The best multi-room speaker systems for music all around the house

We’ve been hands-on with multiple systems, and after testing, we think Sonos is a brand you should focus on. It is a great way to enjoy multi-room audio, but it’s definitely not affordable.

Who is it for? This is a great all-in-one multi-room system. Once you get past the setup (and high cost of entry if you’re buying lots of speakers), it’s a seamless experience, from the app to the touch controls. The sound quality is balanced and loud enough for home use, and the sturdy build means the speakers last for years.

Why we like it: Sonos offers a good balance of price, design, ease of use, a well-explained setup process and top audio quality. Its speakers are well built, have excellent audio quality out of the box and come in a variety of shapes and sizes, from the portable Roam 2 to the hulking Sub Mini. Its most recent speakers all have responsive touch controls and a privacy switch that turns off the voice assistants and mics. Within the Sonos smartphone app, the layout is simple, and it works like a control centre for every Sonos speaker on your network.

How it connects: For our tests, we used an Era 100 speaker in our living room downstairs and an Era 300 in the office upstairs, and via the app, we could easily choose where the music was playing and at what volume with a few quick taps. Clicking into the settings allowed us to tinker with EQ settings or add voice assistance via Sonos Voice or Alexa.

The main upside of the system is how seamless it feels (and is) to use. All the speakers work in harmony, and it’s easy to expand. When we added the Era 300 to our network, the app immediately detected it, and we were blasting music in under five minutes. We found it to be beginner-friendly, too. The app guides you through the initial setup, although some of us could find the number of steps overwhelming.

You’ll have to create an account, add your wifi details, give your speaker a name and location and listen out for some pairing chimes and beeps – but the process will be familiar if you’ve ever added a wireless speaker or a pair of wireless headphones to your smartphone. Sonos does need a wifi connection to work effectively. Some of its speakers connect via Bluetooth, but true multi-room is based on wifi.

Who is it for? This is a great option for iOS users, and while the speakers can be expensive if you want multiple devices around your home, the software works well. Using AirPlay 2 is also a very good option for adding third-party speakers.

How it connects: If you have an iPhone in your pocket or an iPad slate at home, then we highly recommend using Apple’s line-up of speakers. They communicate via Apple's own wireless streaming technology, called AirPlay 2, and can be used as part of a multi-room audio system if you dot them around your home.

You change settings on the speakers via the Control Centre on your iPhone, iPad or MacBook, or ask the speakers to play music in specific rooms using the Siri voice assistant. It’s not just Apple devices with AirPlay built-in (for example, the Sonos Era has it, alongside speakers from Denon, Bose and JBL), and we’ve used it to pair a Roku Streambar in the living room to a Sonos Roam on our balcony without experiencing lag or desyncing. However, you do need an Apple device to get the playback started, as there’s no way to start AirPlay from an Android handset.

Why we like it: We find Apple’s own HomePod series has the best connectivity and seamless pairing, particularly when you’re asking it to play music in specific rooms or everywhere at once, even if we have previously encountered some volume mis-alignment due to the speakers always playing at the last volume used.

We love that you can set HomePods as a stereo pair and enhance music or TV audio, but that approach quickly gets expensive (two full-size HomePods will set you back around £600).

One perk for iOS users is Apple’s Handoff, which lets you transfer audio from an iPhone to a HomePod or HomePod Mini by bringing it physically closer to the speaker. We tested it with Spotifty and podcasting apps and it works well, giving nice haptic feedback when the playback hops from the phone to the speaker.

Do you already have a few Echo speakers dotted around your home? There’s a good chance you’ve got a basic multi-room system that you weren’t aware of. That’s right – Amazon’s “Multi-Room Music” feature is built into its devices, making this a more affordable way to enjoy music and podcasts across your home.

Who is it for? An Amazon multi-room system is ideal if you’re on a much tighter budget, and there’s a very good chance you’ve already got some installed around your home. The day-to-day user experience compared to Sonos is less impressive, as the app layout is cluttered and also shows our other connected gadgets like lights, plugs and bulbs in the same place. We encountered an unfortunate bug that blasted music at full volume until we physically turned down each device, and it’s not easy to individually control speakers as they’re playing.

