The march of Bluetooth speakers continues onward without relent, even amid increasing competition from better-sounding alternatives that use Wi-Fi. Take the Yamaha MusicCast WX-010. Sure it does Bluetooth too, but its main appeal is as a smart Wi-Fi speaker.
Although it’s Yamaha’s cheapest such speaker, it has a number of features that its competitors don’t. The first is Yamaha’s own MusicCast multiroom system, which makes the WX-010 a nice addition to a so-equipped system. Apple AirPlay is the other inclusion, which could likewise interest users bound up in Apple‘s ecosystem.
The WX-010 is a compact speaker at roughly 5 inches cubed. It features a 3.5-inch woofer and 1-inch tweeter in the front while the sides incorporate opposing passive radiators.
If you have two WX-010 speakers handy, you can pair them for stereo sound. Unfortunately this involves pressing a certain sequence of buttons on the speakers themselves, which didn’t work for me at first. I found I had to factory reset both the router and the speakers (by pressing more buttons), and I needed to remove all Sonos speakers from the network before it would function. Yamaha assured me most users don’t have the same problem, but either way pairing was a more complex process than on competitors.
After reviewing the Sonos One ($199.00 at Amazon.com) speaker and its new app, I’ve come to the conclusion that multiroom apps in general are too unwieldy. Sonos, Yamaha and others should take a cue from the excellent high-end Roon software.
