Yamaha R N602 streaming MusicCast receiver
Yamaha offers a range of networked products,
controlled by a proprietary control protocol named MusicCast. The receiver on the test here is such a product
and it seems to offer a lot for little money. The R-N602 has the quintessential Yamaha look:
a front in a brushed aluminum look – available in black and silver – with square push buttons,
oblong selector knobs, small round push buttons, and round rotary encoder knobs. The Yamaha pre-amp I owned in the eighties
already used this design and it still looks up-to-date. Versatility is the name of the game here:
it’s a 2 x 80 watts amp with a linear power supply, an integrated DAC, a phono input,
an FM and AM receiver, a networked player using Ethernet or Wifi, a Bluetooth player,
a streamer that does vTuner internet radio, Pandora, Rhapsody, Spotify, SiriusXM, Napster
and Juke, an Airplay renderer, a Bluetooth source, and an Airplay source – about which
I will speak later.
And all that for € 599, including an infrared
remote and an app for Android and iOS. The N602 supports PCM up to 24-bit 192 kHz
and DSD. The DAC chip used is the delta-sigma, Burr
Brown DSD 1791. Remarkable is that Apple Lossless is only
supported up to 96 kHz. The front holds a power button and light,
an infrared sensor, the display with below it small push buttons to dim the display,
select what’s on the display, FM mono/stereo switch, radio memory, band selects, preset
select, and tuning.
Further to the right the Pure Direct button
provides a short audio path. When selected the tone control is omitted
and the display will switch off when no settings are done. Below that the large volume knob, a tiny return
button and jog dial for navigating the menu, the famous Yamaha variable loudness, the balance
and tone controls, the input selector, a USB socket for storage media, the speakers A/B
selector, and the headphone jack. Going to the rear we see the MD phono input
with ground terminal, three line inputs on lines 2 and 3 also outputs for hooking up
a recorder, two optical digital inputs, two SPDIF inputs, and an analog input for a cd-player. A separate subwoofer output is to the right
of it. Then FM and AM aerial connections, the 100
megabit ethernet socket and the socket for the supplied Wifi antenna. Loudspeaker terminals for two sets of speakers
and the fixed power cord conclude this excursion. Yamaha lent me four MusicCast products to
let me check out the system. Connecting them to the app was simple and
each player – Room in the MusicCast lingo – can be given a name and an appropriate photo.
I used stock photos but you can take photos
yourself if you like. Let’s go to the living by tapping it. It warns you to power the system. Just tap the power button in the top right
corner. Immediately all sources are shown on the screen,
divided into My Music and Sources. Let’s select Tidal. I have – of course – entered my Tidal subscription
credentials. Let’s go to Tidal Rising and select Afraid
of the Dark which starts playing right away. For copyright reasons I don’t let you hear
the music. The volume slider can turn down the volume. Now let’s go back to the Rooms screen and
switch on the other rooms. Those Rooms that had music playing when switched
off, pick where they left off. But in the kitchen, no music was playing so
let’s select some new music there. This zone uses the simple streaming speaker
WX-010 has far fewer inputs. Let’s select an internet radio and go for a
station in my country. I select Locations, in Europe, and The Netherlands. As you can see my small country has a lot
of internet radio stations.
On the right, the file format and bitrate are
shown. Let’s go for some Dance Music, one of the
export products of my country. So now I have music in all four Rooms. And when, at the end of the day you want to
switch them all off, simply tap on Rooms and select ‘All Power Off. Your music needs to be on a DLNA server
and then can be selected as I did in Tidal.
The central control is very nice, as is the
photo per room. You can even stream for instance the music
from the turntable, connected to the receiver – to one or more other rooms. Both Bluetooth and Airplay are supported as
many systems do: you can stream music from your smartphone or tablet to the music set. But MusicCast devices can also do the reverse:
be a Bluetooth or Airplay source. So if you have a Bluetooth speaker in the
garden and want to play a vinyl record to your guests there, just play the record in
the living room and relay the signal to the Bluetooth speaker in the garden, provided
the speaker is within Bluetooth range, of course.
The same goes for Airplay speakers. Manufacturing a good amp for € 600 is already
a challenge, let alone a receiver with these kinds of possibilities. But then again, Yamaha has a reputation to
protect. And they succeeded quite well. I am a purist and in general prefer a class
A/B amps with linear power supply – especially with the more affordable products – and that
is exactly the technique used here. The tone controls to me are unnecessary and
I used the Pure Direct mode all the time. I started by replacing the NAD amp in my setup
3 but soon got the feeling my setup 2 would be more appropriate – see the link in the
show notes for the lineup. Now, the performance wasn’t equal to the
Marantz KI Lite amp that cost already double and is only an amp. But the Yamaha had sufficient power to drive
the Acoustic Energy speakers without getting even close to nasty. The R-N602 is very good sounding for the money,
very good.
Where should I start? With the MusicCast environment? Well, I wouldn’t need it, getting
to my music in my living room and my study would suffice. All the clever multiroom stuff is wasted
on me, but if you do like it, this is a very nice system. Searching the music for an artist is quickly
done using the search function but browsing your music for inspiration is somewhat less
elegant. There are many other features, though, to
compensate for that. Even as just an amp it is extremely versatile,
offering loads of inputs, analog, and digital, and many popular streaming services are supported. Old school radio – FM and AM – are present
too and DAB+ is wisely omitted. There is no use for DAB+ in this quality stationary
equipment. Just use internet radio for it streams at
far higher bit rates than DAB+.
So, what is the final verdict? Is this the best in its price? I don’t know but it certainly is very good
at this price and if there is a manufacturer that thinks it can do even better, just let
me know. And if you want to keep informed, subscribe
to this channel or follow me on Twitter, Facebook, or Google+. See the show notes for the links. If you liked this video, please consider supporting
the channel through Patreon and see super exclusive videos too.
Just one dollar a month will do. The link is in the show notes. And don’t forget to tell your friends on
the web about this channel. I am Hans Beekhuyzen, thank you for watching, and see you in the next show or on theHBproject.com. And whatever you do, enjoy the music.
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