This review, while I talk about the speakers, is in large part about the Yamaha MusicCast system and their subsequent customer service. I purchased these speakers to be used with Yamaha’s RX-V685 AV receiver. I wanted to have the ability to use wireless speakers and not have the issues of running wires through walls, behind fireplaces and the like. Long story short, I live in a large three-level townhouse and to be sure I had enough wi-fi coverage everywhere, I used the best access points on the market, and have one sitting one foot behind the AV receiver on a wall that is hard wired via ethernet. The two MusicCast 20 wireless speakers are 3 feet and 12 feet respectively from this access point. Everything on the house is on one common network, with speeds consistently in excess of 400mbps upload/download speeds. I’m telling you this so that you understand that the network is not any portion of the problem.
I’ve had problems getting my speakers to connect to the AV receiver through the MusicCast system. When they finally do, they will “magically” disconnect themselves a few days later and I’d have to go through the process again. Very frustrating. Sometime it would take literally days for them to reconnect. I’ve called Yamaha tech support several times, usually waiting on hold for more than an hour for their 1st level support, and we’d always go through the same steps. No luck. The 1st level says he’ll forward it to a 2nd level person who will have to call me back because they are out to lunch (they sure do eat a lot!). Well, as you may guess, they never call back. In addition, they don’t return emails. I would’ve been fine if the two speakers would have stayed connected with AirPlay, however, they would disconnect from that with my iPhone sitting just 10 feet away. Needless to say…I’ve had enough. I put my speakers on eBay yesterday and have ordered another pair of wired speakers (clearly NOT Yamaha) and will just run the wires that I guess I should’ve done in the first place.
The sound from the speakers was fine, but not overwhelming. The concept is fantastic, it just doesn’t always work and the follow up tech support was abysmal. Not worth the hassles. I’m sure you’ll see other reviews where “it worked just fine first time…don’t know what problems others were having.” That’s great if it works for you. If it doesn’t, buyer beware.

We are really pleased with these speakers. We bought them to pair as rear channels for a Yamaha MusicCast 400 soundbar and sub woofer set up we have in our living room. We also have a MusicCast amp on our deck that sounds phenomenal so I guess you could say we're committed to the MusicCast ecosystem.

Now I think a lot of the 1 star reviews here are unfair to the speakers themselves. I do agree that the set up process can be frustrating but 99% of that is because of poor UI on their confusing app. But frankly the speakers themselves aren't to blame.

That being said, once you have them configured to their liking, they are awesome. Clear, clean, well rounded sound that just fills the rooms and even though they can get quite loud you can hear them very clearly at low pleasant volumes as well.

They also just feel and look nice. Solid, sleek construction with a nice reassuring weight and quality. As a guy who's deep into music production, I've always played Yamaha keyboards and instruments and they are very well made and last a long time and these speakers feel the same way.

Right now they are part of a 3.1, wireless surround system but I'm soon to add two of the larger WX50 models to round that out to a 5.1 system. And eventually I may replace these rear channels with the larger models as well and I'll move these to other parts of the house or garage for more music through out.

These are great speakers for a wireless set. The plug and play is fantastic and bluetooh picks up very quickly. The only drawback we've seen is that sometimes the bluetooth sound is a little slow when watching shows on an iPad, so the sound gets off sync. Supposedly there's a sync setting that helps delay that and it does work slightly, but it's not perfect. Still, the sound quality is great and the sync is not unbearable. Some shows don't seem to have the sync issue, so I'm not docking it. Also, they'll pickup whatever device you're using if it has a saved connection, so that can be good or bad, depending on if you want them to do that. As far as volume goes, our neighbor was unhappy with us at 10 pm listening to the greatest rock riffs of all time, so they do get loud. I'm not a fan of the steps between volume settings - a few clicks down and they get quiet quickly. We're using them on a covered patio.

I bought a pair to go along with my Yamaha RC-V485 receiver. Configuring it should have been a breeze given the compatibility, but it has been anything but. Trying to pair/link the speakers with the receiver is confusing using the iPhone Yamaha Music Cast app. I was able to connect once as I wanted, but did not last long. I am ready to give up after a month of trying on and off.

It was waste of $400 for my use. Should have gone with Sonos!