Multi-room

Harman Kardon Omni+ with Chromecast and Spotify Connect

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Omni+Harman Kardon has upgraded their line of multi-room music speakers and they are now called Omni+. They all have 24Bit/192Khz HD audio, Spotify Connect, Chromecast built-in, Bluetooth and digital and analog input as well.

The previous version, Omni, lacked support for both Spotify Connect and Chromecast which made them almost unusable for most people. Now an Omni+ product, can re-broadcast Spotify Connect to first gen products.

The speakers are set up with the Harman Kardon controller app for iOS and Android.

OMNI 10+ fits small rooms and costs $249.95.

Omni 20+ is for larger rooms and costs $349.95.

Omni 50+ is portable and weatherproof, for use both indoors and outdoors. Has a rechargeable battery. Costs $499.95.

ADAPT+ connects to an existing system and lacks own speakers. Not released yet.

Multi-room, Uncategorized

JBL Playlist with Chromecast audio

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JBL Playlist

JBL Playlist is a Wi-Fi speaker with Chromecast audio. It is always on and ones you have set it up in the Google Home App, it is available for casting music from all devices on your network. With a few of them, or other Chromecast speakers, you’ll have a multi-room music system for a low price.

JBL Playlist also have Bluetooth 4.2 which could come in handy if you bring it with you on a trip and do not have Wi-Fi available. Spotify Connect is also included. It also has a 3.5 mm connector for analog input.

JBL Playlist top

The speaker has controls for power, play/pause and volume on top of it.

The price is quite competitive at 150£.

Multi-room

Apple HomePod with Airplay 2

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apple homepod

HomePod is Apple’s answer to home automation speakers like Google Home and Amazon Echo. With the updated Airplay 2, HomePod is also Apple’s answer to multiroom music systems like Sonos.

The speaker is packed with an A8 processor, which probably makes it the most processing powered speaker on the market. This allows HomePod to interpret speech even when music is played, to sync with other speakers and adapt the playback to the room. Place two in the same room and they detect and balance each other. Homepod will also detect how it is placed in the room and optimize the playback for that setting.

You can give commands to Siri, ask questions and get answers. Just say “Hey Siri, play Dr. Dre” to get going. A huge downside is that this only works for Apple Music and not Spotify and other. They have to be managed through Airplay 2 instead of voice commands, when they have implemented support for it.

You can also tap the top of HomePod to control the playback and volume. A LED waveform shows when siri is listening to commands.

homepod internals

The speaker build is interesting with seven tweeters places around it to allow the music to be played in every direction. The bass is facing up. So even though it is a small package, it really is packed with sound technology.

HomePod uses Airplay 2 and can work together with other Airplay 2 devices of different brands in a multiroom setup, including grouped together in zones that has more than one speaker in it.

iOS 11 required for setup

In order to setup the HomePod, you need to have a iOS device with at least iOS 11. Once it has been setup, it is ready for AirPlay streaming from older devices and AirPlay 2 from newer.

Multi-room

Urbanears Baggen and Stammen

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Baggen Stammen

The Stockholm based headphone company is entering the multi-room speaker market with the two colorful speakers Stammen and Baggen. Depending on the color they can be a design piece in your home or a discrete sound system.

Both speakers handle Spotify Connect, AirPlay, Chromecast, Bluetooth, 3.5mm and aux input. Baggen is the bigger one with two 2.5˝ full-range drivers and one 5.25˝ woofer. It costs $450. Stammen is smaller one with two 3/4˝ neodymium dome tweeters and one 4˝ woofer. and costs $350. They both have 3 Class-D amplifiers.

Urbanears Connected app for iOS and android lets you flip through presets, browse internet radio stations, manage multi-room settings and tweak the equalizer.

You can combine up to 5 devices in a multi-room setup. Playing different music or combined in multi mode, which is Urbanears name for party mode.

Urbanears combination of design, good sound and support for both Spotify Connect and AirPlay makes them an interesting newcomer in the market.

Multi-room

Heos new soundbar and sub

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heos soundbar

The soundbar battle of multiroom system continues and Denons Heos line now includes a new soundbar named Heos Bar and a new stand alone subwoofer named Heos Subwoofer.

Heos already has a package called Heos HomeCinema, with a soundbar and a wireless sub but the two new products are more powerful and aimed directly at Sonos equal products.

