of whatever speakers you like. Which means that if you quickly have to run to the kitchen or bathroom there's no need to pause what you're watching - as you'll be able to continue to follow the dialogue.
6) It works with your existing kit
You might already have the start of your MusicCast network in your house. A number of Yamaha devices have received firmware updates which enables interoperability with other devices. And unlike rival systems, though MusicCast isn't an open system, it does allow other devices to get in on the action. If you have other noise-makers you want to be part of MusicCast, you can simply plug 'em into an AV receiver and share the audio exactly how you want it.
There's also built in support for both Bluetooth and Apple's AirPlay standard - so if you want to play something off of your phone, with a few taps you can connect and share tracks with the best speakers in the house.
The Bluetooth is pretty smart as well, it's inside every MusicCast device and allows you to connect any Bluetooth speaker or headphones into the system with no wires. That means TV audio on your Bluetooth headphones as you run around the house!
7) There's apps for iOS and Android
MusicCast doesn't require a separate remote, because chances are you already own one. To control your system all you need to do is download the MusicCast app to your phone or tablet - it supports both iOS and Android. The app makes picking what you want to hear a piece of cake - and you can also use it to manage your connections, pairing rooms together and separating them with ease, so you can have your speakers configured exactly how you want them to be.
8) There's wired Ethernet support too, to guarantee perfect sound
MusicCast devices all have Wi-Fi built in, which is great for an easy and wireless connection across multiple devices . But if you're in an area where there are a lot of competing Wi-Fi networks and want to guarantee your connectivity, most of the devices also support Ethernet connections and can be hooked up to an ordinary router or hub.
9) Lossless quality
Perhaps most importantly though when talking about speaker systems is the quality of the sound that is being pumped out. Excellently, MusicCast supports all of the highest quality audio formats including 192/24 FLAC, WAV and AIFF and 96/24 ALAC. Some of the top devices also support Direct Stream Digital (DSD) sound up to 5.6MHz - and will transmit all of these formats over the network or to a Bluetooth speaker/headphones. If you send audio to a device which doesn't support it, it will automatically downsample the audio to make it work - easy!
So if you've an audiophile who won't compromise with FLAC, rest assured that MusicCast has got your back.
10) It can be (almost) infinitely expanded
MusicCast isn't one device - it is a family. This means that if you want you can start small with just one or two devices, and you can slowly add to your network as time goes on. Firmware updates will keep your devices fresh and compatible. Not only that but Yamaha are releasing more and more MusicCast products as time goes on so there'll always been an excuse to bring a new addition to the home!