Yamaha MCX-1000 MusicCAST Digital Audio Server

• 80 GB server supports wireless music transmission to anywhere in the home
• Communicates with MCX-A10 digital audio clients
• Functions as high-quality CD recorder with CD-R/RW compatibility
• CD-MP3 playback for high-quality music compilations
• Built-in CD recognition database and easy-to-use graphical interface

I bought one of the MusicCast systems as soon as it was available (after drooling over it at a couple of trade shows). The first thing I did was upgrade the harddrive to 200GB. Required a trip by my dealer to my house, but it gave me much more capacity. The interface is very intuitive. It's very fast at copying from cd to the internal disk. In the background, it converts from PCM to whatever MP3 compression level you've set for default (I always use 320KB). You can remove the PCM version to save space (I keep it for critical listening stuff, but my wife doesn't care, so her PCM's are deleted immediately :-) I have a couple of the MCX-A10 terminals scattered around the house. I've had them connect through ethernet and wireless and seems to work fine for both. Yamaha just released a software update that allows access to the MusicCast database through a web browser. This makes it very easy to fix titles, artists, etc. (You can plug a keyboard into the MusicCast, but it requires powering down which is too much trouble for me). I have to say that the most annoying thing about the MusicCast is the GraceNote CDDB database. Yamaha's implementation is great. The CDDB database is a mess. Album titles are inconistent, misspelled, etc. That's why having the browser editing is such a big deal to me. The best endorsement I can give is that my wife really likes the MusicCast. She was sceptical, but after seeing how it works and being able to browse her music, she's sold. Highly recommended for anyone who just wants to be able to enjoy their music without having to deal with PC's.

Buy Yamaha MCX-1000 MusicCAST Digital Audio Server Now

I purchased the MCX 1000 Server and 2 Clients over a year ago. They have far exceeded my expectations. When I inquired about upgrading the hard disk, the cost was absurdly high. I checked with Yamaha and with Seagate (who make the drives for the Server) and then purchased a 300GB Seagate Barracuda ATA Drive. I now have over 350 classical CDs recorded in full PCM (That is how I play them over my Hi-Fi equipment and on one client). I have upgraded each of the clients by connecting to small amplifiers and bookshelf speakers. The fidelity is consistently high and bright in eith PCM or Mp3 modes. When combined with a Yamaha RX600 Receiver and speakers and a Yamaha Subwoofer, they deliver a highly respectable performance. When played through my higher-end A/V system, the sound is as good as any CD played on a higher end CD player. Bravo. Reservations: As others have mentioned, the Gracenote CDDB is remarkably inconsistent (especially with classical recording). The PS2 connection allows editing with a keyboard and with the correct connection you can edit on a PC.

Phase II: Just purchased a 750GB Hard Drive and will have Yamaha upgrade the MCX-1000. It currently contains 450 CDs in full PCM. I hope to increase this substantially. I now have it networked to three additional systems in my home. PCM by wireless on my main Hi-Fi (music only) system is excellent, with very litlle loss of signal or dynamic range. This remains a marvelous product.

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My MusicCAST becomes more of a friend to my music collection every day. Instead of begrudgingly digging for a CD and waiting for the CD changer to find the CD and song, I just scroll through the list and select the music I want to hear. The shuffle play is amazing: by artist, album, the entire collection all without the slow, clunking and grinding noise like a changer! As with others, I upgraded the hard disk drive so I have the full quality CD stored instead of MP3 format. I even found a guy on eBay that can copy the music so I didn't have to reload all 500 of my CDs.