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Review and Measurements of Yamaha WXA-50 Streaming Amp

Unclevanya

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confucius_zero

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confucius_zero

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too many items in my decision tree!
I bought 4 amps and returned 3 amps through amazon. It was effortless, no questions asked. I encourage you to do it if you have the opportunity.
 

Unclevanya

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I bought 4 amps and returned 3 amps through amazon. It was effortless, no questions asked. I encourage you to do it if you have the opportunity.
Lol. That's an idea but I'm probably going to just accept the effort you made already.
 

Chals

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Hi there!
I have a doubt about Yamaha WXA-50. Now I have a cambridge audio Azur540R (it is a home cinema), but the audio control is broken and I thinking to change to a stereo amplifier that have an easyer conectivity. The thing is if anyone knows here if the audio quality of Yamaha WXA-50 is too much lower than Cambridge audio Azur540R.
(The speakers that I have are the monitor audio silver-RS1)
Thanks for all :)
 

confucius_zero

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monitor audio silver-RS1
Tested it with monitor audio bronze 1. It drives them fully with deep strong bass and high resolution.

Only problem is that the metal tweeter of the bronze came alive and started to bother me (it didn't do that on my older marantz 1070)
 

niesfisch

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hi,

just got my yamaha wxa-50 and paired it with my focal 906 bookshelf speakers. to get up to around 77-80db (flac via usb, 19qm room, measured with mobile app) at my listening position i have to turn up the volume to roughly 70-80% on the yamaha app. is that because the amp is not powerful enough to drive the 8ohm/89 db speakers? i thought the amp would be enough considering amirs measurements. a little confused ....

what do you think? do you have similar experiences?
cheers
marcel
 
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Unclevanya

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I bought 4 amps and returned 3 amps through amazon. It was effortless, no questions asked. I encourage you to do it if you have the opportunity.

I ended up with both the NAD d3020 v2 and Yamaha wxa-50... And I agree. Now I have to decide if I'm sending back the NAD it putting it on second system duty.

The two minor complaints, a lack of volume indication is annoying on the Yamaha as is the lack of advanced Bluetooth, and finally the non-support of the Amazon music ecosystem on musiccast (at present, though they say it is coming) is frustrating.
 

Unclevanya

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hi,

just got my yamaha wxa-50 and paired it with my focal 906 bookshelf speakers. to get up to around 77-80db (flac via usb, 19qm room, measured with mobile app) at my listening position i have to turn up the volume to roughly 70-80% on the yamaha app. is that because the amp is not powerful enough to drive the 8ohm/89 db speakers? i thought the amp would be enough considering amirs measurements. a little confused ....

what do you think? do you have similar experiences?
cheers
marcel

How are you able to tell how high the volume is? There's no visual indication. What mobile app measured volume?

My 3-way 90db 6 ohm speakers are too loud long before the amp runs out of gas. I used musiccast (tidal) and Play-Fi (paradigm link) via optical input and Bluetooth direct and all were quite loud enough (not measured) sitting about 2.5m from speakers in 16x14 room. That was between 112-131 volume in the app. (Eq bypass, direct, no enhancement no bass boost)
 
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confucius_zero

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niesfisch

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How are you able to tell how high the volume is? There's no visual indication.

i mean the volume indication inside the musiccast app which is roughly at 70-80%.

That was between 112-131 volume in the app

so this is a similar level to mine i guess.

What mobile app measured volume?

i used an app to measure the loudness at my listening position which was roughly 70-80db during playback of the song. i know it's not accurate ... i felt comfortable with the volume, at around 2,5 meters distance away from the speakers.

was just wondering .... with all my previous amps (around 40-60watts rms, 4ohm) i was listening at 9-11 o'clock position which would translate to 25-40% on the amplifier knob. it will still be enough power for me on a daily basis, just curious.

cheers and greetings from hamburg/germany
marcel
 

Unclevanya

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i mean the volume indication inside the musiccast app which is roughly at 70-80%.



so this is a similar level to mine i guess.



