Yamaha offers a range of networked products, controlled by a proprietary control protocol
named MusicCast.
The receiver on 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 brushed aluminium 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 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 and band select, preset select and tuning.
Further to the right the Pure Direct button that provide 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 with
on line 2 and 3 also outputs for hooking up a recorder, two optical digital inputs, two
SPDIF inputs and an analogue input for a cd-player.
A separate subwoofer output is to the right of it.
Then FM and AM arial 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 on 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 that 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 of where they left of.
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 that has far less inputs.
Let's select internet radio and go for a station in my country.
I select Locations, 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 own music needs to be on a DLNA server and then can be selected like 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 like 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 class A/B amps with linear power supply - especially
with the more affordable products - and that is exactly the techniques 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 line up.
Now, the performance wasn't equal to the Marantz KI Lite amp that costed 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 personally wouldn't need it, getting to my music in my living room and my study
would suffice.
All the clever multiroom stuff is waisted 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, analogue 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
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See the show notes for the links.
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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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