Does Echo Mode End Up Costing You More Money With a Nest Reviews

The inquiry

• Why you should trust united states of america
• Who this is for
• How we picked and tested
• Our pick: Sonos
• Also great: Amazon Repeat
• The contest

Why you should trust us

Dennis Burger has been reviewing headphones, speakers, AV receivers, domicile automation systems, home theater gear, and high-end sound gear for nearly two decades. He served as East Coast contributing editor for Home Entertainment magazine and is now senior editor at SoundStage! and a regular contributor at Cineluxe. In the by he has written for Residential Systems, Home Theater Review, Electronic House, Big Pic Big Sound, Digital TV & Sound, Domicile Smart Home, and Home Theater magazine, only to name a few.

Wirecutter senior staff writer Chris Heinonen, who wrote previous versions of this guide, has reviewed speakers and other audio/video equipment since 2008. He has tested multiroom wireless speaker systems—from retail versions to custom-installed ones—for many years.

Who this is for

Multiroom wireless speaker systems are for people who desire to exist able to play music and podcasts throughout their home and easily control them from their phone, tablet, or estimator, or even through their phonation. These systems, connected via Wi-Fi, permit yous play dissimilar tracks on each speaker or group them together to play the same track throughout the home. They support both local media libraries and online streaming services, allowing you to admission music from nigh any source. They brand it easy to expand your system by only calculation another speaker or zone.

If you care simply most playing music in a single room and don't need built-in voice-control capabilities, other options piece of work well for less money. Bluetooth speakers tin can easily stream audio from your phone or computer, only few of them allow you group multiple speakers together—and fifty-fifty when you lot tin, you lot're usually limited to playing the same source through all the continued speakers, which isn't the case with Wi-Fi speakers. Bluetooth speakers as well crave your phone or computer to be the streaming source. In contrast, multiroom wireless audio systems access the music sources directly and don't utilise your phone's battery life.

How we picked and tested

Since we first published this guide in 2013, we have considered more than a dozen different multiroom wireless speaker systems and called in many of them for testing (encounter the Competition section for more than details). We focused on the following criteria for what'south of import in a multiroom speaker arrangement:

• Sound quality: A decade ago, information technology may have been unrealistic to await these speakers to sound great, but since and then many of today's wireless speakers evangelize excellent performance, there'due south only no excuse for those that don't.
• Support for the widest choice of online streaming music services: A speaker is no skilful—no matter how peachy it sounds—if information technology can't play your music.
• A wide selection of models at a wide range of prices: Having a model that works for each situation in your house, without beingness too expensive, allows you to integrate your whole home into the music system.
• Like shooting fish in a barrel control of the speaker system via apps or voice control: An audio organization that requires you to physically adjust the volume or skip tracks on the speaker itself is not equally useful as ane that lets you practise those things from anywhere in the habitation.
• Ability to group speakers together: Your organisation should be able to stream the same music around the whole firm or allow you lot to combine 2 speakers into a stereo pair for a more than dedicated listening experience.
• Streaming from the source direct, not through a calculator or phone: Some multiroom music systems require your phone or tablet to be the source, which ways the music won't play if you take your phone out of range. This organisation is as well more decumbent to dropouts and other issues.
• Bluetooth or AirPlay as a fallback option: This is useful when a streaming service isn't supported.
• Ability to add more than speakers or zones on your own: Lots of advanced custom-install options are available, just every fourth dimension y'all want to expand ane of those, yous need to have your dealer come back out and set information technology up. Being able to choice up another speaker from a major retailer and add it yourself when you desire to expand is a much easier solution.

Some other features aren't essential for a whole-abode audio listening arrangement:

• Portability lets yous take your music outside with yous or even on the road.
• A surround-audio option allows yous to create a v.ane-channel home theater system for watching movies.
• Dual-ring Wi-Fi back up helps in situations where yous accept as well many devices on the 2.4 GHz spectrum and it causes besides much interference, such as in an apartment or condo edifice.
• Hi-res audio support is a bonus just not something well-nigh people will ever need or even take advantage of.

