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The Insider Pick:
Great multi-room speakers are easy to use, well-designed, and sound great. The Sonos One is the best multi-room speaker system you can buy because it sounds great, works flawlessly, and has the smarts of Amazon's Alexa.
Home audio is evolving. Gone are the days when having multi-room audio meant wiring up an expensive audio system, with installation from a professional. These days, all you need to do is buy a few wireless speakers, set them up on your phone, and start playing the music.
Of course, there are quite a few multi-room speaker systems out there, and they’re not all effortless to use. A few brands really stand above the rest, and Sonos is the obvious king of the speaker space.
If you’re in the market for a new multi-room speaker system, there are a few things to consider. Ease of setup and sound quality are obviously important, but you’ll also want to think about the standard you use to connect multiple speakers.
Sonos speakers, for example, can’t really connect with speakers from other brands. On the other hand, speakers that connect through Google’s Cast standard can indeed be used with other Cast-enabled speakers, so you can buy multiple speakers from different brands if you so choose.
Apart from that, the main things you’ll want to think about are sound-quality and price. Often-times, larger speakers have improved bass, but bigger isn’t always better — a lot of work goes into tuning speakers. We've combed through all the reviews and tested some of these speakers ourselves to find the bets multi-room speakers you can buy.
SEE ALSO: The best Bluetooth speakers you can buy
The best multi-room speaker overall
Why you'll love it: The Sonos One boasts excellent audio quality, has Amazon's Alexa built in, and it's effortless to set up.
Sonos has emerged as the leading brand when it comes to multi-room and wireless audio for good reason. Over the past few years, it has made some seriously great-sounding speakers, and it’s all culminated in the release of the Sonos One, its best smart wireless speaker to date.
There are plenty of reasons why the Sonos One is an excellent home speaker for multi-room setups. Most importantly, it has excellent audio quality. The speaker boasts a full-rich audio quality with excellent clarity in the high-end, as well as plenty of bass in the low end. It’s not overly accurate sound, so some audiophiles may want to look to more traditional audio brands, but for the vast majority of people, the Sonos One will sound just about perfect.
The One is controlled by the excellent Sonos app and you can use it with tons of third-party services like Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, Pandora, TuneIn Radio, and more. If you have a network of Sonos speakers in your house already, the One will integrate with them once it's set up.
Then there are the smarts. Sonos built Amazon's Alexa straight into the speaker and Google Assistant will also work with the speaker. That way, you can control the Sonos One speaker with your voice and the artificially intelligent assistant of your choosing.
Most other reviewers, including our very own Insider Picks audio guru Brandt Ranj, rate the Sonos One very highly in reviews. TechRadar gave the speaker a 4.5/5, while CNET awarded it 8.7/10.
Pros: Excellent sound quality, Alexa support with Google Assistant to come
Cons: A little pricey compared to other smart speakers
The best multi-room speakers with Google Assistant
Why you'll love it: The JBL Link series sounds great and offers all the intelligence you would expect from a smart speaker that's powered by the Google Assistant.
Looking to build out your Google smart home? The JBL Link series is the multi-room speaker system for you. With Google Assistant, you may assume that the Link series is better-served as the center of your smart home, but they're also great for listening to music. If you have multiple speakers, you can set them up to work in tandem in your home.
Google Assistant is a great way to improve your smart home. Using it, you can control a range of connected devices, including lights, switches, and so on. Best of all, the ecosystem is only getting better. The JBL Link speakers are meant to help you control your smart home and give you great audio quality whenever you want to listen to music.
It’s pretty easy to set up multiple devices to work together for multi-room audio. Once your JBL Link devices are set up, you can head straight to the Google Home app to group multiple devices. After that, you simply ask Google Assistant to stream to the speaker group you created or cast to the group from your phone.
There are four speakers in the JBL Link series, including the JBL Link 10, Link 20, Link 300, and Link 500. They get bigger and bigger depending on the number, so if you really want to fill your home with sound, get a couple Link 300 and Link 500’s, and you should be good to go.
Plenty of reviewers have given the JBL Link series a top score. Wired gave the series 8/10, while Tom’s Guide went a step further to give the Link 20 9/10.
Pros: Super smart, easy to group speakers, great sound quality
Cons: Not as great audio quality as Sonos
The best multi-room speaker for bass-heads
Why you'll love it: The Sonos Play:5 offers many of the features you know and love from Sonos’ speakers, plus it seriously ups the ante in sound quality and volume.
The Sonos One is a great multi-room speaker, but if you’re looking to seriously improve the audio in your home, then the Sonos Play:5 is your best option.
Now, the Play:5 doesn’t offer all of the smart features of the Sonos One. It doesn’t have a digital assistant built right into it, but it still works very well with the Sonos app and can connect to most top music streaming services. You can also connect it to your Amazon Echo or Dot if you already have one, and thereby play music on it using your voice.
The Sonos Play:5 can connect with other Sonos speakers in your home, too, so you can have excellent sound in every room.
The best thing about the speaker is that it sounds great. In fact, it’s the most powerful speaker Sonos has built so far. There’s a ton of bass, but the clarity and sibilance in the high-end has been given plenty of attention, too. Plus, this speaker gets loud. Like, really loud. If you’re a fan of listening to your music at ear-bleeding levels, this might be the choice for you.
Plenty of reviewers think the Sonos Play:5 is among the best smart speakers with multi-room features too. TechRadar gave the device a 4.5/5, while CNET awarded it 8/10.
Pros: Well-designed, super powerful sound
Cons: Expensive, smart features found in Sonos One missing
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