This article is presented together with Yamaha Home Entertainment Australia, the world’s largest sound company.
If the early 00’s was the ‘Information Age’, then we’re now up to our ears in the ‘Entertainment Age’.
Once-luxury items like home theatres are more attainable than ever before; streaming giants like Netflix are dropping so many original movies and shows that it’s become almost impossible to keep up; and, from the moment we wake up in the morning to the moment we go to bed at night, we’re surrounded by content.
From TV and films, to recaps and interviews – and even articles like this one – we’re saturated.
Why then does this abundance of well-made, enjoyable content sometimes sometimes seem like such a chore? We should be relishing all of this democratized telly and music, lapping up great show after great show like the cat who got into the cream – but instead, technology sometimes conspires to get in the way.
Part of the problem, certainly, is that we’ve accumulated so many bits of pieces of old entertainment tech that no longer feel as user-friendly as they did a decade ago. In fact, archaic tech can make even the one-click accessibility of something like Netflix feel like a chore.
And nowhere is that more obvious than our unhealthy obsession with crummy, antiquated speakers.
No more disconnections!
There’s no easier way to kill a party vibe than to have your favourite banger cut out at the worst moment because the signal dropped out. That’s where Wi-Fi speakers step in, with those like the Yamaha MusicCast series pairing the flexibility of Bluetooth with the power of Wi-Fi to give you a rock-solid connection.
Wi-Fi can step in to connect at ranges that Bluetooth can’t manage, and it has the capability to stream audio at a much higher quality, so choosing a speaker that boasts Wi-Fi capability as well as Bluetooth will ensure that you’ll be able to get the best listening experience in every situation – and not have to worry about a mid-song dropout.
Hear every single word
Muddy audio and hard-to-hear dialogue is a killer combo, one disastrous enough to turn a night in front of Narcos into an indecipherable nightmare.
That’s where Wi-Fi comes in. It supports lossless audio formats, so you can always hear every word pouring out of Pablo Escobar’s mouth. But it’s not just the dialogue: the whole experience is instantly enriched. The score is deeper and more resonant; the story far more immersive.
Unchain yourself from the home theatre
I get it: change is hard. But as anyone who’s struggled to untangle a mess of cables behind a television set before can tell you, sometimes it’s nice to cut the cord. Remember when having a home theatre system involved running cables through the walls, spending thousands of dollars along the way?
Wi-Fi speakers have made that a thing of the past. There’s no need to fool around with ports and wires and cables, trying to remember which one goes where. Wi-Fi makes these speakers the very definition of easy, intuitive, and software-driven.
Even better, your listening experience doesn’t have to be confined to the ‘home theatre’ anymore, as for much less than the price of a traditional surround sound system, you can instead put WiFi-connected speakers in every room.
Listening to a podcast as you clean the house? With a few speakers connected to the same network, it’ll follow you into every room – seamlessly. Want your wakeup playlist to travel with you from the bedroom to the bathroom as you jump in the shower? Done.
Or, if you want to split your speakers up and have Netflix on in the living room and some soft jazz in the kitchen, you can do just that.
Built-in streaming services
A lot of devices don’t even work without a phone or some other, separate device connecting to them and telling them what to play. The Yamaha range of WiFi speakers, on the other hand, has services like Spotify built right in.
So, if you’re having a house party, your guests can pick the music without having to reach into your pocket for your phone. You can even have different playlists in each room, so that your mates can dance to EDM in one room, and bang out some Taylor Swift in the next.
The price is right
Moreover, Wi-Fi speakers are more attainable than ever before, with quality offerings like the Yamaha MusicCast 20 letting you get started without paying much more than you would for a Bluetooth-only speaker.
Hey, Christmas is just around the corner. Why not treat yourself? Once you’ve got a Wi-Fi speaker in your house, you’ll never want to go back.
