Thanks in no small part to a growing subset of millennials who ache for the days of yore, Vinyl has had a resurgence in the past several years. It comes as no surprise that a lot of manufacturers produce modern turntables to this day.
Among them is Yamaha, who just unveiled its new MusicCast Vinyl 500 record player. The device puts modern tech to make your listening experience more intuitive without annihilating what makes it truly great — nostalgia. Not only can this new turntable can play anything from your vinyl collection, but it can also stream music wirelessly.
Pair it with two MusicCast 20 or two MusicCast 50 speakers to stream your records wirelessly. Alternatively, if you want a cleaner sound than that distinct vinyl crackle, the machine will natively stream digital services. You can stream from Napster, SiriusXM, Spotify, Pandora, Tidal, and many others. Also, Yamaha was smart enough to add Bluetooth, Spotify Connect, and Apple AirPlay support as well. You can even control both online services and multi-room playback through Amazon Alexa voice commands. Neat.
As for the specs, you get an integrated phono preamp moving magnet cartridge, a static balanced straight tone arm, an aluminum platter alongside an anti-static felt mat, and a belt drive for distortion reduction. The Vinyl 500 comes coated with a sleek piano black finish and looks excellent amidst any music collector’s crate-dug gems. You can get it next month for $700. The TT-S303 turntable will also offer the same basic record-playing capabilities without any wireless technology for a more modest $450.
