I love listening to music. It got me through those awkward teen years, I fell in love listening to my wife sing, we have dance parties with the kids at night before bed, enjoy music and drinks with friends, and just relax with some coffee and music in the morning. Needless to say, we listen to a lot of music.
We recently moved into a new house and I started thinking of the new possibilities for music throughout the house. I started with researching new receivers for the main theater system that would have 3 zones to power the living room, back patio, and garage for parties. Those receivers are expensive! I was looking at $1200 just for the receiver and would still need to find decent speakers. That quickly became a dream for a later time. Next I started looking at Sonos speakers. Sonos is an amazing system and I quickly became obsessed with planning out what speakers I would need to fill out my house and surround sound system. Well the Sonos system quickly began to ring up the price tag as well. Just to get Sonos surround sound for the living room was $1750. Not to mention the soundbar and subwoofer from Sonos were very disappointing to listen to in person and all sound is processed though your TV which probably doesn’t support full surround sound.
I found myself back at square one and not ready to commit to anything big. I decided I couldn’t handle the speakers on my TV anymore and sprang for a decent soundbar to handle audio duties. Along with that purchase I through in a Chromecast Audio because why not, it was only $35. This little audio puck is amazing! We listen to Pandora on there every day. I love that I am able to start playing music and can keep using my phone for whatever I want to without disrupting the music. I can even leave to grab more beer and the party never has to stop. The music sounds great coming from the little device as well.
I asked for another Chromecast Audio for Christmas in hopes that it wouldn’t take long for them to enable to multi-room feature. Sure enough in early 2016 they sent out an update that enabled to Sonos killing feature. I set up a group for the house and play music downstairs and upstairs simultaneously. It is a whole home music system that truly rivals Sonos. I have speakers in the garage and one for the back porch that have their own little audio pucks to give me the whole home audio I dreamed of when we first moved in. The best part, since I am using speakers that I already own it only cost me $140! That is less than one of Sonos’ cheapest speakers.
For anyone looking for a whole home audio solution, but have been put of by the price of entry, take a look at the Chromecast Audio. I highly recommend it.