100 MACWORLD AUGUST 2019
PLAYLIST REVIEW: YAMAHA MUSICCAST VINYL 500 WI-FI TURNTABLEhardwired. No delay between the two
here, either. When I engaged the main
listening room too with its analog
connection, I heard zero latency between
the Hi-Fi system and the remote room.
Walking around the house, the analog and
digital setups remained in perfect sync.
But things don’t stop there. The Vinyl
500 also has a Bluetooth radio onboard,
too. Connect a pair of Bluetooth wireless
headphones and you can stream your
vinyl directly to your favorite pair of
wireless cans. The Yamaha supports the
SBC and AAC codecs, but you won’t find
hi-definition codecs such as aptX HD or
LDAC here.
I do want to mention one completely
bizarre behavior
when the Vinyl 500
is connected with its
line outputs with
MusicCast: As you’d
expect, the Vinyl 500
shows up as a
source (phono) in the
room you assign it to.
When I selected the
Vinyl 500 as a
source, the
MusicCast app
communicated with
the Vinyl 500 and
stopped its motor
from playing a
record. I could replicate this behavior
every time. One would think that pressing
the phono input on the app would then
start the Vinyl 500 playing again. Nope. I
needed to go up to the turntable and
manually start the record playing again. I
brought this anomaly to Yamaha’s
attention.LISTENING TESTS
As I mentioned previously, I tried the
Yamaha Vinyl 500 in several configurations.
For purposes of critical listening, I
connected the Yamaha Vinyl 500 via its line
out to an Anthem AVM 60 (go.macworld.
com/av60). Speakers were Revel Ultima2
Salons powered by two Benchmark AHB2The Vinyl 500 has phono pre-outs, so you can connect the turntable
with an external phono preamp. It also has a line output, which
connects to the unit’s internal phono preamp.