Wireless Multi-room WiFi Speaker Reviews

Best Overall: SONOS PLAY:3

Good on you, SONOS. This is what I love in a speaker design. It looks elegant, expensive, and solid. It doesn’t matter that it may or may not be mostly air, what matters is that it looks heavy and premium. Although, to me, the white color option does make this a little less so.

Each unit has two mid-range drivers, a tweeter and a bass radiator rather than a dedicated woofer. Bass radiators are a very clever way to get close to the bass response performance of larger systems while maintaining that unobtrusive size and shape.

The PLAY:3 is exactly what I want in a multi-room setup. The speaker can be installed permanently, set down horizontally or vertically, and even hidden out of sight. Neat and elegant.

There’s no limit on the number of rooms you can add PLAY:3 speakers to, and you can mix and match with other speakers in the series such as the Play:1 and Play:5. Sonos’ app links up to all the streaming services that you subscribe to and then lets you control playback on a room-by-room basis.

Sonos speakers automatically get software updates and support for additional services. Although out of the box you are ready to go with Apple Music, Amazon Music, Pandora, Google Play Music, Spotify and more, pretty much every major streaming service is supported. These Sonos speakers are endowed with “Trueplay”, which the company claims provides rich, room-filling sound. They also say that you will hear more details in songs than ever before.

Coolest Pick: GGMM M3 Retro

It may be my age showing, but I love the look of the GGMM M3. It has that brushed aluminum style front panel and speaker cones that are clearly visible through the mesh. I don’t know why there is this obsession with hiding the speaker cone these days, I personally love watching the cones work and it makes the whole thing look awesome. I also dig the leather bits the box is wrapped in. When they say retro, they mean the best of audio equipment style from the past.

The downside is that this unit is very expensive. When it comes to these multi-room speakers I have to be harder on price than usual, simply because we are expected to buy not just one, but many of these units.

Where did the money go? Well, apart from the amazing styling and materials this unit comes with some impressive audio components. You have two glass fiber mid bass units and two silk dome tweeters. Although it would be better to have a dedicated bass speaker, the glass-fiber material should help to keep the frequencies better separated and give an experience close enough to having a dedicated subwoofer.

You can have up to ten speakers and if you have two speakers in the same room you can have one stream the left channel while the other streams the right. Of course, if you do this you move into blowing a grand on one room’s audio. Yeesh.

The sound? Owner’s of this beast say it is top notch. I’ve hardly ever seen such a strong vote of confidence in audio quality from lots of different people. Audio quality is very subjective and even with objectively high-end sound people will disagree a lot.

While this speaker is pricey, I think it’s worth the money. If you can stomach the price this would be my recommendation.

Best for the Money: iDeaUSA Smart WiFi Speaker

This is another brand that I have never heard of, but right off the bat I approve of its simple and effective styling. When I look at these speakers I have to imagine how good it will look in my home. After all, the idea behind these speakers is that they should make your home look nicer and add a great convenience to it.

This speaker doesn’t go out to look pretty, but it looks handsome.

For a speaker at this price it has a lot to offer on paper. There are three drivers and a dedicated subwoofer. It also supports Bluetooth, 3.5mm aux, and has an integrated battery. As I say elsewhere on this page, I don’t like the idea of a battery in a WiFi multi-room speaker. Just buy a dedicated portable Bluetooth speaker instead.

Sound-wise people who own these are pretty lyrical about them. Some people claim that they almost rival Bose in perceived sound quality. Whether this is true on an objective level is debatable, but in the end what you hear is more important than what’s on paper.

As far as I can see there’s nothing better in terms of sound at this price level. It is certainly the most affordable way to cover every room in a home with good sound.

Denon HEOS 1 Wireless Speaker

I guess designing attractive speakers is a lot harder than I think it is, because for some reason a lot of companies fail at it repeatedly. This speaker from Denon is an egregious example. I had a series of PC speakers from the mid-90s that looked just like this. Yup, this HEOS is ugly with a capital H, but maybe its specs will be a saving grace.

This particular model supports high resolution audio and just about every streaming service you can think of. There is also an optional battery add-on product known as the HEOS 1 GO, this provides six hours of portable power. If course this extra flexibility will cost you, but it’s nice to have the option.

Another thing I do appreciate is the fact the the HEOS is sealed against humidity, which can be a real killer of electronics in some environments.

This is another speaker that is not limited to WiFi streaming, Bluetooth is built-in, which means you can also directly beam audio to it from the appropriate source. You can also connect via USB and a plain old stereo jack. It’s all there.

The actual sound circuitry is a cut above in the HEOS, at least on paper. You can customize the EQ on the speaker itself and the amplifier is a good quality, dual-channel model.

This amp powers the two drivers, a wider-than-usual midrange speaker and a dedicated dome tweeter.

Users complain about the app being unfriendly and compared to other similar speakers it seems there is a lack of bass. However, taken by itself the bass is good enough and the sound is acceptable. What bums me out is the price. This is more expensive than either the Sonos and Bose, both speakers which give more bass and a fuller sound going by user opinions. I would choose either of those speakers over this Denon.

SONOS PLAY:1 Multiroom Wireless Home Speaker

The PLAY:1 is the little brother to my top pick, the PLAY:3. Obviously it’s not quite at the same standard as the PLAY:3, because that’s how it’s been designed, but the PLAY:1 provides some of the best bang for buck you’ll get in this segment of the market.