How it connects: If you have multiple Echos on your wifi, the app automatically groups them as “Everywhere” but you can edit the selection by going to the Speaker Groups section of the Device tab. From there, choose which of your devices you would like to play music on at the same time. It works, but it’s not always pretty. We paired two Echo Dots (one in the bedroom and one in the living room) so we could listen to music upstairs and downstairs at the same time but have it ignore the Echo Show 15 installed in the kitchen that we use to watch recipes while cooking.

Why we like it: While we think that Sonos is superior in every way as a multi-room speaker system, we do appreciate this as a significantly more affordable option. As the Alexa-powered Echo Dot range is regularly priced at under £50, these make it possible to enjoy multi-room audio in three rooms of your home for under £100.

Who is it for? This is not what we consider to be an easily accessible multi-room system, as the speaker selection is limited, but it may appeal to anyone already in the Bose ecosystem, particularly if you’re using a soundbar with SimpleSync tech.

How it connects: Just like the Sonos speakers, Bose devices have both wifi and Bluetooth pairing. The line-up has a stronger focus on home theatre setups instead of speakers - including soundbars, amplifiers and surround sound systems. These all feature tech called SimpleSync, and this lets devices communicate over a wifi connection and the Bose Music app.

Why we like it: We love Bose audio quality - it’s bassy and robust. The speaker selection for multi-room devices is much smaller when compared to Sonos, but it’s definitely worth your attention if you already have a few Bose devices in your home, like a Smart Soundbar for your TV, and prefer to stick with the brand.

What to consider when starting a multi-room speaker system

Investing in a quality multi-room system may sound challenging if you’re unsure what you’re looking for, but we’re here to help. Here what to consider when choosing:

Check your budget

Like always when buying new technology, how much you can spend on a multi-room system dictates which brands are available to you. Sonos is easily our favourite multi-room system option in 2023, but Amazon Echo devices are significantly more affordable, and it’s possible to buy seven Echo Dot 5th gen speakers for the price of one single Sonos Era 100.

Choose your brand

Like a smart home, it’s vital to have strong foundations. Your speakers are tightly connected to an app and this matters if you plan on adding more devices in the future. You’ll always get the most seamless experience by pairing with devices from the same company. That has slightly changed in recent years thanks to AirPlay connectivity, which lets you add third-party speakers to your multi-room system -- just make sure you check the device specs when you're expanding to make sure it’s compatible with AirPlay. If so, you shouldn’t have a problem with connecting.

Portability and size

Speakers come in different shapes and sizes, so have a look at models from each company to see which best fit your home and decor. Sonos has the most choice of speakers when it comes to size and portability, from the portable Roam to the hulking Sonos Five. We find the Era 100 or the Move to be a nice balance if it's going on a cabinet or bookshelf, but the Era 300 is ideal if you have more space around it to experience the booming volume and immersive spatial audio. Also, we advise having a quick glance at the weight – many speakers are described as being portable because they have a built-in handle, but actually weigh more than 2kg.

Voice assistant support

Sonos has the broadest voice assistant support in the multi-room space and is (mostly) able to work with Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant and its own assistant, Sonos Voice. But always check which voice assistant is built into the speaker, for example Google Assistant is available on all voice-enabled Sonos products except for Era 100 and the Era 300 – those only come with Alexa and Sonos Voice. Apple speakers are limited to its own assistant, Siri.

Can you use a smart speaker?

Smart speakers offer multi-room functions using their built-in voice assistant: Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant or Apple’s Siri. However, we found that while they’re decent at playing one song on every compatible speaker in the house, some struggle when you play different music on different speakers at the same time (the notable exception was Apple’s HomePod). On occasion, we found that speakers from different manufacturers result in music being slightly out of sync when playing in different rooms.

Another downside is there isn’t as wide a range of speakers from each brand, so you may end up with different-looking speakers in each room. It’s worth noting that many multi-room speakers come with their own type of voice assistants (like Sonos Voice) and they may not be as effective as native devices.

Privacy concerns

We’ve all become pretty comfortable with having listening devices in our living rooms these days, but we appreciate that many of the best multi-room systems have built-in privacy protections. Sonos shines at this: for example, on the Era range there’s a touch button to disable voice assistance, plus a dedicated physical switch on the back that turns off all power to the microphone.

There is also a mic-off button on Amazon’s Echo series. With HomePods, you’d need to turn off the microphone within Apple’s Home app or by asking Siri to “stop listening”, although to re-enable the microphone, you’d still need to go into the app.