Chances are that, unless you’re one of those vinyl weirdos, your listening pleasure comes from a digital source, whether it’s music you bought from a digital storefront or a subscription-based streaming service, you’re probably filling your ears with ones and zeros.
Which means there’s no longer a need to confine our music to one dedicated hifi system, a living room centerpiece that was still in vogue just a few years ago but is now all but obsolete. These days a smartphone or tablet provides the music processing and a wireless speaker (usually Bluetooth-powered) turns it into soundwaves. We’re not just talking about cheap and cheerful speakers here, you can get audiophile-grade Bluetooth speakers fill a room with high-end sound as quickly as they drain your bank account.
For the home automation enthusiast it’s hardly elegant to carry a Bluetooth mobile speaker around from one room to the next, which is why multi-room audio systems are so cool. They allow you to have the same song playing in sync in all the rooms where you place the speaker. Some let you play different audio in each room, but either way you can control all the audio in your home from a single interface.
So here are some of the best selling multi-room audio systems you can buy online today. Reviews of the ones I really like go at the top, and the rest hang around the bottom.