The PLAY:1 is small and unobtrusive. Sonos also says that it is designed to withstand high humidity. How high is not explicitly stated, but it does sound like these may work well in a kitchen or the room with the hot tub. Your mileage may vary.

Since you can mix and match the different PLAY speakers now and you now longer need a special bridge device, you can put the PLAY:1 in rooms that don’t need quite as much oomph.

The sound quality at moderate volumes is apparently on par with the bigger boys, with a relative lack of bass a predictable complaint. However, this is only something you’d notice relative to more bassy speakers. In isolation, the PLAY:1 sounds great.

The PLAY:1 is a great little speaker and if you are planning on investing in the superlative PLAY:3, then you might as well plan on getting a few of these to spread the music around to the less central corners of the home.

Samsung Radiant360 R7 Wi-Fi

Unlike the R1 Radiant 360, which I look at on this page as well, the R7 is an unashamedly high-end product. It’s not as expensive as the HEOS 7, but it’s not far off either.

I have to commend Samsung on the design of this speaker. My main criticism of the R1 is that the tube thing had been done and really doesn’t look that great, but this R7’s egg-shaped styling is interesting, futuristic, and I want it in my own home from an aesthetic point of view.

These Radiant360 speakers have a unique gimmick where they use a set of acoustic lenses to project the sound evenly in a 360-degree ring. There’s obviously no stereo with this technology, but it should work well for group listening where people were not going to notice stereo in any case. You can simply make sure everyone can hear things equally well.

This is one of the most powerful speakers I’ve seen in this product category. This has a stonking 24W of power and a fat five-inch subwoofer. There’s Bluetooth, WiFi and Soundconnect support as well.

The sound and hardware in this speaker are phenomenal, the problem that it shares with the rest in this series comes from the wonky software. This is a common issue with Samsung products, which I love to death, but the software is usually the low point. When it comes to a TV or smartphone you can either ignore or replace the software, but in the case of a speaker like this the multi-room functionality depends on the software and I am seeing too many complaints about it. If Samsung ever sorts this out it will be a top product, but until then I’d rather have a HEOS 7.

Beoplay A6 Music System by Bang & Olufsen

This is the cheaper member of the Beoplay “A” range, and by “cheaper” I mean it only costs a grand rather than almost three times that much.

I’m split on the design of this speaker. It has some impressive tricks with it’s shape and size, but to me it looks more like some sort of foot-heater than a speaker. It’s completely a personal opinion, but I think they missed the boat on this design. They include a picture of the A6 without the wool sock cover and that looks great. Put some speaker grills on that puppy and you’d have a winner.

The A6 has a total of 260W of power split over five amplifiers. It has no fewer than two five and a half inch woofers, one full-range speaker, and two tweeters.

So yes, this is a very powerful speaker that promises to blow even large rooms away with rich, powerful and clear audio if you look at the on-paper specification.

B&O say that the A6 was envisioned as the modern replacement for the classic home stereo.

The A6 supports Bluetooth, Airplay, DLNA, and Spotify Connect. At first I thought that WiFi was not included somehow, but that support is hidden down in the technical documentation. I guess B&O thought people would just know that this had to have WiFi to be multi-room compatible. You can also connect a USB device and the A6 will play MP3, WMA, AAC, ALAC, FLAC, WAV and AIFF.

What’s the verdict on the sound? Well, we’re definitely in audiophile territory here and if you are currently using something from the upper part of the mainstream from Bose or another reputable brand this would represent a strong upgrade. There are no real negatives about the A6, but the price is a sticking point, especially if you want to run two in stereo per room or have many rooms to cover.

Thanks to the generally abysmal sound you get from the tiny speakers they squeeze into even high-end flatscreen TVs these days, aftermarket speaker solutions have become more popular than ever. While many people still want a surround-sound home theater setup, a new product known as a “sound bar” has pushed cumbersome surround kits in a bit of a niche these days. It’s not that soundbars are cheaper than surround sound – often they are as expensive as a multi-speaker system.

Sonos has some very impressive speakers in the PLAY series, but this PLAYBAR stands apart as being a device with two different roles. On the one hand it’s a soundbar meant to give you a far superior TV viewing experience compared to just the built-in horns. You can choose to have just the soundbar, an additional subwoofer, or an entire surround kit. These three options range from insanely expensive to ludicrously expensive. If the amount of money Sonos is asking for this soundbar is anything to go by, this is a serious bit of kit.

If we judge it just as a soundbar the price certainly makes me balk, but it is probably one of the best sounding and most elegant soundbar solutions out there. The unit has an incredible nine speakers meant to produce sound that is true to life. It only needs two wires as well – one for power and one for optical input. Turning the bar into a surround system basically just involves adding two PLAY:1 speakers for the rear channels.

Going the whole hog will cost you nearly two grand, but you also have all the same streaming features and multi-room audio. The downside? Since the idea is that all your sources go to the TV and then to the Playbar, it means your aren’t really getting digital surround. Most TVs don’t pass more than two channels through the optical port, even high-end ones. That’s why so many systems make use of HDMI pass-throughs or direct connection from a source device.

If all you want is a very high-end sound bar then the Playbar is an excellent choice, but if you plan on making it part of a surround system in future I would be very careful that you aren’t building the world’s most expensive stereo instead.