Wireless multi-room has never been more user-friendly. Buy a few speakers, connect them to your home wi-fi network, provide them with a music source, and enjoy. You can play legacy media (and incorporate older speakers, given the right kit), stream from music sources or play wirelessly from locally stored media on a phone, tablet or computer. And with home cinema systems and portable, outdoor models joining the party alongside your classic wireless speakers, there's more choice than ever.
Sonos is most people's default choice, but there's a lot more to multi-room than the US giant. If you want music in every room of your house – and even the garden – step right this way, as we've rounded up the best multi-room systems tested by our experts.
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You don't have to buy a complete system, you can start with one or two speakers and expand from room to room. That's the beauty of multi-room. Most systems are now compatible with voice assistants such as Siri, Google Assistant and Amazon's Alexa, or you can control them via a mobile app. You can opt to listen to the same song in every room, or a different tune in each, ensuring a harmonious home in more ways than one.
There's a vast choice of multi-room speakers and systems on the market, but which is best? Sonos is the most recognisable brand, and with good reason. It's intuitive and sounds fantastic. But there are plenty of rivals, too, all serving tempting features such as support for hi-res audio files or your favourite streaming service, Bluetooth connectivity and more. Read on to discover the best multi-room music systems we've tested.
- Check out the best Sonos alternatives
It’s facing more competition than ever, but few multi-room offerings are as complete or as pleasurable to live with as Sonos.
Sonos as a system has two big advantages: breadth of choice and simplicity of use. In the time its rivals have been playing catch-up, Sonos has launched a whole family of products – including the Move 2, Era 300 and 100, Sonos Ray, Beam (Gen 2) and Arc soundbars, Roam portable speaker and Sub Mini – got onside with a long list of streaming services (including Apple Music Spatial Audio), and added lossless audio support, not to mention nailing the usability aspect of multi-room.
Combining a broad range of accomplished products with the most substantial selection of streaming services and the most pleasant and complete user experience, Sonos remains one of the best multi-room options.
For those dipping a toe into wireless waters, we'd always recommend giving Sonos a look.
Read the full Sonos multi-room system review
The Audio Pro range might be small compared to some multi-room rivals (there's no soundbar), and the app is a little lacking, but for sound quality at the price, it's hard to beat. And the company continues to grow the family: recent additions include the Award-winning Addon C10 Mk11 and new flagship C20.
The affordable, puck-like Link 1 hub turns your hi-fi and other Addon speakers into a simple multi-room system, while the larger Audio Pro offerings tend to deliver great sound and are easy to use.
As much as anything else, your chosen path for migration to multi-room should be about whose speakers you want around your house. For us, Audio Pro makes that particular decision admirably simple.
Read the full Audio Pro multi-room system review
There's a lot to love about Bluesound's hi-res capable multi-room system. It's one of the most musical we've heard and boasts enough midrange clarity to pick out every nuance in an expressive vocal performance.
The choice of products includes a streamer, server, streamer and amp combo and a collection of speakers ranging from the diminutive Pulse Flex 2i to the gargantuan Pulse 2i. Newer models in Bluesound's line-up, such as the Powernode Edge, a just-add-speakers streamer that earned four stars in our review, and the 2022 Award-winning Node (2021) streamer, can also join the multi-room fun.
While its speakers might be bettered in terms of performance-for-pound by Sonos and Audio Pro, this is one of the most 'hi-fi-sounding' multi-room set-ups we've tested and returns plenty of bang for buck.
Read the full Bluesound multi-room system review
We can't help but feel Denon has been typecast. And like all typecasting, it's grossly unfair – as well as its AV receivers (for which it's best known), Denon makes all manner of audio gear, like wireless speakers, soundbars, amps and headphones. And that's before you get to the 'Audio Components' section of its website, which includes turntables, audio streamers, CD players and micro systems.
A lot of this kit can work together using Denon's HEOS platform, which launched a decade ago. Not only does it bring together seemingly disparate components into a musical whole, it supports high-res audio and plays nice with streaming services like Amazon Music. You can also add Alexa skills, and control it all just by speaking – now that's power.
Of course, that wouldn't mean much were the sound quality not up to scratch, but it is. It can't quite match Audio Pro in this department, but HEOS is a great all-rounder, with a broad selection of audio components to mix and match.
Read the full Denon HEOS multi-room system review
How we test multi-room systems
At What Hi-Fi? we comprehensively test and review every product we recommend, from soundbars to speakers, headphones and TVs. And it's no different for multi-room systems.
As a rule, we do comparative testing – ensuring new products are tested against their rivals according to product type, features and price. Almost all the testing is carried out by our team of expert reviewers at our dedicated test rooms.
Multi-room speaker systems are tested for sound quality, features, ease of set-up and use, and overall performance. And we aim to test multiple products in each family, usually involving at least two wireless speakers and a soundbar but this will vary depending on each system's product line-up.
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