Yamaha WXA-50 – Alexa compatible wireless streaming
Yamaha WXA-50 – Alexa compatible wireless streaming amplifier with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth – Black
Connect & Share
How about using your audio devices alongside MusicCast? By adding the WXA-50 to your speaker system, you can enjoy your streaming music or innovative multi-room audio.
At your fingertips
You’ve just come home from a stressful day at work and want to enjoy a relaxing evening with your favourite music? Simply press any button on the front panel: the WXA-50 turns on and starts playing your selected content- quickly and easy!
Stylish and contemporary
Retro-modern design in a high-quality metal body. The WXA-50’s cool colour scheme in two shades of grey offers a simple, stylish touch so that it easily adapts to any audio system. Compact design means that the device can be placed almost anywhere: combined with other audio devices set alone, horizontally or vertically positioned.
Luxurious sound
Yamaha’s sound processing gives you an irresistible listening experience from any music source. Regardless of quality, listening environment or speakers you use, all frequency ranges and bass & treble balance are optimised… Enjoy high-resolution audio sources straight away.
 |  |  |  |  | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Product type | Amplifier | Pre-amplifier | 5.1 Soundbar | Wireless speaker | Wireless speaker |
| MusicCast | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Music streaming services | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Internet radio | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Alexa voice control | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| AirPlay & Bluetooth | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| WiFi | Yes (2.4 / 5 GHz) | Yes (2.4 / 5 GHz) | Yes (2.4 / 5 GHz) | Yes (2.4 / 5 GHz) | Yes (2.4 / 5 GHz) |
| AirPlay & Bluetooth | 90 W + 90 W | – | 100 W + 100 W | 40 W | 35 W + 35 W |
| Colour | Dark silver | Dark silver | Black | Black | Black |
| Wireless | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Dimensions: | 25.1 x 21.5 x 5.2 cm; 1.5 Kilograms |
| Model: | MusicCast WXA50D |
| Manufacture: | YAMA6 |
| Dimensions: | 25.1 x 21.5 x 5.2 cm; 1.5 Kilograms |
Had this now for a couple of weeks and really happy with it. It really packs a punch and if you like bass then this is for you. The sound quality is really great for the price. It’s a great simple design, compact & great value for money.
Really good sound, but that remote control is a toy. Hence I sent it back
This is a great streaming preamp. I have not used the preamp function, but as a dedicated streamer this provides an excellent front end for digital sources. Lots of connectivity options, a great DAC, and very detailed and smooth sound. At this price it is great value and an easy way to get into streaming your music. Remote is flimsy, but ok. This is best used with the Yamaha music cast app on your phone or tablet.
This is the 3rd multicast device that I own. Can’t comment on wireless capability as I’ve got it hardwired. I use the multicast android app and easily integrates with other household devices. Sound quality is excellent.
Mainly use if for streaming FLAC files from NAS and internet radio and no problems at all. I’d recommend it.
I don’t know what “sheerness” means, but assuming it’s something good, I’ll give it 5 stars anyway!
Brilliant little unit.
Versatile, player or Digi preamp, good connectivity and the Yamaha app is good.
Terrific sound quality.
I’m using it with a few grands worth of hi-fi system and it’s doing a fine job.
For the price an absolute steal.
WXA-50 – I use this to stream from iPhone airplay, Apple Watch and Bluetooth from Alexa echo dot. Setup is a pair wharfdale diamond 9.1 and an older Q Accoustics 2020 subwoofer. Really really nice sound (also have a Yamaha rxv amp – can definitely tell which one was for movies/tv and which one is dedicated music). For lower bit rate mp3 from a NAS (WD Home NAS with pLEX DLNA) the built in algorithm does a really good job of hiding the shortfalls. Despite its small size it puts out a clean, balanced and powerful sound with good sound stage projection although, the detail and balance of this amp, using this as a party blaster would be a bit of a waste but it will do it without clipping or distortion at the higher end! Also at this price point it’s a real bargain… don’t let size mislead. Best micro system I’ve owned!
I am using this amplifier with a pair of Monitor 50 speakers from Monitor Audio, they are the cheapest ‘bookshelf’ speakers offered by MA and probably can’t offer the full level of quality the amp can provide.
When I first plugged in the amp and connected it to my Music Server the sound was incredibly muddy and I was disappointed. The obvious next step was to delve into the settings through the MusicCast app – alternatively you could enter the amp’s IP address in a browser to edit the settings. By default, the ‘Enhancer’ option was turned on. After turning this option off the sound instantly improved, it was further improved by putting the amp in direct mode by turning on the ‘Direct’ option.
