Sound quality: The Yamaha Musicast 20 has Very Good overall sound quality. Bass has good impact but is a touch boomy and deep bass is lacking. Midrange is fairly even but is a bit hazy, grainy and a touch soft. Treble is fairly extended, but is a bit subdued, smeared, and sizzly, and the upper treble lacks air. Does a so-so job recovering room ambience, sounds a bit congested, the dynamics are a bit compressed. When combined with a second unit to form a stereo pair they can be placed to provide good stereo separation. The sound is similar to a single unit except the bass becomes a bit more boomy. The room ambience recovery improves to decent but treble air is still lacking. The sound quality score improves slightly but remains Very Good. There was no significant difference between WiFi and Bluetooth sound quality. Provides a decent volume level in a small to medium sized room.
Ease of use: We found the Yamaha Musiccast 20 ease of use to be Very Good overall. The console volume controls are prominant but uses low contrast speaker symbols. The unit lacks volume level markings, but does indicate when you reach the max or min settings. The volume controls work the same with both WiFi and Bluetooth inputs. The console lacks a dedicated mute control but has low contrast play/pause touch control which lacks indication for WiFi use and has a non-persistent indication for Bluetooth when engaged. Source selection: Requires app to be installed, app installation is straight forward. Once app is installed switching between inputs is fairly intuitive. Bluetooth pairing is excellent as the unit is always in pairing mode when not paired. However, the unit lacks an obvious indication that the unit is in pairing mode but has an indication when pairing has actually occurred. Wi-Fi Setup: Requires app download, and following the intuitive app instructions, may or may not include selecting network and entering password, but asks for home and room name which defaults can be accepted. DLNA setup: DLNA setup instructions are provided, are tedious and non intuitive requiring instructions, speaker unit requires setup onto network prior to DLNA setup on Windows system to allow content sharing for this speaker. Remote control app: Volume control is a well marked slider next to a speaker symbol that shows positional indication of level and a numeric level. Mute control is well marked (speaker symbol), well placed, clear indication when it is engaged. All source selection is accomplished within the MusicCast App which is straight forward. Once app is installed switching between inputs is fairly intuitive. App transport controls: Controls are obvious (good contrast, standard symbols), play/pause, skip only, no scan provision.
