Spotify Player For Google Home - Cyrus One Cast Review
SPOTIFY PLAYER FOR GOOGLE HOME - CYRUS ONE CAST REVIEW
The Cyrus ONE Cast in an all in one music streaming amplifier that on the surface has a lot going for it. It’s compact, stylish and is able to connect and or stream from just about any source component available on the market today -including your HDMI enabled 4K Smart TV. But go beyond its physical design and spec sheet and you’ll see that while the ONE Cast is a well-designed amplifier, capable of audiophile-grade sonic performance, it’s user experience is another story altogether. In our latest video, we take a look at this Spotify player for Google Home - Cyrus One Cast review.
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be sure to watch the video above for the full review
GETTING THE BEST SOUND FROM YOUR SPEAKERS
In terms of sound the ONE Cast is excellent. It’s a 100 Watt per channel hybrid Class D amplifier design is fantastic and among the best found in today’s growing crop of integrated amplifiers. While some may have criticisms about its power or power output, rest assured the ONE Cast can deliver all the necessary power to drive even the most demanding tower loudspeakers. In truth, getting the best sound from your speakers is an easy task for the ONE Cast. In fact, every loudspeaker we paired with the ONE Cast sounded near to, if not its very best. For our review, we tested the Cyrus with the Q Acoustics Concept 500 tower speakers, the Elac Debut Reference monitors and finally our reference Klipsch Heresy IV loudspeakers.
The Cyrus’ sound is one that favors neutrality rather than personality or color. It’s not a true window to the source, but it’s close enough that in most cases I doubt anyone would notice or claim the ONE Cast to be anything but neutral. Bass is taut and firm, with great control throughout, even at lower volumes. The midrange performance of the Cyrus is, again, natural and uncolored whereas its high frequency performance can come off as a little dry by comparison. Still, and on a whole, the ONE Cast is incredibly balanced top to bottom and for such a compact integrated amplifier design, it’s incredibly resolute and a capable performer.
It’s built-in MM phono stage is a nice addition and on par with many of our budget to mid-level phono preamps we had in house. The internal DAC was also nice, though not as good as some we’ve had recently, but still a welcomed addition. The headphone performance on the Cyrus was a little bit of a mixed bag. While I liked is bass and midrange performance, its high frequency rendering was a bit grainy through my Andover Audio PM-50 planar headphones.
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STREAMING MUSIC WITH THE CYRUS ONE CAST
Streaming music with the Cyrus ONE Cast via Bluetooth or AirPlay was simple, effective and given the right recording, virtually indistinguishable, sound-wise, from physical media. However, it is in the streaming and the Cyrus’ overall usability where I think the designers expected the ONE Cast to shine, but came up short.
While streaming to the Cyrus is easy enough through the aforementioned services, using the Cyrus both manually and with its remote is a real chore. The Cyrus ONE Cast relies heavily on the end user being a Google Home or Amazon Alexa user. Without this access a lot of the ONE Cast’s performance and ease of use will be lost. The presence of Google Home or Amazon Alexa makes it possible to control some of the ONE Cast features with your voice, however if you’re not a Google or Alexa user, you’ll have to rely on the Cyrus’ remote or your smartphone, both of which are not ideal here.
Worse are the manual controls on the front of the Cyrus, which are just terrible. There are but two dials on the ONE Cast with which to control the unit; one for source selection the other for volume. Through a complex combination of twists and whatnot you can get the dials to perform other functions, but none of it is intuitive or easy to recall.
It is because of the ONE Cast’s almost complete reliance upon Google Home or Alexa to make its user experience unique, dare I say “special” in any way, if you’re not a user of these platforms you’ll likely be better off with the original Cyrus ONE. Though the Cyrus ONE does appear to have the same manual functionality as the Cast, so be aware.
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SIMILAR TO THE CYRUS ONE CAST
Cyrus is not alone in the all-in-one music player market in 2020. Many products similar to the Cyrus ONE Cast exist at various price points. Comparable products include the Naim Uniti Atom, which is admittedly more expensive at nearly $3,300 retail, but it is better built and has a vastly superior user experience when directly compared to the ONE Cast. The Atom has all of the same functionality as the Cyrus -including HDMI -not to mention a big, bold LCD display that is legible from across a room and a remote that is to die for.
Next we have the Bluesound Powernode 2i. The Powernode 2i is a spartan, all-in-one music streamer/integrated amp from the same parent company as NAD. While we have not concluded our testing of the Powernode 2i, our initial thoughts are positive and we do not hesitate to recommend it here over that of the ONE Cast.
For a truly affordable solution one can enjoy much of the same functionality as the ONE Cast but for WAY less in the Arylic A50 integrated amp. This sub $200 amp plus wireless streamer is shockingly good. With the right set of speakers, its performance comes close to matching that of the Cyrus, which is high-praise as the Cyrus, for all its quirks, is still a great sounding amplifier.
The NAD M10 is a music player that gets mentioned by more of our viewers as a direct competitor to both the Uniti Atom and the ONE Cast. So while we have not tested the M10, it may be a all-in-one music system worth considering.
In conclusion, while there is a lot to like about the Cyrus ONE Cast, it’s not an infallible product, nor does it warrant a must-buy or even a must-demo recommendation from me. If you are looking for a streaming music player to go with your Google Home or Alexa products as a way to simplify streaming music on Spotify, Apple Music, or Tidal, then the Cyrus One Cast could be an excellent music player for your home. But if you’re hesitant or are not a Google Home or Alexa power user, the original Cyrus ONE may be the better fit and buy for you.
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