Yikes, been a month since I posted about the little f#%ker. The RX-V6A has been resigned to music duties in another room permanently. It's a fine little music streamer. Whatever issues it has with everything else, streaming over a network works brilliantly. I like that I can simply select some music and play it until I turn the power off. Then, when I want it back on, I do not need to fiddle with the remote control or MusicCast app. I just walk up to it, tap the power button and it continues to play music from the previous session.
"So, why no more video duties?" you ask? Well, it just f#%ked me over one more time than it should have when it could not display the setup or option menus over HDR10+ content when played back at 24Hz. Now, this is an issue that will have few complaining as it is very specific. But, having the screen go dark and not come back until the menus were removed was the last straw. "Oh, what did Yamaha say about the issue?" you ask? They said, "This is normal." I'll just leave it there before I lose my s#%t.
So, I have three Onkyos and a Yamaha in different rooms. I thought I might double the amount of rooms that could produce music if I turned on Zone 2 in all of the receivers. I could just wire each one up into an adjoining room or area. This is when everybody f#%ked me over. Yamaha does not support Chromecast, DTS Play-Fi or Flareconnect. Only one Onkyo had Chromecast actually built in and did not need Google Home Bulls#%t setup to work. While two Onkyos support Flareconnect, the 2021 models have dropped Flareconnect for linking receivers together.
Now, even if all of the receivers, including the Yamaha, supported Chromecast, DTS Play-Fi or Flareconnect, those outfits DO NOT allow streaming to multiple zones. Setup Zone 2 in the receivers and stream to them using any of those outfits and they will actually tell you Zone 2 is not supported and will automatically turn Zone 2 off!
That is just f#%ked up. Ok, ok, no multiple zones and Yamaha doesn't support those outfits anyway. Think you idiot, think.
Wait, Onkyo put out a firmware update for my oldest unit to support Airplay 2. The Onkyos and the Yamaha now collectively support Airplay 2 so I can use it to cast music to all of them. Will it work with Zone 2 ON? Will it work reliably over the wireless network so that I do not have to crawl under the house and see that skeleton, again? I really need to just bury that thing already. Ok robust network and assorted AV components for which I paid a pretty penny, it's time to deliver! All Zones ON! Music ON! Status report! "All Zones accounted for and playing music Captain!" Excellent! Now, turn all of this s#%t off, I'm getting a headache. "But Captain, what about wiring up the adjoining rooms?" Oh, f#%k that! I'm not crawling under the house today, no way! I'm gonna' call this a win and retire to my quarters. Oh, and there'd better be some Romulan ale waiting for me when I get there or I'm gonna' beam somebody's a$$ to the far side of the f#%kin' moon!