Yamaha MusicCast - third party speaker compatibility?

[Graeme Williamson]

Hi folks. Just bought a new Yamaha AV receiver with MusicCast. I was planning to use it with an existing third party Bluetooth speaker I have in another room. While this works (when you enable the 'Bluetooth transmission' feature) in that I can now hear the audio from my receiver in both the master room and the other room, I can only listen to the same music in both rooms rather than having the flexibility of also being able to use a variety of sources simultaneously, which is what MusicCast should allow. On the MusicCast app, rather than seeing two rooms available for control, I only see one, and the second room is simply 'piggy-backing' on the master room rather than being separate. I guess this is simply a limitation of using a third party speaker.

My question is, whilst I'm open to getting other Yamaha MusicCast speakers, they are fairly pricey and there is a limited range. Are there any other wifi speakers that would integrate with MusicCast so I could use all the features or am I stuck with Yamaha? Thanks

 

[Latent]

Unfortunately like all the many wireless multi zone options they are very vendor locked in. Currently only Yamaha is selling MusicCast devices and this is unlikely to change. The other solutions like Denon Heos or Sonos have the same restrictions. Play-Fi (now owned by DTS) is a little different as DTS has on sold the tech to others and so multiple people are offering it and they are in theory compatible but Play-Fi has its own set of limitations and it doesn't do everything.

One option you may have is to use the Zone 2 support if your AVR supports more than one zone as you can add this as another room in your MusicCast app and this may solve your problem. If your AVR is lower than the RX-V679 it may not have Zone2 support though.

 

[Graeme Williamson]

Thanks Latent. I have the RX-V579 which does have zone B support, but I've not investigated the extent of the functionality there. I'll have a look though - you sure I can add it as an extra room in the app?