We tested each organisation in different houses and apartments, with both local music libraries and streaming music services such as Amazon, Apple Music, Pandora, and Spotify. We put the speakers all around the house to make sure range wasn't an result. In the case of soundbars and subwoofers, nosotros watched movies and Tv, as well.

Our selection: Sonos

The Sonos One. Photo: Michael Murtaugh

Our pick

Sonos 5

Bigger, better sound for larger rooms

The Sonos Five easily fills big spaces with full-range, detailed sound comparable to that of squeamish bookshelf speakers. You tin also pair the Five to enjoy great stereo sound.

Buying Options

The Sonos system is the best multiroom wireless speaker organization because it supports the most services and has a wide option of great-sounding speakers, comprehensive search features, and a well-organized app that runs on almost all major mobile platforms. Sonos keeps its platform current by updating its speakers, adding more than services, and introducing new features such as Trueplay room-correction engineering science. The Sonos user feel is the best of any of the multiroom wireless speaker systems currently available, and it has just gotten better with the introduction of the new S2 operating system, released in June 2020.

The Sonos lineup

Sonos offers speakers that kickoff at the budget terminate with the small Sonos 1 and Sonos Ane SL (which lacks phonation command) and extend to the Arc and Beam soundbars for use with a TV. You tin utilise a single speaker, combine two into a stereo pair, or even build a 5.1-aqueduct dwelling house theater organisation using a soundbar along with 2 other speakers for surrounds and the matching Sub. Contempo software updates have even added the power to add dual Subs to abode theater setups.

If you already accept passive speakers that require an amp and y'all'd similar them to work with your Sonos system, you can use the Sonos Amp. The Amp also has a stereo analog input if yous want to connect a turntable, a CD player, or another audio source device, every bit well equally an optical digital audio input and an HDMI ARC port to connect a TV. Before you become that road, though, it'due south important to consider your specific needs. If you're just looking for a stereo setup, you can get a pair of the impressive Sonos One speakers for a lot less; the most serious audiophiles might consider upgrading to a pair of Sonos 5 units. If, on the other paw, you're just looking to bring your record collection into the Sonos ecosystem, you lot're probably amend served by the Sonos Port, which features a unmarried analog input that tin piece of work with your turntable, also every bit analog and digital outputs that you tin can connect to your receiver.

For portable listening, the Sonos Movement adds a battery and Bluetooth, then y'all tin can take it with you lot and use information technology outside of the range of your Wi-Fi network. Information technology is i of the larger Sonos speakers, with a carrying handle on the back, and it sits in a modest charging base. It can play louder with more than clarity than the much smaller Sonos 1, just it isn't every bit detailed and offers less stereo separation than the Sonos Five. A better portable option is the newer Sonos Roam, a more compact and affordable solution that supports Qi wireless charging and has IP67 waterproof certification. You can read our impressions of the Roam hither.

The Sonos Five. Photo: Sonos

IKEA now offers Sonos speakers, likewise. The Symfonisk WiFi Bookshelf Speaker is the cheapest Sonos speaker yet, coming in effectually $100, while the Symfonisk Table Lamp (yeah, it's a speaker built into a lamp) is $140. The Symfonisk bookshelf speaker doesn't audio quite every bit good as the Sonos One, with more distortion in the bass as you play louder, simply you lot can create a stereo pair for almost the same toll as a single Sonos One, and it has a dissimilar blueprint that may blend into certain rooms better. The lamp design inspires mixed reactions and doesn't sound equally good equally the other models do. If you want music and light from one device, it achieves that odd goal. Equally surrounds in a home theater setup or every bit a reading-lamp-and-speaker combo in a bedroom, it fits a niche, but for the best sound we'd stick with the Sonos One. In July 2021, IKEA likewise has added the $200 Symfonisk on-wall speaker that looks like a piece of art, but we have not tested it.

Sonos also offers a series of architectural speakers designed to exist combined with the company'southward updated Sonos Amp. These were created in conjunction with Sonance, a company with a long history in architectural speakers, and the lineup includes in-ceiling, in-wall, and outdoor models.