The remote control is functional but very small and easy to lose.
I chose this amp due to its compactness and compatibility with ‘MusicCast’. I use it on my desktop, primarily for PC audio output which is mostly music – the choice of speakers were also due to their small size. I also use an R-N602 from Yamaha in the living room, if you have the space I would opt for the R-N602 over the WXA-50 given the functionality of the units and their comparable price.
Compact, brilliantly simple to set up. Remote control app for phone is great. Great sound and wish I’d gone with music cast by Yamaha before spending so much on Sonos.
Great bit of kit to bring my 24 year old amplifier into the 21st century with everything I need on Spotify, easy setup too.
Very good streamer preamp good price and is i deal for people with good analogue sources.
I bought the amplifier for a bedroom system; my criteria was compact, under 1000 and powerful enough to drive a pair of budget tannoy floorstanders. I’d shortlisted the Quad Vena Play, the rega brio and the Cyrus one as well as the Yamaha model, the cheapest by a considerable margin!
And so far I’m happy with it! I set it up in 10 minutes flat from unboxing to playing Spotify (via ethernet) to room filling, if not thunderously loud levels (about 70-80db from a couple of metres away). No strain or clipping. It’s not a powerhouse so I wont be trying to shake my walls with dub reggae soundsytem style, but it seems well built, neutral sounding and very reasonablly priced. It wil go loud with efficient speakers (obviously) and can drive 4ihm loads.
Things to watch out for – only two sources available, one RCA in, one optical in. The volume control doesn’t have any indication marks or tactile feedback – you have to rely on the app (or your ears!) Also no headphone Jack. It also runs hot. None of these are dealbreakers for me.
I find the music cast app simple enough and although I’ve only had it a very short time, I think it will be a keeper!
So I needed a small amp to power some old bookshelf speakers and my wife was getting tired of having to see large heavy amps with lots of cables. This thing sounds just as good as every amp I’ve ever had but its minuscule and has all the inputs one could ever need. It looks great (the wife approves) and has a nice solid build that makes me think it will last. The only thing I don’t like is the velocity dependant volume nob at the front. Turn it slowly and it takes forever to change but turn it fast at you’ll be blowing out your eardrums if you aren’t careful. I like a nice linear increase please but I’m being picky.
This little beast delivers exactly what you expect from Yamaha in therms of sound quality . However I’m going one star down because of the build quality on the chassis ( had some scratch marks on the volume wheel and the bottom cover ) being not as excellent as it should and you don’t expect that when you spending around 350 for an item . The back panel as well is actually plastic , which once more is not fully covering the metal body description from Yamaha .
This alongside with some latency issues , when pairing the device with another MusicCast product took the whole experience a little bit down .
2 multicast devices in the same room? Only have 1 associated with the app. I have a multicast preamp going to a DAC and this then goes to a multicast receiver. This is not a combination that works if both devices are associated with the app.
Although the blurb says that it can decode Dolby digital you’ll quickly find that some Netflix program have no sound. CORRECTION ONLY THE MIDDLE OUTPUTS DECODE DOBLY DIGITAL ETC
I really wanted to like this as I was looking to move from Sonos but the app and lack of Amazon Music integration meant I had to send it back. Alexa integration was disappointing as only has limited commands such as turning volume up but you couldn’t ask it play certain tracks as you can a Sonos system.
This is a versatile piece of kit, and a bargain, even before the price dropped. It’s a lot cheaper than the rest of my system, but I use the digital outputs and the sound is good; I have tried the line and pre outputs and found them OK, probably fine for similarly priced amps and speakers.
I use it primarily to listen to Qobuz and I have a few niggles, it cannot do gapless with the musiccast app ( there is a workaround using the bubbleupnp server, but then I have dropouts streaming 192khz material; and I don’t like the idea of routing the music through a tablet or phone, even if I’m not sure l can hear a difference in sound quality on lower sample rate streams ), the musiccast display does not show bit depth ( Qobuz has a lot of 24/44.1 tracks ), musiccast does not show metadata and is generally clunky. I wish you could just use Qobuz’s own app as a remote control like you can do with Spotify, although it can take ages for Spotify to find the Yamaha on my network.
If you know a streamer that integrates Qobuz without these issues then please add a comment.
