That plain old, single room stereo getting you down? Multi-room audio is what you need, letting you juggle music across rooms.
The technology required has made leaps and bounds in recent years, including one in a downward direction on the pricing front.
Still confused about what does what though? Not to worry: here’s the products you can use in every price category to sling sound around your home, whatever your budget.
Apple TV
Don’t let the name fool you: Apple’s set top box isn’t just good for streaming moving pictures. As well as connecting to the iTunes Store, your Apple TV can stream music wirelessly to any other Apple TV in the house, or, as is probably more likely, an Airport Express with speakers attached.
A few caveats mind: you’ll need to provide your own speakers plugged into the Airport, and it’ll only play the same song in every room. But if everyone in the house has the same music taste, or you just want your sounds to follow you, it’s a comparatively cheap and easy solution at £195 for the 40GB version.
Nokia Home Music
We love Nokia‘s recent transition from straight forward mobile manufacturer to service provider. Whether it’s Nokia Maps, the new GPS Locate system or ways to control your home through your mobile, the Finnish company has become a serious innovator.
Nokia Home Music is its attempt at home audio, and while it doesn’t stream to other devices or speakers, it will play tunes from your phone or PC sans cables, and will work just fine with Comes With Music tracks, as well as tuning into internet radio. Get yourself a Comes With Music account, and it might be worth stuffing one of these in each room, for all-you-can-eat tuneage on a budget. It’s not out yet, but we likey muchly. Best of all, this isn’t all Nokia has planned either.
Cisco Music Streamer
We were shocked to see Cisco moving into the home entertainment market at CES, but in a good way: the Cisco music streamer is a potential Sonos assassin that streams music around the house wirelessly. There’s three different players, from plain and simple non-amped receiver to a screen-equipped amped version, and even a full-blown stereo with CD player inside. But the real breakthrough here is that because the system is modular, there’s no hub, so you don’t even need a computer. It just hooks up to any device capable of being networked (hard drives, PS3s, Xbox 360s, mobiles), and even comes with an iPod dock. It’s not out yet, but we’re told bundles will start around the $299, or £220 mark.
Sonos
The brand that started it all is still going strong, though it’ll be interesting to see how the recession affects such an expensive line of streaming equipment. Still, you get what you pay for: the Sonos multi-room system chucks audio from an audio source to anywhere with a ZonePlayer, letting you juggle the sound levels in each area by using the click wheel remote, PC software or even an iPhone. It’ll connect to thousands of internet radio stations and Napster or Last.fm for an eclectic playlist experience. Brace yourself though: the basic bundle starts at around £670.