Using the microphone of an iOS device, Sonos's Trueplay software offers room correction for your Sonos speakers at no extra cost. This is handy, since nearly people tend to place multiroom wireless speakers where they're convenient, not where they audio best. A speaker tucked into the corner of a kitchen counter, for case, is likely to sound extra boomy in the bass because of its proximity to the walls. Trueplay uses test tones to mensurate how the room influences the speaker and then corrects for that. After using Trueplay, nosotros institute that information technology always improved the sound of our Sonos speakers, helping to produce less boomy bass and a clearer midrange.

The Sonos experience

The Sonos app is well designed and runs on iOS, Android, Windows, and macOS. From the app you can command all of the speakers or zones, grouping them in whatever combination, adjust the volume of each individual speaker (even if they're grouped), find music, create playlists, mark your favorites, and more than. The speakers themselves offer very few controls—simply volume and a play/pause button in well-nigh cases. The app handles the rest. Information technology too makes setting upwardly and configuring a system very piece of cake no matter how technically inclined you are.

Having access to your favorite music is the almost of import characteristic of a multiroom wireless speaker system, and the Sonos system continues to pb the style in that regard. Currently, it offers back up for over 130 streaming services, although non all of them are available worldwide; many other systems offer a half dozen or fewer. The major ones are here, including Amazon, Google Play, Pandora, Spotify, and fifty-fifty Apple Music—as are social services such equally Bandcamp, Mixcloud, and SoundCloud. You'll besides find more than niche services such as Concert Vault, Murfie, 7digital, Tidal, and Qobuz. You tin can play back your local music library (with some limitations for iOS users) and subscribe to podcasts, likewise. With the release of the new S2 operating system, Sonos at present besides features its own Radio app, which combines the core functionality of TuneIn and iHeartRadio and offers admission to more than 60,000 stations from effectually the globe. No affair how or where you get your music, the odds are expert that Sonos will support information technology.

With admission to and so many music services, being able to find what you want to listen to is besides of import. Sonos gives you direct access to all of the supported streaming services through a single app for your estimator or smartphone; many other systems brand you use the individual app for each service. Sonos's unified service approach lets you search across every service you subscribe to, which makes it easy to notice the music you desire to listen to.

Because some people prefer to utilize native streaming service apps, such every bit those for Spotify and Apple Music, Sonos is starting to make its speakers compatible with those. Using the Spotify app or Apple Music, you can send music straight to a Sonos speaker, just as you would with a Spotify Connect speaker or the Apple HomePod, respectively. Sonos has said that this compatibility will be bachelor for more services in the future just has not provided a timeline or named specific services.

The Sonos One is nigh identical in form and sound to the original Sonos Play:ane but allows whatever Sonos system to go Alexa or Google Assistant enabled. Y'all tin can now ask the Sonos One to play music or to plough off a smart light, simply every bit you lot can with any Amazon Echo or Google Domicile speaker. Any Alexa device on your system (such every bit a standard Echo or a Dot) can initiate a music stream to any other Sonos or Alexa device on your organisation—whether to an individual speaker or to a group. Using voice this way takes some getting used to, and it has some drawbacks that we item in our standalone review of the Sonos One. It's really powerful and useful in one case you go the hang of information technology, but if voice command is your main consideration, you may be better off with an Amazon Echo system, for reasons we'll discuss in further detail below. The Sonos I also supports Google Banana, if that's your preferred virtual assistant.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

Until recently, Sonos's soundbars lacked the ability to directly decode DTS audio, which is a common sound format on DVD, Blu-ray, and Ultra-Hd discs. Every bit a result, users had to set upward their disc players or other sources to convert DTS soundtracks to a different format before sending the audio to the soundbar. In November 2021, Sonos released a software update to finally add DTS sound decoding to the Arc, Beam, Playbase, and older Playbar (and the Sonos Amp, which has HDMI ARC)—just this decoding support but includes the standard DTS environment format, non the higher-quality DTS-HD and DTS:X formats. This doesn't bear on multiroom music playback, but information technology's worth noting for those who've built a Sonos surround sound organization.

