Posted Tue Apr 12, 2016 at 09:15 AM PDT by Steven Cohen
Two new MusicCast capable products have been detailed.
Yamaha has announced the latest additions to its home audio lineup. The WXA-50 Amplifier & WXC-50 Preamplifier are designed to enhance existing speakers and home audio equipment with MusicCast streaming support.
"Yamaha fully appreciates that many of our customers already have speakers, AV receivers and Hi-Fi equipment that they love, yet they want to enhance their overall wireless audio listening experience," said Bob Goedken, general manager, AV division, Yamaha Corporation of America. "The WXA-50 and WXC-50 not only allow them to seamlessly and effortlessly integrate their legacy equipment with our popular MusicCast system, but also with superior sonic fidelity that will bring them hours of music listening enjoyment."
The WXA-50 amplifier allows users to connect a pair of their existing speakers to the stereo amp, enabling MusicCast support through an existing Wi-Fi network to access a customer's music library, Pandora, Spotify, Rhapsody and more directly from the MusicCast app. The amplifier works with any pair of traditional wired speakers, and can be used in conjunction with other MusicCast wireless speakers, sound bars, and receivers for wireless multiroom audio playback. Meanwhile, the WXC-50 preamplifier works with existing home theater or Hi-Fi systems, letting customers connect the WXC-50 to an AV receiver or stereo amplifier to add streaming audio capabilities and wireless multiroom playback when used with other MusicCast products.
Both devices support playback from Internet radio stations, music files on smart devices and computers, Bluetooth devices, and external sources like TVs, DVDs, Blu-ray Discs, CDs and even vinyl. Likewise, the amp and preamp support playback for several high-resolution audio formats, including Apple Lossless (ALAC) files up to 96 kHz / 24-bit, FLAC, AIFF and WAV files up to 192 kHz / 24-bit, and single-device playback of DSD streams up to 5.6 MHz. Finally, both models also feature the same ESS Technology digital-to-analog converter (DAC) used in high-end Yamaha AV receivers, along with Yamaha proprietary sound processing technologies like a Compressed Music Enhancer, Volume Adaptive EQ, and Advanced Bass Extension Processing.
The Yamaha WXA-50 Amplifier ($499) & WXC-50 Preamplifier ($349) will be available in August.
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