So the Heos options are quite nice. Pay $599 for Heos HomeCinema and get good home cinema sound or more than double that and get even better sound with the new Heos Bar and Subwoofer.

Heos Bar

Heos Bar has four HDMI 2.0a p/HDCP 2.2 inputs, HDMI output with ARC, compatible with 4K HDR UHD televisions and sources like Blu-ray players and PS4 Pro. It supports HD audio formats like Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio as well as the older formats Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus and DTS. It supports Bluetooth. Optical digital input and analog inputs are also included. So it can pretty much chew anything you throw at it. The price will be $849.

Heos Subwoofer

gallery_heos_sub_01Heos Subwoofer works with all of the Heos speaker lines and not just the Bar. It has two 5-1/4inch (13.5 cm) drives with Class D amps. The price will be $599.

Compared with Sonos

Heos Bar has support for all modern inputs and sound formats that Sonos does not have, with Sonos single optical input. So considering Heos Bar is a smart move, if you are not already invested in the Sonos ecosystem.

Multi-room

Sonos PLAYBASE

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playbase

Sonos expands its home theater offering with the new PLAYBASE that is meant to be placed below a TV as compared to the PLAYBAR that is meant to be placed on the wall below a TV or in front of its stand. It has the same functionality as its older sibling. Which includes the ability to be paired to a SUB and a pair of Play:1s to get real 5.1 home theater audio. It can play music on its own through the Sonos app and connects to a tv with optical input.

A difference is that it incorporates a woofer along with nine other speaker drivers. So Ten amplified speaker drivers in total. Six mid-range, three tweeters and one woofer. It has one ethernet port. PLAYBAR has two.

PLAYBASE securely supports TVs on top of it up to 77 lbs (35 kg).

Both PLAYBASE and PLAYBAR supports Speech Enhancement and Night Sound for optimal listening without disturbing the sleeping part of the family.

PLAYBASE will cost 699$ and be available in stores in April 2017.

Multi-room

Denon upgrades HEOS with hi-res and Bluetooth

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Heos products

Denon upgrades its HEOS line of multi-room products and ads integrated bluetooth and hi-res 24-bit support. Basically what we have been waiting for Sonos to do a long time..

All products have been upgraded to the new HS2 platform (except the soundbar). So the new generation still has HEOS 1, HEOS 3, HEOS 5 and HEOS 7 wireless speakers. HEOS Amp for connecting to external speakers and Heos Link for connection to an existing sound system. 5 & 7 are available in stores now. 1 & 3 in june and Amp & Link in July. The prices will stay the same. See product links and prices below.

The HS2 platform has an upgraded processor (ARM A9 at 1.25GHz), 512MB flash memory and 256MB of RAM. This enables it to support high-resolution audio up to 24-bit/192kHz. An update later this year will also add support for the DSD format. Denon also adds fast Wi-Fi 802.11 ac to the existing 2.4/5GHz 802.11 a/b/g/n.

As before, the HEOS system supports the streaming services Spotify (through Spotify Connect), Pandora, TuneIn, Amazon Music, IHeart Radio, SiriusXM, Soundcloud, Tidal and Rhapsody. You can also access local network music through DLNA or attach a drive through USB.

The updated devices plays nice with existing HEOS products and can even down sample hi-res music to 16/44.1 for them when they are grouped. All controlled by the Heos App for iOS and Android.

Multi-room

Yamaha MusicCast multi-room

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Yamaha is going all-in with it´s MusicCast wireless multi-room system. Supported devices keeps growing and so does the functionality. So it is time to take a closer look at what it has to offer.

Let’s start with the basics: MusicCast devices has support for AirPlay, Spotify Connect, Internet Radio, Bluetooth and DLNA. They support 24-bit high resolution audio, can be linked to play in party mode and are controlled by an iOS or Android app. The system includes receivers, amplifiers, stand alone speakers, soundbars and Hi-Fi systems. They connect to each other through your wireless router and can also use wired ethernet.

MusicCast system

Streaming services

MusicCast supports Spotify Connect, Pandora, Rhapsody and SiriusXM Internet Radio streaming services.

AirPlay

You can AirPlay from your iOS device or Mac to all MusicCast devices. You can not AirPlay to multiple devices using the Link function. Use a Bluetooth for that instead.