The only Sonos devices that offer Bluetooth audio support are the portable Motion and Roam. If a streaming service is missing, getting it onto your Sonos devices without using AirPlay is hard. A few Sonos models, including the Five, Amp, and Port, take analog inputs, which let you to add together a Bluetooth receiver if you'd like. Merely that eats up an analog input that could probably be put to amend use, and it isn't nearly equally simple as having a unit with Bluetooth built in.

On a related note, we would like to encounter a cheaper way to add a line input for hooking up a Bluetooth receiver, record player, or other device. Currently, your only options are the $450 Port, the $500 Five, or the $650 Amp.

Many Sonos models are also stuck on the standard two.4 GHz ring unless you buy the company's optional bridge, which creates its own Wi-Fi network. If you lot live in a standalone home, using ii.4 GHz is a good choice, as it provides better range. If you alive in an apartment or condo, the large number of 2.iv GHz routers in such a building tin can make those signals less reliable than 5 GHz, and the added range isn't important. Support for both frequency bands would exist amend across the entire lineup, simply for now, but the One (Gen2), One SL, Five, Motion, Roam, Port, and Sub support an 802.11a or 802.11n 5 GHz connection. The Amp, Arc, and Axle support 802.11n 2.4GHz only.

Many of Sonos'southward strengths come from the fact that it is a closed system, just this is also a weakness. Hardware from any other company won't work with it, and if Sonos were to stop to be equally a company, you might find yourself with a bunch of very expensive bricks. We don't expect Sonos to vanish anytime soon, but nosotros do consider such a possibility to exist a drawback for many of the other proprietary systems nosotros didn't pick, because if their manufacturers surrender on them, you might be left with a system that's either non-functioning or unable to be updated.

In August 2019, Sonos disabled the selection for iOS users to search songs stored on their iPhones or iPads. This means that the universal search function doesn't locate these songs, nor tin can they be played directly from the Sonos app. There are a couple of workarounds, the simplest of which is using AirPlay 2 to send a song from your mobile device to a compatible Sonos speaker and then using the Sonos app to group that speaker with others in your Sonos organisation. Another option is to upload your library (or selected songs from it) to a music service with cloud storage capabilities, such as Apple Music.

Every bit we detail in our standalone review of the Sonos One, there are still pregnant limitations in the way Amazon Alexa is implemented on Sonos devices (including the I, Arc, Beam, and Move). This is a moving target, as the functionality is regularly updated, but as of this writing the most frustrating quirk is that the volume of Amazon's digital voice assistant cannot be adjusted relative to the book of the speaker itself. And it desperately needs this functionality, since Alexa is just style likewise loud by comparison.

To requite you lot an thought of how loud Alexa's voice is relative to the average output of the speaker, I turned my SPL meter toward the Sonos One while it was playing Sly and the Family Stone'south "Hot Fun in the Summer" and measured the peak output at 66 decibels from three anxiety away. I and then asked Alexa what time it was and measured the voice banana's response at 69 dB—a full 3 dB louder than the loudest notes in the music. In technical terms, 3 dB amounts to a doubling of sound energy and a perceived 23.ii% increase in loudness. In applied terms, it ways that if you're listening to music at reasonably loud levels and ask Alexa a question or give information technology a command, Alexa's going to scream its response at you.

Thankfully, Sonos speakers with Alexa congenital in do support the Whisper Manner characteristic constitute on standalone Amazon Echo speakers, which helps a lilliputian. Whisper Mode means that, if you whisper a question or command to Alexa, it whispers to you in response. But that's not a wholly satisfying workaround, and it's no replacement for existence able to independently command the volume of Alexa relative to the volume of the Sonos speaker.

Sonos speakers with Alexa built in likewise have some other vocalism-command shortcomings when compared with proper Echo devices. For example, Sonos doesn't support Alexa Routines that include audio actions (Routines are customizable features that can execute multiple actions from one vocalism control). We wouldn't normally focus on such smart-home functionality in a guide most wireless music systems, simply since this deficiency specifically relates to sound playback, it'due south relevant.