i used an app to measure the loudness at my listening position which was roughly 70-80db during playback of the song. i know it's not accurate ... i felt comfortable with the volume, at around 2,5 meters distance away from the speakers.

was just wondering .... with all my previous amps (around 40-60watts rms, 4ohm) i was listening at 9-11 o'clock position which would translate to 25-40% on the amplifier knob. it will still be enough power for me on a daily basis, just curious.

cheers and greetings from hamburg/germany
marcel

The lack of standard volume feedback makes it hard to evaluate, I found that I could go well past the volume by dialing it up to 140, and clipping did not appear to be near. The way these electronic volume control work makes me feel uncomfortable. I am also used to 12-1 o'clock on the volume pot being nearly all the amp can safely output. This digital volume control is really confusing. The NAD has a volume gauge and it was quite high to get acceptable volume also. I assume they must have implemented the gain control with a greater degree of usable range in these newer digitally controlled designs than past traditional designs did? Without a meter hooked up I'm unclear how far into the useable range I've gone, it is a bit frustrating to be honest.
 

Unclevanya

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I should also point out that I didn't find the gain control very precise once I reached the 120+ level in the app. Small adjustments made a lot larger volume change than I expected.
 

niesfisch

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hi, not sure what to do. thinking of returing the WXA and getting the WXC + the XTZ EDGE A2-300 .... still, i think the WXA is sufficient powerwise ... too many options damn :)
 

peng

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hi, not sure what to do. thinking of returing the WXA and getting the WXC + the XTZ EDGE A2-300 .... still, i think the WXA is sufficient powerwise ... too many options damn :)

I would definitely prefer the WXC but only because the WXA does not have pre-out.
 
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confucius_zero

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Unclevanya

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hi, not sure what to do. thinking of returing the WXA and getting the WXC + the XTZ EDGE A2-300 .... still, i think the WXA is sufficient powerwise ... too many options damn :)
I would definitely prefer the WXC but only because the WXA does not have pre-out.
Are you sure? I have one and while I haven't tested to check if the analog output is fixed or variable this article seems to say it is variable: https://www.gadgetguy.com.au/produc...reless-streaming-amplifier-pre-amplifier/amp/
 

peng

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Are you sure? I have one and while I haven't tested to check if the analog output is fixed or variable this article seems to say it is variable: https://www.gadgetguy.com.au/produc...reless-streaming-amplifier-pre-amplifier/amp/

I don't have one, but yes I am quite sure, unless you count the sub out. Aux out typically has "fixed output". The WXC has both. The article you linked did talk about connecting to an external amplifier using the analog out/i.e. aux out but the author probably meant an integrated amp or power amp that has gain control.

The block diagrams in the service manual clearly show only the WXC has pre out (see page 47-48 for the WXA and page 51-52 for the WX-C).

Also, Amir mentioned "I briefly measured DAC performance. I read however that there are two DAC chips inside this unit (an ESS and Bur-brown/TI) and that the fixed output is driven by the latter. So this may not be representative of what happens when you stream music into this device..."

That second DAC is the PCM5101 and would appear to be the one used for the aux output for digital inputs.
 

Unclevanya

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I don't have one, but yes I am quite sure, unless you count the sub out. Aux out typically has "fixed output". The WXC has both. The article you linked did talk about connecting to an external amplifier using the analog out/i.e. aux out but the author probably meant an integrated amp or power amp that has gain control.

The block diagrams in the service manual clearly show only the WXC has pre out (see page 47-48 for the WXA and page 51-52 for the WX-C).

Also, Amir mentioned "I briefly measured DAC performance. I read however that there are two DAC chips inside this unit (an ESS and Bur-brown/TI) and that the fixed output is driven by the latter. So this may not be representative of what happens when you stream music into this device..."

That second DAC is the PCM5101 and would appear to be the one used for the aux output for digital inputs.
I can double check this since I have my NAD d3020 V2 next to my wxa-50 and I can pass the RCA output to an RCA Input and verify volume is, not responsive to volume changes on the Yamaha but the way you describe it seems likely correct. In the review I wasn't clear what output had a fixed output.
 
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