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davidu

So what are people using instead of Sonos AMP for home sound control?

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Chromecasts + HDMI stereos + Speaker Groups: https://support.google.com/chromecast/answer/7174267?hl=en

Works from Apple and Google mobile devices with Spotify

Apple airplay works flawlessly. Or you can buy an old Amazon fire and connect them to your own hardware.

Both of these solutions allow you to use any speaker/amp setup you choose. And if you truly care about sound quality, this is the only path.

AirPlay and multiroom is still a struggle though

Agreed but it has better sync tech than most others that I have tried. Yamaha's is buggy, Denon's buggy, but Apple TVs sync well in my multi level, multi system set up.

What’s a good way to Airplay to your own speakers?

Buy an older Apple TV, or an Amazon Fire. Connect them to your receiver and you're good to go. Or buy a newer Yamaha or Denon receiver and they'll be ready to go out of the box.

AirPlay is as about as good as it gets I think. It’s been thoroughly reverse engineered so there’s lots of open source tools for it and it’s cheap to add speakers since used AirPort Expresses are still supported AirPlay targets.

Do you need an Apple product to use AirPlay?

That makes it easier, but no. Many implementations of both servers and clients (both closed and FOSS) exist, for example AirMusic adds AirPlay casting support to Android and I’ve heard of people using rPi’s as receivers. The protocol is entirely local, there’s no remote server component at all.

Sonos Amp / Port act as airplay receiver to analog out (with amplifier in the case of Amp). They're meant to act as an input for existing ‘dumb’ speakers/amplifiers/home audio systems, and is extraordinarily fit for that purpose.

How do else could one Airplay to a ‘dumb’ stereo without something to act as an airplay receiver?

In my experience AirPlay 2 isn’t flawless, pretty much every time I try to use it there are stutters.

This is using an iPhone 16 Pro to AirPlay to a stereo pair of Sonos Five’s that are connected using Ethernet.

AirPlay isn’t a great choice if you are concerned about audio quality anyways - if you’re using AirPlay 2 you’re using 256kbps AAC, so it should sound the same as Bluetooth (or worse if you are comparing something like LDAC).

See here for more information.

https://darko.audio/2023/10/apple-airplay-isnt-always-lossle...

I'd wager it's the Sonos that is the problem. I have 0 issues with my Yamaha receivers and AirPlay, or my various branded soundbars.

Sonos never wanted to work with Apple, so I can understand why they'd never make it work.

Wiim for one option.

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