Yamaha isx-80

MusicCast technology makes for great versatility within the system.

Mar 2016

Though it shares design cues from the ISX-800 from 2012, the ISX-80 represents the start of Yamaha’s foray into multi-room audio, and they’re doing it in a big way.

You see, Yamaha has just launched their own version of wireless multi-room technology – MusicCast – and this technology allows you to network MusicCast-enabled audio equipment and the non-MusicCast equipment connected to them.

This means you can mix and match all sorts of AV systems that you can then control from a single source, as long as they’re connected in some form to a MusicCast device. Because every MusicCast-enabled device has both Bluetooth and analog connections, anything from a traditional vinyl player to a pair of standard wireless headphones can now be part of your multi-room network, so that’s certainly an exciting prospect.

The ISX-80 speaker itself actually looks more like a modern wall clock than your typical speaker with its square frame and fairly large digital clock in the center. It has a very clean industrial look overall, with just six physical buttons dot the top of the speaker. A refreshing change to the more modern looks sported by the rest of the offerings in this shootout perhaps?

That said, Yamaha has somehow managed to fit in dual 3cm soft dome tweeters and dual 8cm woofers in that unconventional frame and thus provide a fuller sound than what you might expect from something that measures just 6.5cm deep, so kudos must be given there.

There’s support for streaming services like Spotify, Pandora, Rhapsody, Napster, SirusXM, and Juke, plus the speaker has native support for MP3, WMA,MPEG4, AAC, ALAC,WAV,FLAC and AIFF formats in up to 192kHz/24bit encoding. It’s also the only speaker to have a FM tuner built in, so it’s obvious to see the lifestyle focus of this speaker.

We must also commend Yamaha for their MusicCast Controller app. Speakers are assigned to various rooms, and then these rooms are in turn assigned a source to play. To have multiple rooms playing the same source, simply click the link icon on the top left to pick a master room, then add the selected rooms to link to it. A nice touch here is that you can personalize the rooms on the app by adding your own photos for use too, so everyone can have their own icon.
MusicCast technology makes for great versatility within the system.
Sweet spot for the speaker seems to be rather small.