Let’s get this straight…you are looking at this device because you love music and quality of sound is important to you? I have to have the right sound… I’m not rich, only have a modest hifi set up with a Marantz pm6006 amp, but paired with the Yamaha wxc50 streaming from Spotify, the quality is spot on. Forget streaming from your tablet or phone, this wxc50 delivers superb sound. Mine is on a hard wired Ethernet and it hasn’t missed a beat. The rest of the reviews are pretty much testiment to that. I thoroughly recommend this device based on quality of sound and a leap up from tablets, phones etc. What don’t I like? Yamaha Music Cast needs a big overhaul. It’s a bit too easy to press a control by mistake and find you have switched from one device to another, or made the volume jump up or down…or restarted a track let alone the whole thing is a bit clunky. To be fair it works well from the app on a tablet but I don’t like it overall. Also…this is crazy, but there is no support for Amazon Music (Unlimited) in Music Cast. Now having trialled both Spotify Premium and Amazon MU, the quality is exactly the same, but I prefer the AMU interface. However, the only way to play AMU on the wxc50 or any Music Cast is by Bluetooth. It works, it sounds good, but you lose the advantage of the wxc50 as a quality streamer drawing its own streams and processing them…and hence quality. So frankly it’s a huge minus on the part of Yamaha and Amazon that they haven’t sorted it. So Spotify it is for me (or any of the others Music Cast supports…Tidal, Qbuzz, Feeder etc which makes it puzzling AMU hasn’t been sorted). Unit recommended and exceptional, but failure to keep up poor. Yamaha need to hire some programmers, interfaces, simplicity (with lots of tweaks available) and support. If you use other providers for streamed music you will really enjoy.
I use it with monitor speakers (pre amplified, the JBL LSR 300) and listen to music through USB and spotify or with my phone. I never used to bluetooth but the wifi is just amazing. Once you use wifi you don’t want to switch back to bluetooth. I also connected my samsung TV with an optical cable (bluetooth did not work very well, perhaps the TV ?)
I strongly recommend it !
We bought this amp for it’s excellent connectivity options & Alexa compatibility, and have not been disappointed so far.
Set up was easy using the musiccast app & then adding the musiccast skill to the Alexa app (using android devices).
We have the TV on an optical cable, windows computer as a media server via RCA cable, although the app also picks up my media server and music can be streamed wirelessly. We also have Spotify which integrates seamlessly with musiccast.
Sound quality is good though the little amplifier does not quite have enough power to drive my floor standing Polk speakers.
In all very impressed for a budget priced amp.
Now thinking of trying a couple of Yamaha musiccast speakers to make a 2.1 system.
Jan 2020 – Still using the unit, now with a pair of Klipsch R41M and a Cambridge audio minx sub, System sounds great now, also added a Topping DAC between the TV and the CD player, this has improved the sound again. Where next?
Quality item
Well priced (although some functionalities are missing)
Cons:
* User finds himself juggling with two applications at once to play one music files. Very confusing and not really user-friendly.
* No automatic source detection (manual operation is constantly required)
* No Chromecast integration
* No Airplay 2 (?)
* Equalizer is not as detailed and complete
* Doesn’t communicate wirelessly with most speakers (other than Yamahas musicast speakers).
I finally returned the streamer amplifier despite loving the added streaming feature, I decided to move to a wireless speaker solution. I now have a Bang Olufsen M5 speaker which can be paired with other B&O speakers to achieve full wireless connectivity without the need for a streamer/amplifier or wired speakers.
Works very well. The sound is first class and Music Cast is a good app. Set-up is easy and the range of features is impressive.
Bought this to replace an Apple Airport Express for streaming music to my Arcam amp: definite improvement in sound quality over the APE and great array of features such as optical input for my TV, net radio and Bluetooth. The tiny remote is handy when basic functions are required, and the Musiccast app, although a bit convoluted, works as well as to be expected when engaging with other apps such as Spotify. Just what I needed to add hi-res streaming capabilities to my traditional hi-fi set up. The built in DAC does a good job of making streamed media sound as close to CD quality as possible. Form factor of the unit itself is stylish due to its aluminium casing, which adds to the overall quality finish. Haven’t tried out the multiroom functionality yet, but it’s nice to have. Recommended.
Really excellent quality streamer. Absolute bargain for the audio quality. Nice app. Recommended.
The quality of sound was instantly very impressive, there was an openness to my B&W 704 floor standing speakers I did not get when streaming through my Nvidia Shield.
As one other reviewer says if you have come across this product, just buy it.
It’s brilliant.
I’ve taken my vintage Monitor Audio speakers out of storage and given them a new lease of life. Whist I can’t make a direct comparison of sound quality between legacy CD sources Vs. Streaming, it sounds pretty good to me.
Currently I’ve tried out Apple Play, Blue tooth, Internet Radio and Spotify, all have worked perfectly.
There appears to be nothing this can’t do!
If you have found this device, buy it.
Or, perhaps, buy it’s twin, the power amplifier.