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Review and Measurements of Yamaha WXA-50 Streaming Amp

Katji

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hi Savon, I'm not expert enough, but I think there is some sort of ground loop situation with it. Don't take it to a service centre, at least not until you've done as much as you can with someone who is clued up about the electrical side. Service centre is potential risk...their electrical situation is different to yours and your friend's place, best they could do is check if there is any actual fault with it...I dunno. Maybe find best/local service centre and ask them first.
Noted that you tried at friend's place, passive speakers, other speakers, S/PDIF. Also that you get pops/clicks when other stuff switched on/off. Even if it seems specific to your WXA-50, doesn't mean it wouldn't happen with something else.
Friend's place, also using a surge protector?
S/PDIF, no noise....is that optical, Toslink cable?
 
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SovonHalder

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hi Savon, I'm not expert enough, but I think there is some sort of ground loop situation with it. Don't take it to a service centre, at least not until you've done as much as you can with someone who is clued up about the electrical side. Service centre is potential risk...their electrical situation is different to yours and your friend's place, best they could do is check if there is any actual fault with it...I dunno. Maybe find best/local service centre and ask them first.
Noted that you tried at friend's place, passive speakers, other speakers, S/PDIF. Also that you get pops/clicks when other stuff switched on/off. Even if it seems specific to your WXA-50, doesn't mean it wouldn't happen with something else.
Friend's place, also using a surge protector?
S/PDIF, no noise....is that optical, Toslink cable?
I think he had a very cheap surge protector, if at all. And it’s Toslink always.
 

Katji

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yeah, I re-read, saw it's optical.

If I touch the 3.5mm end of the 3.5mm to rca cable (rca connected to the amp), there is a strong tingling/vibrations.
That does seem like a fault. Touching it causes a slight crackle, would seem not unusual, but actually feeling something............ What about the cable - especially the 3.5 jack, they're the most likely to give trouble.
 

SovonHalder

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yeah, I re-read, saw it's optical.


That does seem like a fault. Touching it causes a slight crackle, would seem not unusual, but actually feeling something............ What about the cable - especially the 3.5 jack, they're the most likely to give trouble.
I have only one cable since beginning (6 months) - AmazonBasics 3.5mm to RCA connecter. I'm not sure whether I should get a new cable.

There are these things that were there since I purchased this, like - loud pop when 3.5mm end is touched with bare hands standing on ground when amp is on, unusually loud pop just for an instant when 3.5mm is unplugged from the mac while amp is on, slight crack in sound when electrical devices were turned off in the other room, electrical tingling when 3.5mm end is touched with bare hands when amp is on. etc. These are somewhat expected in regular household, I understand that.

These are new - hissing noise, distorted (like voice is cracked, split from the middle). I am willing to bet I didn't notice any of these issues before because they weren't there before. Even though I can live with a hissing noise which is barely noticeable, the distortion in vocals (not in bass or treble) is seriously impacting my experience these days.
 

Unclevanya

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88dB it says.

Are you using the RCA input to the amp?
For me, the noise is there but not noticeable from 1M distance. But I’m hearing serious distortions these days, like the voice and middle notes are cracked. This happens only on RCA input as well.
No rca currently. I wonder if by handling the 3.5 and you damaged something with static charge. Feeling electrical output from an input Jack is worrisome.
 

Katji

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You should not feel anything - tingling like that...if you think of it, even a 9V battery, you only feel it when you put your tongue on it. Just go get any cheap 3.5 to RCA cable from a phone shop, try it.

2. The noise increases as I turn up the volume on the wxa-50 and it's not the aux-rca cable either cause I unplugged the aux cable from mac mini. Interestingly, the noise is tripled when there is nothing connected in the RCA input.

But the other end - the RCA end is still connected to the amp? So if that AUX jack is shorting...
 
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SovonHalder

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You should not feel anything - tingling like that...if you think of it, even a 9V battery, you only feel it when you put your tongue on it. Just go get any cheap 3.5 to RCA cable from a phone shop, try it.
Today I got the delivery of the Linkerpard RCA Cable (4.9 feet) which I think is on the premium side as far as cables go and the results are the same.
No noticeable change is noise and distortion.

But the other end - the RCA end is still connected to the amp? So if that AUX jack is shorting...
No. the RCA end was not connected to the amp at all. When the amp has nothing but the power cable and the speaker banana plugs connected to it (i.e. AUX input is selected but no input is given via any cable), the noise is the highest. And I can definitely say that on songs I hear distortions, small amount but present nonetheless. These distortions were not there when I bought this unit 6 months ago.

I did NOT want to spend any money on my audio setup than what I already had but I don't see any other budget option in India. But I have ordered a Topping D10s from Shenzenaudio which might take a month to arrive. I'll be using it as a bridge (to use the optical out).
 
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Katji

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Oh..bad news. ....Although the good news is at least you get to use the free shipping option. in my case, it would have to be $$$ courier option.
 

jhaider

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Is it just me, or has the newest firmware update ruined this product line?

I ask the preamp version to do two things. Play TV sound and be available as an AirPlay speaker. Before there were no issues. Now I have to use their stupid app to get AirPlay to work instead of it just effing working.
 

VladimirJ

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Is it just me, or has the newest firmware update ruined this product line?

