This lifestyle music system contains a CD player, AM/FM tuner, iPod/iPhone dock, USB port, alarm clock, amp and speakers in one very stylish package. The square-shaped system is 9cm thick. It's covered in the front with textured grille cloth of various colours: you can choose between black, white, green or purple. In the middle is a large alphanumeric display with the same colour theme as the unit itself. It's very easy to read the letters from across the room.

The system sits on a tall pedestal stand with a weighted half-moon-shaped base. That makes it ideal for installation against a wall. No shelf is required. If you want to install the Restio away from the wall, you can add a circular insert to the base, which makes it more stable. An optional wall mount is available.

Features

When the system is turned off, the display shows the time of day. The Restio has an unusual alarm-clock feature. IntelliAlarm first plays your programmed music source with high frequencies filtered out, to wake you up gently, gradually filling in the full audio spectrum, and finally beeping to make sure you're up and at 'em.

The Restio contains a 1.25-inch tweeter and four-inch woofer for each of the two audio channels. It comes with an attractive metallic remote control with well-labeled buttons for on/off, volume, source selection, track forward/back, mute, radio station, alarm and snooze. Thankfully, you can perform all these functions on more with controls on the top of the system unit, so you're not sunk if you misplace the remote.

The top of the unit also houses a vertical slot-loading CD player, iPhone/iPod dock, and USB port. The iPod dock connects digitally to the attached player, bypassing the player's analog circuitry, and using digital-to-analog (DAC) chips in the system itself. The Restio system has no networking features: no Ethernet, no Wi-Fi, no AirPlay, no Bluetooth.

Listening

Yamaha does not specify amplifier power, but this system can play quite loud, enough to fill a moderately large room with sound. And the sound is surprisingly satisfying, given the limitations of a slim one-piece system with dual four-inch woofers.

I started with two iPod tracks. The first was a 320kbps AAC version of Keith Jarrett's Köln Concert recorded from CD. In this iconic album, the jazz pianist improvises for an hour. The sound was a bit clangy on top, and could have used more heft on the bottom, but overall was very convincing. I was very happy to keep on listening to this great album.

Next up was a recording of Brahms' First Symphony with the Vienna Philharmonic, ripped from CD in AAC format at 320kbps. Predictably, dense orchestral passages sounded rather congested. The opening tympani sounded satisfyingly dramatic, and the strings were pleasantly smooth.

When playing from an iPod, you can use the remote control to pause, play and jump tracks. The folder button on the remote can be used to navigate menus.

USB playback worked without a hitch on an MP3 compilation of Beatles recordings on a thumb drive. You can use the remote to select folders as well as tracks. However, the Restio system does not display track, album or artist information, just folder and track numbers; so it can be hard to find a particular song.

You can think of the Restio as a conventional lifestyle music system with digital features (iPod, USB) added on. It's a stylish way to add music to any living space.

Yamaha Restio ISX-800
PLUS
Unique styling
Can play loud enough to fill a large room
Good well-balanced sound

MINUS
No networking features

NUTS & BOLTS
Amplification and speakers: Dual 1.25" soft dome tweeters, dual 4" woofers, power not specified
Connectivity and features: Top-mounted iPhone-compatible dock, USB connector auxiliary input, slot-loading CD player, AM/FM tuner, alarm clock
Supported file formats: MP3, WMA and WAV from USB; CD Audio, MP3, WMA from CD
Size: 41 x 99.4 x 20 cm (w/h/d, with half-moon stand)
Weight: 12kg
Price: $799
Website: ca.yamaha.com/en

Article Tags:  Yamaha, Restio, ISX-800, review, music, audio, stereo, system, MP3, WMA, CD, iPod, iPhone, Canada