Getting your songs pounding in every area of the home no longer needs to be a difficult or costly procedure owing to the marvels of Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. If you really want to fill your house with sound, you have a lot of options in terms of equipment and innovation, which we’ll go over here.
This is by no means a comprehensive list, but these are few of the more common and reasonably priced choices to explore. You also have the option of combining a few of these speaker configurations, so you’re not tied to a single system or supplier.
Sonos
Sonos is widely regarded as the ultimate benchmark in wireless home stereo, with a variety of excellent-sounding devices that can be used individually or in groups. Sonos systems are simple to use because they link straight to your network and the internet—they’re constantly prepared to play, so you don’t have to go through a lengthy setup procedure every moment you would like to listen to music.
The music is managed via applications on your smartphone or Laptop, but you may switch between them as required. Spotify, Apple Music, Google Play Music, Deezer, Amazon Music, Microsoft Groove, and others are among the music providers that support it. It can also stream songs saved on your PCs, smartphones, and tablets.
To add to the attraction, the Sonos application allows you to link speakers to the places they’re in, allowing you to effortlessly go from the dining to the sitting room or have different songs playing in various bedrooms. Sonos systems are easy to put up and sound wonderful, but they come at a premium price, with whole-house installations costing just over $1,000.
Apple
The Apple HomePod is a relative newbie to the party; it seems to be a sleek combination of Sonos-style music clarity and a designed smart assistant software, but it’s priced accordingly, with a base price that’s considerably more than competitor gadgets.
Apple claims that the HomePod can adapt its audio output to the environment and location it is in, as well as instantly connect to some other HomePod in the same area. Furthermore, if you have the funds, the latest version of Apple’s cordless music technology, AirPlay 2, allows you to listen to music via numerous HomePods in different spaces.
However, since it’s an Apple product, the HomePod exclusively functions with Apple Music, and there’s no Bluetooth sharing to rely on. The HomePod and AirPlay 2 (and also AirPlay 1) are a fantastic option for multi-room streaming if you exclusively use Apple-compatible equipment, and everybody else is sure to discover the music limitations restrictive.
Amazon
The Amazon Echo, similar to Google Home, offers a fair trade: The audio quality isn’t as good as on similar devices (while it’s not terrible), but you do get to speak to a smart speaker who has a long list of instructions. You may also purchase an Echo Dot to supplement your existing speakers with additional functionality.
Spotify, TuneIn, and, of course, Amazon Music are the major music services that the Echo supports directly (through an Alexa request). However, since the Echo is Bluetooth-enabled, you can stream music from any application on your smartphone or tablet to it. It isn’t the most sleek approach, but it gets the job done.
Sadly, the Echo lacks real multi-room functionality, such as the ability to combine Echos together or assign them to a room. However, nothing prevents you from purchasing several Echos and placing them in various areas; the only difference is that you won’t receive any house-wide synchronization or organization, though this might be a feature introduced later.
Although Google Home is a voice assistant first and then a music speaker later, the sound it produces is very good, though not really up to the standards of Sonos and Bose. Google Home has Google Cast, which is similar to Chromecast and allows users to remotely stream audio from phone applications and other media to connected speakers.
That implies you could either request the Google Home to play the music for you, or you can stream it from applications like Google Play Music, Spotify, Deezer, Plex, TuneIn, and others. Of course, the Google Assistant can also scan your schedule and provide traffic updates, making it a more flexible choice than Sonos and Bose.
It mainly depends on whether you place a higher emphasis on sound quality or a savvy assistant. Bluetooth and multi-user capabilities have now been introduced to Google Home, and if you purchase more than a single Google Home speaker, you may put them up in various rooms and stream separate tracks, or connect them together like a cluster.
Alternatives
The SoundTouch sound system from Bose is a direct competitor to Sonos, and many of the functions are shared between the two systems. The Bose system can stream music from Spotify, Deezer, and Amazon Music directly from the internet, but unlike Sonos, the speaker may also be linked through Bluetooth if you want. If you have visitors around who would like to play songs from their phones or tablets, this is a bonus.
Much like Sonos applications, the SoundTouch applications are accessible for desktops and portable devices, and you can connect your loudspeakers to various rooms and broadcast different songs in all of them. Every one of the SoundTouch devices can be managed and connected into a network via the application, so extending your audio stockpiles in the coming years is simple, although a bit on the expensive side.
The SoundTouch speakers come with different controllers, and the bigger ones may also function autonomously by linking to internet broadcast stations. The SoundTouch Wireless Link adaptor, which connects into any device with an optical, RCA, or AUX connector, may even bring additional SoundTouch smarts to your current systems.
