Macworld USA – August 2019

AUGUST 2019 MACWORLD 97

soundbars, and A/V
receivers that do. The
Vinyl 500 can act as
both a source to
stream vinyl and as a
MusicCast preamp to
receive streamed
music from any
MusicCast supported
service.
On the hardware
side, there’s Wi-Fi and
Bluetooth. The Vinyl
500 connects to
Yamaha’s MusicCast
app just like any other
MusicCast network
player or speaker. For this review, Yamaha
also sent me two MusicCast 20 speakers.
Setting up the Vinyl 500 and the
MusicCast 20
speakers was a
relatively
straightforward
experience, although I
did need to apply
firmware updates to
each unit. What I
found particularly
perturbing was the
fact that the Yamaha
500’s firmware
update couldn’t be
done via the

MusicCast app. And I couldn’t use the unit

with MusicCast until the firmware update

was completed. I had to perform the

You set up the Vinyl 500 as you would any other MusicCast-enabled

device or speaker. Once added the Vinyl 500 shows up as a

“phono” source to the room assigned.

The Vinyl 500’s initial firmware update was cumbersome. Yamaha

says that future firmware updates will happen via the MusicCast app.