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Multi-room streamer (alternative to Sonos)

I've been doing a lot of looking and it doesn't seem like what I'm looking for exists.  I have several systems throughout the house.  Some are just a pair of powered speakers (background music) and some are quite a bit nicer.  I can't seem to find one solution for everything.  Our main system is near our kitchen and near another zone.  We regularly pair these two together when we're doing housework, cleaning, etc.  It's an open floor plan.  We use Sonos and Spotify for most everything, and I know I can get better audio quality from other hardware.  But I don't want to have redundant hardware, or have multiple control schemes (if you want to play high quality, use this, if you want background music, use this). 

I am looking at the Bluesound stuff, which has the Node2i or whatever, but I hear a lot of people saying there are much better sounding options.  But if I went with something that sounded better, it wouldn't integrate into everything else.  What are my options here?  Convenience typically wins out for me, as I'd rather just hit a few buttons and have music playing than spend 15 minutes with a clunky interface trying to find something I want to listen to (hence using spotify).  Sonos have become horribly unreliable, needing a software update once a week, and always seeming to have network issues, etc.  So I need to get something that will actually work for once. 

Budget is pretty open, I'm just looking for ONE system that can handle simple systems (like a pair of JBL 305s, or shop speakers) on the same system.  I have a big workshop and go between my office (which has a pair of Dynaudios) and the shop and I like having the audio paired, etc.  Thoughts?
128x128cowanrg
archguy's avatar
archguy
45 posts
 
Seems like 'Chromecast Audio' would suit your needs, and it's very inexpensive.  A minor detail is that it's not being produced any more, but you can find them (even new) on the usual sites.  A bonus for tweakers is that if you don't like the onboard DAC you can use optical-out to your DAC(s) of choice.  CCA is also a cinch to use and expand FWIW. 
mahler123
3,359 posts
 
I don’t know if for multi room options anything sounds better than 
Bluesound, which will play High Resolution recordings.  As usual with them the DAC is the weak link.  For a while I was had resurrected an old DAC, a PSAudio DLink III, for one of my HT systems, so the Node2 in that system sounded better than the DAC in the 20 year old AVR, but when I upgraded the receiver I couldn’t notice much of a difference so out it went.
cowanrg's avatar
cowanrg OP
7 posts
 
Thanks for the replies everyone.

erik, I'm still not 100% sure what rune actually is.  It kinda sounds like Plex?  Basically a front-end interface for accessing music?  My biggest issue with roon is that it doesn't support spotify, which means I'd be maintaining my own music database, or hunting around.  I admittedly haven't tried Tidal yet, but I'm not sure it would have everything I want, my music taste is all over the place, and I feel like I would have to supplement.

archguy, I've tried chromecast in the past and they were nice and sounded fine, BUT, room linking and zones was awful.  maybe something like roon as a front-end would solve this, but we have an open floor plan house (which I think is the main issue here) so having 2-3 zones linked gets a bit tricky, and was a real pain to setup.  I've been trying to abandon sonos for some time now, and I actually sold everything, tried chromecast, and ended up going back to sonos again.

photomax, I really hope a bunch of people dump sonos based on the last announcement.  for the past year or so, it's been completely unrelaible and garbage.  I was ironically one if the early adopters (and even a large US dealer before they went 'mainstream').  In the early days, it was amazing and always worked.  But now it's so bloated and unreliable, I find myself playing significantly LESS music with it, because it's always a pain and it doesn't always work.  After 30 seconds, it will lose connection, skip, or stop responding, etc.  I've been on the phone with them several times over the years and they can never seem to fix the issue.  Sometimes it starts working again, but then a new update breaks it (and the updates are often and mandatory).
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