Seems like for 15 years I've been trying to get music synced in more than one room and outside at my house. Yeah I was able to do it for inside and outside using the A/B channels on an amplifier and running the speaker wires from the amp to the patio outdoors, but it was kinda weak since I had to plug my phone into the amp and all. Blah blah. Well, I'm all excited now since with some capital investment in wifi speakers, I finally got it done, and can push music from Spotify to all the spaces from my phone, mac or tablet. But it took quite bit of doing. Now I feel like this is the most kick-ass thing ever, but meanwhile, I've mentioned what I am thinking is this colossal achievement to a few friends, and they're all, meh, whatever.

So is this a completely pedestrian achievement? I feel like I'm on the cutting edge of awesomeness, but no one I tell this too gives a crap. Has anyone in OOT ever wanted this and tried to get it? I personally have never, ever, been to a house party where synced music in multiple spaces was happening, but I probably don't roll in the same baller stratosphere that OOTers do. So was spending $700 on this, tweaking galore on what i bought, then finding the $29 app to make it all work, epic? Or kinda stupid.

Thoughts please!

Like you I've always liked the idea, but I'm not sure when I would ever use it. I have a Sonos, and was going to get lots but have never bought a second.

Its fun and I have no experience with it but as said, seems like it would be a piece of cake with a few sonos speakers? As long as you're happy right.

How old are you? I had a late-40's guy admiring my Sonos setup, so maybe invite some older folks over for your next party. "Music throughout the house at the touch of a button" was a written goal of mine for many years. Now I want Alexa to mate with Sonos already. I mean, come on, why should I have to open my phone just to play music?

Seems like it'd be pretty easy to set this up.

Recently picked up a Dennon Heos setup. Works as expected. Sonos has been around for at least a decade now though, right?

Currently set up with receiver A/B wired mains and one wireless for bedroom. Probably will get another wireless outdoor speaker for summer. I think the receiver can handle about 20 wireless speakers though.

Sparks,

You've been wanting this for 15 years, yet somehow have never come across someone with a Sonos setup throughout their house nor even heard of Sonos?

Sonos, chromecast, and many other products offer this at different investment and convenience levels. I'm glad that you have found a solution that works for you, though!

FWIW chromecast audios are like $30 then you can get speakers from anywhere from $20 to $infinity (either self-powered or with amplifiers), and then from your phone do synced audio (complete with multi-speaker audio delay control) or multi-room multi-output audio.

Not to mention the discontinued Logitech Squeezebox line which was probably the nuts. And still is for those of us who have them.

Chromecast Audio would likely be the way I would try to proceed now if starting from scratch.

Oh of course Sonos, but then and even now, it hasn't really appealed to me. My issue was and is, from what I understand, you have to enter an all-Sonos world, having only their speakers to choose from. My desire was to have a selection of speakers to choose from. And my own main home theater sound system is played through apple tv, and has been for years, so Sonos was kind of off the table for me. Never seen the system installed at anyone's house, which might have sold me on it if I did see it. Seems like since around 2014 it's been a solid system from what I've read, not really sure about prior to that.

With all that, I found that online literature and reviews seem to make setting up a multi-room system easier than it actually is. The apple airplay setup, which I have, is reviewed to be easy-peasy to install, yet I went multiple hours of setup before I finally got it working right, and that was only because I discovered, then tested and then purchased a third-party app that makes it work. Until that app was installed, nope. Maximum 2 speakers, along with other issues.

Completely pedestrian OP...

A few years ago there was a really affordable wireless whole home system that would plug into any speakers you had and control multiple zones from your phone for like $79.99. I forget what brand it was but everyone raved about how well it worked and they used to sell them by the pallet load at Costco.

Synced music is great, but doesn't seem earth-shattering at this point. I love my Sonos system and it's super easy to set up/operate. I was also a fan of the Squeezebox (I go as far back as the original slimp3), but the support for that was much worse than for Sonos.

It's certainly not cheap but you can use your own speaker with Sonos using either a Connect or a Connect Amp

http://www.sonos.com/en-us/shop/connect.html
http://www.sonos.com/en-us/shop/connectamp.html

Sparks chromecast audio is the obvious choice for you. Use whatever speaker you want and pretty cheap.

So this is a good example of the general difficulty of getting music to multiple spaces using different speakers/amplifiers. If I understand this sonos equipment correctly, you'd need to spend $350 for each amplified music source. For one room, maybe, but for multiple rooms, seems pretty cost-prohibitive.

This actually looks pretty cool, and has decent reviews. Of course you'd have to buy the powered speakers and then connect them. I say again I've read plenty online about how systems deliver, but in practice they don't. Would love to hear if anyone has actually tried this and how it performs. Seems awesome though!

But for me, I've already installed my system, via airplay. Streaming to 8 separate locations at my house. Works well with the Airfoil app

Earth-shattering is a strong word, but in my opinion, it's friggin' spectacular. Music in the living room, garage, outside patio, and guest bathroom, synced. For any kind of house event, it's a pretty damn cool thing. I say again, I've personally never been to house party where it was happening. Even though it's apparently, pedestrian.

Sparks,

It's certainly pedestrian in tech-forward places like the Bay Area, la, nyc, etc, but still very cool!

But when putting together your resume, it's like:

Flew a plane after playing flight simulator a couple times
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Went from crappy steak cook to super elite steak griller with innovative techniques in no time flat
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Got synced music working in my house

The reason that people don't care is that pretty much anybody with a little cash has been able to do this in their home since at least the 70s. The modern solution may be better and easier to implement, but it's an incremental difference.

It's definitely not a killer app like affordable cell phone service or the rise of internet enabled smart phones.

You missed one:

99,

Those pallets tho!

Not even close to being an interesting person at parties, but for me, I'll suffer that resume.

Yeah squeezebox was great. Over time I stopped using the server and just used spotify through SB, and now I've my different speakers hooked up to Echo dots so I've lost the ability to sync.

Sparks,

May I be so bold as to suggest that you didn't explain to your partygoers in enough detail the difficulties of obtaining and wiring such a system throughout your entire house? Next time steer the conversation deep down this path and then maybe people will be properly impressed.