A wireless multiroom speaker system is the easiest way to listen to music, podcasts, and other audio entertainment in more than one room at a time, and Sonos is the best option. It supports the widest variety of streaming services, the speakers sound great, and it’s easier to set up and use than most multiroom systems. The competition is catching up, but Sonos still offers the most complete and reliable package overall.
Our pick
Sonos Era 100
This speaker produces a full, well-balanced sound and fits nicely in any room. It has built-in Alexa voice control, but the implementation is not as intuitive as on a native Alexa system.
Sonos Era 300
This speaker can play spatial audio from Apple and Amazon, and it delivers a more spacious sound even with regular stereo music. But audio purists may prefer one of Sonos’s more traditional speaker designs.
Sonos Five
This is the flagship speaker in Sonos’s tabletop lineup, and it easily fills large spaces with full-range, detailed sound comparable to that of nice bookshelf speakers. But it carries a premium price.
If sound quality, easy setup, and intuitive operation are your top priorities in a multiroom wireless speaker system, Sonos is our recommendation. Sonos has made these systems for longer than anyone, and its experience shows at every level. The mobile and desktop apps are among the most polished available and offer unified search across every service you subscribe to, including Apple Music.
Sonos’s speaker offerings come at various prices. Currently you can choose between five tabletop speakers, priced from $200 to $550. The company also sells three portable speakers and two subwoofers, which you can pair with any existing Sonos speaker to add some oomph. And you can even add Sonos to your TV using any of the company’s three smart soundbars—Arc, Beam, and Ray—all of which can pair with two other Sonos speakers to form a surround system.
Note that the Sonos ecosystem has two main drawbacks. First, it is a closed system, so you have to use Sonos-branded products. Second, though many Sonos speakers have both Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant support built in, the system’s voice-control capabilities are not as advanced as what you can get from those platforms’ own smart speakers.
Also great
Amazon Echo (4th Generation)
This small, spherical speaker sounds better than previous Echo designs, and its native Alexa support allows for more advanced voice control.
Amazon Echo Studio
If you want to add spatial-audio capabilities and higher volume to your multiroom wireless music system, this speaker is the most affordable way to do so.
If you’re looking for a more affordable multiroom wireless music system that still sounds great, or if advanced voice control is especially important to you, Amazon’s Echo family of smart speakers is a good alternative to Sonos. Although none of the Echo speakers sound as good as anything in the Sonos lineup, the latest generation of Amazon speakers is a big improvement over earlier Echo devices. Using voice commands to operate a synchronized multiroom music system requires a little more in the way of setup—and isn’t quite as intuitive as Sonos’s app control—but the Echo system’s configuration and operation don’t require an unreasonable amount of effort. The standard Amazon Echo (4th Generation) and the larger Echo Studio are both great picks, and the latter offers Dolby Atmos spatial audio support.
You could also add the more affordable Echo Dot to the mix if you have Bluetooth speakers in and around the house that you want to add to your multiroom music system. On its own, the Echo Dot’s sound quality is pretty solid for a $50 speaker, but due to its small size and lack of bass, you would probably want to use it only for the most casual music listening or for podcasts and audiobooks.