Bluetooth

All MusicCast devices has Bluetooth. If you play with Bluetooth to a device, that device can in turn link with your other MusicCast devices to play synchronized music in multiple rooms, which is usually called party mode. You can use the app for volume, play/pause and track skip control.

Bluetooth has some latency between for example the phone sending the signal and the input device, but the linked devices will play in sync with each other.

You can also send music from MusicCast devices using Bluetooth to enabled speaker or headphones. But you can’t receive and transmit Bluetooth at the same time. So either as input or output.

DLNA

All MusicCast devices can access DLNA-compatible sources like computers and NAS devices.

Hi-res 24-bit

MusicCast supports true high-resolution audio formats like Apple Lossless (ALAC) up to 96 kHz / 24-bit, AIFF, FLAC and WAV files up to 192 kHz / 24-bit. Most MusicCast devices also support playback of DSD streams up to 5.6 MHz.

MusicCast app

MusicCast app

The app is available on iOS and Android. It provides browsing and playback of music libraries on the network and the device itself. It can also access sources connected to MusicCast products like gaming consoles, CD and Blu-ray players, turntables, and more, which can be played in any room with a linked MusicCast device. Up to 10 MusicCast devices can be controlled by the app.

MusicCast devices

WX-030WH

The MusicCast Wireless Speaker WX-030WH features a large passive radiator combined with Yamaha’s digital sound processing. It comes in black or white with a silver accent. It can be wall mounted using a threaded mounting hole. It is possible to pair two MusicCast Wireless Speakers in stereo mode.

NX-500 powered speakers

NX-N500 is a stereo pair of Hi-Fi network speakers with a built in amplifier and MusicCast. They can be used by themselves via Wi-Fi, ethernet or Bluetooth. Or connected to any music output device you like through optical or analog input.

ISX-80

ISX-80 is a more design oriented wireless speaker in the MusicCast family that can be placed on the wall.

Soundbars: YSP-5600, YSP-1600 and SRT-1500.

AV Receivers / Amplifiers: RX-V779, RX-V679
,RX-V579, RX-V479, RX-S601, RX-S601D, CX-A5100, RX-A3050, RX-A2050, RX-A1050, RX-A850, RX-A750, RX-A550 and RX-AS710D,

HiFi Components: R-N602, CD-NT670 and CD-NT670D,

HiFi Systems: MCR-N870, MCR-N870D, MCR-N670 and MCR-N670D.

Summary

Yamaha’s MusicCast offering is huge and the combinations and ways to use the devices seems almost endless. You get products that has support for the highest audio quality and you will always have Bluetooth to fall back on. Compared to Sonos, it is a more open system with broader technical functionality even though Sonos is best in their niche, in app control of the most streaming services.


Multi-room

Mobile Google Cast and Spotify Connect with Sony h.ear go

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sony h.ear go

Sony h.ear go is a wireless mobile speaker in their multi-room line that you can take with you and play music on the go. You stream music to it through Google Cast, Spotify Connect and Bluetooth. It also has a line in for old school connections. It outputs 12W+12W. The battery lasts up to 12 hours and it even supports high resolution audio, even though it may be on the small side for you to actually hear the difference. So have it at home as part of you ordinary multi-room setup and bring it with you on your trips. A great addition to the Sony lineup.

Oh, and it comes in lime, pink, blue, red and black. The price is 199$.

Multi-room

Naim Mu-so Qb with AirPlay and Spotify Connect

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Naim Mu-so Qb

Naim has followed up its existing Mu-so monster speaker with the new cube formed speaker named Mu-so Qb. Even if the mu-so Qb is smaller than its big brother, it still has an impressive size compared to the competition. It can play music through AirPlay, Spotify Connect, Bluetooth/aptX, UPNP, Internet Radio, USB as well as analog and optical digital inputs.

You can connect multiple Mu-so units and play synced music in up to five rooms (party mode).

The speaker consists of two microfibre dome tweeters, two mid drivers, two pistonic passive bass radiators and a woofer. The tweeters and mid drives are driven by 50W amplifiers and the woofter by a 100W amplifier. The combined Mu-so Qb amplification can generate a massive 300 watts. The Mu-so Qb is driven by the same 32-bit digital signal processor used in the original Mu-so system. The standard grill comes in black with optional colors like blue.

The system is controlled with an app for iOS and Android. You can also control the basics on the device itself.