Consider one of the Routines that my wife and I use most frequently: As nosotros're going to bed, we say "Expert night" to the Echo Studio in our bedroom. This command turns off most of the lights in the house, adjusts the temperature on our Ecobee thermostat, and then starts playing the anthology Thunderstorm (Sounds of Nature) to lull us to sleep. Since playing a song or album is an sound activity, the Sonos One will not perform that Routine. That's one reason why we recommend using a dedicated Echo device for more advanced vox command.

Lastly, Sonos made some serious PR missteps in early 2020, when information technology announced that the original Play:5, Connect, Connect:Amp, and Bridge, along with the original Zone Player and the CR200 wireless controller, would no longer receive characteristic updates after May 2020. These models were released between 2005 and 2011, so it'due south not surprising that they're no longer receiving new features, only the company didn't clearly clear the news, which created a lot of confusion. All of these models still work, and they will continue to receive bug fixes and security updates for as long as possible, but they are no longer receiving new functionality. Connect and Connect: Amp models manufactured after 2015 still go updates, equally practice Play:five v2 units.

Unfortunately, if your system consists of a mix of newer and older models, the new models too won't receive updates because updating the new models would remove compatibility with the older ones. The solution to this problem amounts to creating two separate Sonos systems, with older devices controlled by the original Sonos app and newer devices controlled past the new S2 app. With such a split organization, but devices inside the S1 system can exist grouped together, and likewise only S2 devices tin can be grouped together. In other words, grouping S1 devices and S2 devices together to create a truly whole-dwelling wireless music arrangement is no longer possible.

Security and privacy

In August 2017, Sonos established a privacy statement outlining the information information technology collects from customers' systems. The data includes customers' Wi-Fi signal strength, IP accost, music services, product use history, names of products or rooms, and other functional information. Sonos says it uses this information to keep the products performance and to amend service; the visitor also says that it never sells the information, although it may share some data with third-party vendors, music services, and voice services.

Some customers accept outcome with the fact that, if you don't agree to the new policy, there's a risk that your Sonos devices will cease to operate over fourth dimension because they volition stop receiving software updates. However, you can yet opt out of some data collection even if you concur to the policy. In addition, Sonos notes that it does non collect recordings of your voice.

As well great: Amazon Echo

The Amazon Echo. Photo: Michael Murtaugh

Too bang-up

Amazon Echo Studio

Dolby Atmos on the cheap

If you desire to add immersive 3D audio playback capabilities to your multiroom wireless music system, the Echo Studio is the easiest and near affordable way to do and so.

Buying Options

If a Sonos arrangement costs a little more than yous're willing to spend, or if you value advanced vocalism-command functionality more than pitch-perfect sound fidelity, we also really like Amazon'southward Echo ecosystem as an culling. The Repeat family isn't as diverse as Sonos's offerings, but information technology does include a couple of good-sounding speakers: the Amazon Echo (4th Gen) and the Repeat Studio, both of which also support Bluetooth. Amazon's multiroom music platform isn't as robust and intuitive as Sonos's, but it continues to improve, and y'all tin can use more precise, nuanced voice control.

At $100, the standard Echo (quaternary Gen) is $80 less than Sonos's cheapest speaker (the One SL), and although it doesn't sound as practiced—the bass isn't as dynamic, high frequencies aren't quite as sparkling and its upper bass/lower midrange is somewhat boomy and uneven past comparison—information technology still sounds quite skillful for the price. It's a noticeable improvement in the audio quality over the 3rd Gen unit.

The 4th Gen Echo boasts a radical redesign compared with its older siblings. Instead of the cylindrical course factor we've come to associate with Amazon's smart speakers, the new model has a spherical design and has been upgraded to include two 0.8-inch (20 mm) tweeters instead of 1. Its iii-inch (76.2 mm) woofer is also placed at the elevation of the speaker instead of the lesser. The upside of the dual tweeters is that the new Echo delivers a reasonably effective stereo outcome. The downside is that the Echo is now a more directional device than the previous iterations. What this means is that if you lot install your speaker in the center of a room (say, on a coffee table) or between two rooms (e.g., on a counter between a semi-open up kitchen and family room), the audio quality of the speaker, besides as the stereo issue, shifts depending on where yous're standing or sitting.

