Want to listen to your music wherever you are in your home? There are a couple of solutions. You could have one, big speaker in one room and pump the volume as loud as you possibly can. That's a bad idea. Or, you could hang one of the best Bluetooth speakers from your belt, and wander around the house listening to tinny tunes. This is also a bad idea.
So what is a good idea? One of the best smart speakers is a start. You'll get better sound thanks to the Wi-Fi connection and generally higher quality audio internals. You'll also get voice control and other smart features, like simple audio streaming from your phone to the speakers. One of the most common manufacturers of smart speakers is Sonos — and they're very good.
But I don't use Sonos — or at least, not Sonos's whole home solution. Mine is a mad Frankenstein that's made up of a couple of different systems, built around some of my favorite devices. Here's how it works.
If you have a large, multi-room house, you need a different audio device in each to be able to hear your music wherever you might find yourself.
If you're like me, you'll want to use different speakers in each room that serve a slightly different purpose but can, should I need them to, all play the same music simultaneously. Or, if I'm sharing my space with someone, each speaker can play something different, but still be controlled by a single app.
That's where Roon comes in.
I've written about Roon before. It's a kind of all-in-one music streaming service, bringing together all your smart speakers and streaming devices so that you can stream music from both a home music server and services like Tidal and Qobuz. I've now been using it for the better part of six months, and it's completely changed the way my music listening at home works.
Say, for example, that I want to listen to Cannibal Corpse in the living room, while someone else listens to some garbage some pop music in the kitchen, I can use the Roon app to choose one of the living room speakers. Their music won't get stopped, and we can even listen to the same source service.
Even better, I have a music server built into Roon. See, I have a device called a Roon Nucleus One, which has a hard drive filled with my music collection so that I can listen to music at a much higher quality than you'd find on a streaming service. It also means I can listen to tunes you simply won't find on anything, be that Spotify, Tidal, or Qobuz. The music of Wendy Carlos is simply impossible to find, for example, unless you have her full CD back catalog ripped onto your hard drive. Like me.
It's easy enough to use. Plug in the Roon Nucleus One server, create an account, and log in with the Roon app. Then you can add all your streaming services, connect your devices (which are listed the moment you connect Roon to the WiFi — chef's kiss,) and you're off.
Any drawbacks?
So Roon itself doesn't have any kind of voice control support, which for some is going to be a contentious problem. I'm not bothered at all, given I only use voice controls to create timers in the kitchen (which still works with our kitchen HomePod), but some potential users aren't going to like that they can't ask the system to play music without pulling out their iPad or phone.
The Roon Nucleus One costs $499, and the monthly subscription costs even more — $14.99 per month.
It's also expensive. The Roon Nucleus One costs $499, and the monthly subscription costs even more — $14.99 per month. That's not a small amount of money by any stretch of the imagination, especially considering the free alternatives you can use. Wiim's smart service is good, and Sonos' streaming service costs nothing.
But I don't think I can see any drawbacks to my personal use case for Roon. It works flawlessly and gives me everything that I could want out of a smart audio solution. For audiophiles, there's little more you could want.
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