Confessions of an Eccentric Who Bought the Discontinued Yamaha WS-B1A

Hello! I am a strange person suffering from a severe addiction to portable audio equipment, and I can't feel at ease unless there is sound coming from somewhere in my house!

Before I knew it, two portable speakers were already living in my home.

The Existing Elite (The Sony Alliance)

First, let me introduce the elite team that has supported my home audio until now.

1st unit: Sony SRS-HG10 (right in photo)
This guy is almost always stationed under my PC monitor in my room. It is a talented veteran that plays an active role mainly when I listen to music on my PC.

2nd unit: Sony SRS-XB13 (left in photo)
This one is for the bathroom. It is a 100% bath-only machine. Shielded by its IP67 waterproof performance, it is a tough guy that plays music at a volume loud enough to drown out my (tone-deaf) humming, even while being hit directly by the shower.

Why the WS-B1A now?

If you thought, 'Isn't that enough already?', you're naive! Very naive! My house had a sanctuary that hadn't been filled yet: the living room!

I want to relax in the living room and play some music from my smartphone. At times like that, bringing the SRS-HG10 from in front of the PC or bringing the SRS-XB13 (sometimes while still wet) from the bathroom leads to a significant drop in QOL (Quality of Life)!

That is why the spotlight fell on this, the star of this story.

Yamaha WS-B1A. Do you know it? Actually, this is already a discontinued product. But I bought it without hesitation. Because there is no successor model.

Yamaha, why won't you release a successor to such a wonderful speaker... If I miss this opportunity, I might never be able to get it new again. That fear pushed me (and my wallet) hard.

I don't care about sound quality

Let me be honest. I am not looking for sound quality in this speaker. What I want in the living room is how well it blends in visually, ease of use, and presence.

The warmth of this fabric material. Just placing it on the wooden table in the living room instantly creates an atmosphere like a stylish cafe (maybe I'm exaggerating a bit lol). The buttons on the top are also simple and intuitive.

And the back. The YAMAHA logo and the model number WS-B1A. I could eat three bowls of rice just looking at this appearance. The fact that the charging port is USB Type-C is also perfect as a modern necessity. Sound quality? That is a trivial problem in the face of this look.

*Actually, it has the clear, non-fatiguing sound typical of Yamaha. But I will ignore that here lol

The one and only fatal flaw

Well then, despite being so fond of the WS-B1A, truth be told, it has a fatal flaw that cannot be defended. That is, it cannot do multi-pairing.

To explain, multi-pairing is a function that allows you to register multiple devices at once. It is a feature that should be standard for modern speakers. However, this WS-B1A is different. You can only register one device.

What this means is, for example, if I am playing music from my smartphone in the living room, and then my wife wants to play music from her smartphone, we need a 20th-century-style procedure:
1. I have to unpair
2. My wife has to perform the pairing operation
—it is that kind of process.

It is a terrifying specification where a casual family conversation like 'Hey, play my song!' could escalate into a bloody conflict. I cannot help but suspect that this might be the reason it was discontinued...

Still, the master of the living room that I cannot bring myself to hate

The WS-B1A carries the ticking time bomb of not supporting multi-pairing. However, I have no intention of kicking this guy out of the living room.

This is because I feel this inconvenience is the speaker's personality, almost like a human touch (I know, I'm pretty far gone lol). Besides, look at how good it looks. If you think of the ritual that occurs every time a family member pairs their smartphone as time spent admiring this speaker, it is not so bad.

If you are a tough soul who thinks, 'I don't need multi-pairing, I just want to put a stylish portable speaker in the living room,' I recommend rescuing this WS-B1A while there is still stock on the market. Starting today, I also intend to cherish and worship this guardian deity of the living room.