For $200—the same price as the Sonos One—y'all might instead opt for the Echo Studio, which features a forepart-firing 1-inch tweeter, two side-firing and one upward-firing 2-inch midrange drivers, and a 5.25-inch downwards-firing woofer. The result is much beefier bass than you can get from the standard Echo, but fifty-fifty the much larger Echo Studio doesn't quite beat the Sonos One in terms of counterbalanced, neutral audio, nor can it friction match the sheer output of the Sonos Five. Just it does have 1 flim-flam up its sleeve that no other meaty speaker in our roundup can merits: Dolby Atmos capabilities to add a more immersive tiptop result to the sound.

The Echo Studio doesn't back up straight streaming of Atmos-mixed music from Tidal, but it does back up a reasonably big library of 3D-audio tracks available on Amazon Music HD mastered in both Dolby Atmos and Sony's 360 Reality Audio spatial audio codec. The Echo Studio can as well upmix stereo music into a simulation of 3D audio. Although the quality of this upmixing has drastically improved since the Echo Studio'southward release, it tin still be a lilliputian inconsistent with some music, especially some of the radical stereo mixes of the 1960s, similar The Jimi Hendrix Experience's "The Wind Cries Mary." This is somewhat less of a problem if y'all pair two Studio speakers in a stereo group. But in our long-term testing, we've found that maintaining the stereo pairing of two Studio speakers tin can be frustrating and inconsistent, and then nosotros can't recommend information technology.

The Echo Studio also has a feature similar to Sonos'due south Trueplay called Automated Room Adaptation, which co-ordinate to Amazon "analyzes the acoustics of the room and continuously adjusts sound filters during music playback to optimize sound output regardless of placement." Unlike Trueplay, this feature doesn't require you to use your mobile device to measure the sound of a serial of exam tones. Instead, the Echo Studio listens to itself while it plays music and makes tweaks to the sound over fourth dimension. The speaker runs through a setup process for room calibration upon initial setup, simply at that place'southward no piece of cake manner to rerun that scale should yous motility your speaker from one room to another, short of resetting the device and going through setup again. But since the process is constantly running as long as the device's mics aren't muted, this shouldn't be necessary. But permit it play, and it will adapt itself to the new room over fourth dimension.

The Echo, Repeat Dot, and Echo Studio are uniform with the Echo Sub if you need more bass. But the subwoofer's functionality is somewhat limited, and reviews take been mixed, and so nosotros tin can't really recommend it.

One potential advantage that the Amazon Repeat lineup has over Sonos speakers is 2-way Bluetooth back up. You lot can connect your phone or tablet to your Echo or Echo Studio and send audio directly to the speaker, or you lot can pair an Repeat device with a bigger Bluetooth speaker for improved sonic performance. The Repeat and Echo Studio can likewise pair wirelessly with Amazon's Fire TV streaming media players, and a combination of the Echo Studio and Burn TV gives you Atmos sound playback capabilities for movies as well every bit music.

When Amazon added multiroom music streaming to the Echo lineup in 2017, it was in a severely limited capacity. Dorsum then, if any of your Echo devices was continued to a Bluetooth speaker, that connection would drop when you initiated multiroom playback. And none of the Echo speakers available at the time sounded good enough on their ain to justify their use as your chief music organization. But in the years since, the audio fidelity of Echo speakers has improved, and the multiroom functionality has gotten steadily ameliorate. Bluetooth connectivity is now supported, so if you have an Echo Dot paired with, say, a Monoprice Soundstage3 in your dwelling office, that duo tin sync up with the residue of your Echo devices simply fine.

Alexa doesn't back up nigh equally many music services as Sonos (in the United states, it's mainly express to the best-known apps such equally Amazon Music, Apple Music, Apple Podcasts, Deezer, iHeartRadio, Pandora, SiriusXM, Spotify, Tidal, TuneIn, and Vevo). What's more than, creating groups of Echo speakers isn't quite every bit intuitive via the Alexa app as grouping is with Sonos. But information technology'south not too difficult.