I didn't update the firmware yet, but Tidal stopped working for me today. MusicCast requested me to login to Tidal, which I did, but when I get back to the app's homepage and click on Tidal, it just returns me to the login page.

Does anyone else have the same issue, or does someone know what's going on?

Thanks
Vlada
 

VladimirJ

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I didn't update the firmware yet, but Tidal stopped working for me today. MusicCast requested me to login to Tidal, which I did, but when I get back to the app's homepage and click on Tidal, it just returns me to the login page.

Does anyone else have the same issue, or does someone know what's going on?

Thanks
Vlada

I did get the Tidal streaming back, but I can't change ANY settings neither in web UI nor in the web setup. Don't know what's going on. Does anyone have any ideas?
Thanks
Vlada
 

panther

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I wanted to just comment and praise the wxa50 for being dead silent when not playing anything. I tried a powernode 2i and it made a squeaking noise in one channel while barely getting loud with Elac Carina. I also tried a quad Vena II and it had a helicopter noise out of both speakers. Meanwhile the Yamaha is silent with the same speaker cables, power bar and input cable and source. I can handle a faint hiss even but I hear nothing out of 3 different pairs of speakers.
 

SovonHalder

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I wanted to just comment and praise the wxa50 for being dead silent when not playing anything. I tried a powernode 2i and it made a squeaking noise in one channel while barely getting loud with Elac Carina. I also tried a quad Vena II and it had a helicopter noise out of both speakers. Meanwhile the Yamaha is silent with the same speaker cables, power bar and input cable and source. I can handle a faint hiss even but I hear nothing out of 3 different pairs of speakers.
Could you please tell me what your source and input is?

My WXA-50 was dead silent (if memory serves me right) for about 6 months. Then, I started hearing static noise from both the speakers; right channel being a little louder than the left channel. Up to that point I've only used the analog RCA input from my mac mini with a 3.5mm to RCA adapter. Not too far behind in this thread I posted my detailed observation and experience. I chatted with some reviewers on YouTube and almost all of them confirmed that they had this same static noise with their uint for this aux input. I had purchased a Topping D10s soon after that to use the optical Toslink output to feed the wxa-50 and it's been dead silent since then with much better sound quality.
 

panther

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Could you please tell me what your source and input is?

My WXA-50 was dead silent (if memory serves me right) for about 6 months. Then, I started hearing static noise from both the speakers; right channel being a little louder than the left channel. Up to that point I've only used the analog RCA input from my mac mini with a 3.5mm to RCA adapter. Not too far behind in this thread I posted my detailed observation and experience. I chatted with some reviewers on YouTube and almost all of them confirmed that they had this same static noise with their uint for this aux input. I had purchased a Topping D10s soon after that to use the optical Toslink output to feed the wxa-50 and it's been dead silent since then with much better sound quality.
I currently use an optical cable from my PC optical out on the motherboard to the optical input on the Yamaha, I used to use a JDS Element II into the aux but I can’t recall if I heard anything now, if there was it wasn’t audible enough for me to be bothered, I’m still honestly amazed how much more power I seem to have vs the powernode 2i (maybe something was wrong with it I am unsure)
 

VladimirJ

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Could anyone please tell me if you have had problems with the optical input of the WXA-50? It suddenly stopped working on my unit. I tried another cable with the same result, so it's something to do with the Yamaha or the source.

As well, I can't change any settings on the web control interface - everything I change just gets back to the previous setting. Has anyone experienced anything similar?

Otherwise, the WXA-50 is performing great, I like the sound very much, especially the stereo image which is really stable and wide. I'm listening to it through Cantons 502.2 from a distance of approx. 2 meters
 

SimpleTheater

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Could anyone please tell me if you have had problems with the optical input of the WXA-50? It suddenly stopped working on my unit. I tried another cable with the same result, so it's something to do with the Yamaha or the source.

As well, I can't change any settings on the web control interface - everything I change just gets back to the previous setting. Has anyone experienced anything similar?

Otherwise, the WXA-50 is performing great, I like the sound very much, especially the stereo image which is really stable and wide. I'm listening to it through Cantons 502.2 from a distance of approx. 2 meters
I haven’t experienced anything similar, but I would recommend, if you haven’t done it yet, to unplug the Yamaha for at least 30 seconds and then plug it back in. I’d also recommend resetting your router if the unplugging it doesn’t work.
 

VladimirJ

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I haven’t experienced anything similar, but I would recommend, if you haven’t done it yet, to unplug the Yamaha for at least 30 seconds and then plug it back in. I’d also recommend resetting your router if the unplugging it doesn’t work.
Thank you. I will try it
 

VladimirJ

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I haven’t experienced anything similar, but I would recommend, if you haven’t done it yet, to unplug the Yamaha for at least 30 seconds and then plug it back in. I’d also recommend resetting your router if the unplugging it doesn’t work.

I've tried the following:
1) kept the WXA unplugged for more than 2 minutes - no result
2) did a reset of the WXA - no result
3) restored factory defaults on the WXA - got the settings back (I can change settings in the web-interface now), but still no sound from the optical input
4) changed the output sound format on the TV from SPDIF to PCM - no result

So, I guess that is it...
Thanks to everyone who replied :)
Regards
 

sethr

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Still liking this amp, especially using it as a DLNA client. I think it sounds better that way versus going into the inputs. anybody know what the "Auto" equalizer setting does? I usually keep it on bypass...
 
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