The only major frustration of using Alexa every bit your primary multiroom music platform is that adding or removing individual speakers during playback isn't supported. So, for case, if yous're listening to a podcast or audiobook in the bedroom and want to add your living room and kitchen speakers to the stream in real time, that's currently non possible.

If you lot have your Repeat speakers configured to control your smart-home devices, you tin can as well create Routines that include music and home-automation tasks such as lighting levels and thermostat settings. You can launch these Routines with a short verbal command that you can name annihilation y'all'd similar, such as "Alexa, good nighttime" or "Alexa, bath time." One of the shortcomings of the Alexa support built into some Sonos speakers is that they do not initiate any Routines that include an audio action, so this capability is a big bonus of native Echo devices.

In other respects, Alexa and Sonos get along quite well. Yous can, within the Alexa app, create speaker groups of Sonos speakers, but you cannot include Sonos speakers and Echo speakers together in the same group. Nevertheless, y'all tin select a Sonos speaker as the preferred speaker for any Echo device. For example, if you lot want voice commands, alerts, timers, and reminders to come out of the Echo Dot past the kitchen sink, just you want whatever music that Dot plays to come out of the Sonos Five sitting atop the fridge, it's simple to configure.

As such, the "all-time of both worlds" multiroom music system is a combination of Amazon Echo and Sonos devices—the former in rooms where vocalisation-assistant functionality is more than of import (or where yous don't want Alexa yelling at y'all) and the latter in rooms where sound quality is the height priority. But this system does complicate day-to-day use a scrap, then if you value simplicity, your best bet is to pick one or the other for all of your multiroom music streaming needs.

What nigh Sidewalk?

Amazon recently introduced a new feature of its Echo devices known as Sidewalk, a private, low-bandwidth connectedness between devices, even if they're not on the same home network. This ways that if both you and your neighbor accept Sidewalk enabled, you might be using a scrap of their internet connection and they might be using a bit of yours. Overall, nosotros're not happy about the fact that Amazon chose to make this service opt-out, rather than opt-in, simply other than that, nosotros're non every bit concerned as other outlets are. Yous can read more than about our stance on Sidewalk, and go more details well-nigh how information technology works, here.

The competition

Given that Apple AirPlay 2 is a relatively open ecosystem, information technology has a lot going for it. Yous tin hands mix and match speakers from a number of different manufacturers, including Sonos, Amazon, Bowers & Wilkins, Naim, and (of course) Apple's ain HomePod mini smart wireless speaker. Many mass-market place AV receivers and even many TVs as well feature AirPlay two connectivity. Add in Siri voice control, and the overall flexibility of the platform is hard to deny. The downside is that relying on AirPlay ii for all of your multiroom music more often than not anchors you to iOS every bit a mobile platform, so if you always sour on Apple and decide to switch to Android or some other mobile operating system, yous'll mostly be left with a collection of disconnected speakers or sound systems. Grouping AirPlay two speakers via HomeKit isn't as intuitive as information technology is with Sonos or Amazon, either. If you're using your iPhone to control your music playback, every bit most people are likely to practice, at that place are some frustrating limitations. For one affair, if you want to add or remove speakers from playback or arrange the volume of individual speakers, y'all need to do so via a widget found in the iOS Control Eye. This wouldn't be a trouble, except for the fact that the speaker-selection and volume-command widget occupies less than a quarter of your total screen real manor, pregnant y'all tin can run across only four continued devices at a time. In other words, it involves a lot of unnecessary scrolling and (for those of us old enough to call back when "airplay" was broadcast-radio lingo) a good bit of squinting.

We previously had the Chromecast Audio platform as a option for anyone who wanted an inexpensive multiroom wireless option, considering yous could arrive the door with just the $35 sound dongle. However, Google has discontinued that dongle, so at present y'all must purchase other devices (speakers, soundbars, smart speakers, and the similar) with Chromecast built in. Overall, we prefer Sonos equally a complete system: With Chromecast, you can't do 5.1 surround audio, it lacks room correction like Trueplay, information technology doesn't back up Alexa (which is not surprising), and grouping rooms is more complex since you have to showtime playback from an app and and so switch to the Google Home app and merge information technology there. Sonos also lets you control every source from a unmarried app or, in many cases, allows y'all to use the private app, whereas Chromecast still works only through individual apps. Google has introduced the new Nest Audio smart speaker ($100) to replace the Google Abode. There's a lot that we like about the new speaker, including its improved sound quality, its pairing capabilities, and for the purposes of this guide, its enhancements in terms of vox-based multiroom audio command. In that respect, information technology's well-nigh fifty-fifty with the Echo system. It'due south easy to create speaker groups in the app, and sending music to groups requires easy-to-remember commands ("play Ramones in Whole Business firm"), simply yous can't switch music to different groups once yous've started or play different music from the same service on different speakers, as you lot can with Sonos. Among smart speakers, we adopt Amazon'southward ecosystem and its diversity of production offerings. That said, if you're already invested in Google Assistant, there'southward nothing about the Nest Audio that would brand us recommend fugitive it. We but like Echo a little amend overall.

The Marshall Multi-Room organization is based on the visitor'south line of Bluetooth speakers, which we actually similar, but the whole-dwelling system functions more like a Bluetooth speaker than a fully integrated system. You stream to the speakers via AirPlay, Bluetooth, or Chromecast, not through an integrated app that unites all the services in one identify. You need to load the Marshall setup app to ship audio to multiple rooms or join speakers into a group. We like the retro styling of the Marshall speakers, simply the organisation lacks the complete integration that other whole-abode audio systems offer.

Bose SoundTouch models offer presets on the device, giving you fast access to your favorite internet radio stations or playlists. Right now they support Apple Music, Pandora, and Spotify, forth with a handful of other streaming services, only they don't support Google Play Music.

DTS Play-Fi is another open up standard that is supported by a number of vendors, including Canticle, Onkyo, Paradigm, and Pioneer. It supports 5.i-aqueduct surround sound using wireless speakers, and information technology covers a wide selection of devices. Unfortunately, it still offers back up for only effectually a dozen music services and doesn't support Apple Music or Google Play Music.

Denon'southward HEOS system offers a number of different speakers in a diverseness of sizes, and Denon has built HEOS into all of its new receivers, equally well. Merely at this bespeak no other companies—aside from Marantz, which is office of Denon'due south parent visitor—take adopted HEOS. The lack of Apple Music support makes this system easy to reject for now.

Yamaha MusicCast is currently only in Yamaha devices, including soundbars, speakers, and receivers. Information technology supports Pandora and Spotify but not Amazon, Apple Music, or Google Play. It supports AirPlay and Bluetooth on all its devices, but non enough services straight.

BlueSound is meant as a higher-end selection and has the features to back that up. These devices include hi-res audio and MQA support, likewise as a CD-ripping vault. Merely most people don't need or won't use these features, and the hardware costs virtually 50% more than the comparable hardware from other companies because of all the extras.

Logitech has added multiroom support to UE Boom speakers, just they still stream the music from your phone over Bluetooth and communicate over Bluetooth, and so the range is lacking.

The Naim Mu-and then system looks and sounds peachy, and it lets you control everything from a unmarried app, but the company's cheapest model is even so much more than nearly people want to pay. It might exist a fantastic-sounding speaker, merely it starts at a price that is too high for well-nigh people.

WiSA is an brotherhood that is licensing its technology to different speaker manufacturers. It operates in a unlike wireless ring than conventional 2.four GHz or 5 GHz Wi-Fi, making it less prone to interference. It is mostly aimed at building wireless surround-sound systems, where information technology tin support lossless 24/96 audio with seven.1 channels, but information technology is starting to add multiple zones for multiroom wireless speakers. Unfortunately, it's non a consummate system approach and thus non a true competitor in this arena.

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Source: https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/sonos-player/

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