My two cents : Id make sure anything you got was based on Bluetooth audio and had a microphone. Then what ever you link them together with software wise doesn’t matter. You could put them together and run HomeAssistant or Openvoiceos for interaction or just have a media player running somewhere that feeds each room.

I use Google chromecast for this.

There soundbars with chromecast support.

Most major audio companies like JBL, Bose, etc, are putting out linkable speakers. I’ve got a Bose sound bar which integrates pretty flawlessly with the Google speakers I haven’t brought myself to get rid of yet. I’ve found that, if the logic exists to sync it with other speakers in its ecosystem and an integration for HA exists, you can probably add it to a whole-house setup via music assistant. And you can probably use multiple ecosystems, too (though I’m not certain you can adjust delays across ecosystems… I’ve never tried that myself, and it’s going to be the most vital part of your whole-house setup. My living room, dining room, and kitchen all have to have their delay adjusted by several milliseconds so it doesn’t sound like auditory torture when you turn on multiple speakers in the same area. My bedroom doesn’t have to be synced, though, since it’s far enough away from the other speakers that you don’t hear both at the same time.

…okay, yes, just checked and it is, indeed, quite challenging to sync delays across different ecosystems. I’d recommend keeping all your speakers in a single area (e.g. kitchen, dining, and living rooms) all in the same ecosystem and you can change manufacturers as you change rooms. https://music-assistant.io/faq/tech-info/ )

I think you’d be well-positioned to buy a few speakers according to your budget, and add more over time of any manufacturer you like (as long as it integrates with HA/MA) if you so choose. Any of the well-known brands are generally good. I personally prefer systems that don’t require an external amp, but that’s personal preference. I’ve been very happy with my Bose stuff, but lots of people love JBL, Genelec, and even our pals at Sonos re: audio quality. I think the world kind of is your oyster here, friend. Do what your heart (and ear) leads you to.

I have no experience with this, but it might be worth to investigate what Home Assistant has to offer both as a DLNA server and clients (I’m thinking on cheap SBCs in each room…)

I guess it depends if you want to put edge compute in each room. os just audio freeds to something central. But long term I’d avoid anything that uses any propriety service.

I have Sonos and it is meh. They just issued an apology in the app for how bad their app got, so I can’t really recommend it.

I keep seeing good reviews about Audio Pro. I don’t know too much about them, but they seem to have the same idea of multi-room audio.

Self hosting is the big caveat. There’s a lot of great software options, but the hardware can get to be a bit limiting if you don’t wanna play with common protocols like AirPlay or Chromecast.

Additionally, you could do a Denon or Marantz receiver or Soundbar with multi zone and cover at least 2 spaces wired and add wireless zones via their Heos protocol.

There’s also HomePod, Alexa, or even Bluetooth speakers like the UE Boom or JBL series that you can daisy chain Bluetooth speakers together. No real soundbar solution with this option. Ironically JBL Soundbars don’t communicate with their Bluetoo speakers.

Audio Engine makes some fine speakers that support WiFi or Bluetooth and all they need is power.

Kef has the incredible but pricey LS series of bookshelf and tower speakers. They are independently powered and support all kinds of wireless protocols including AirPlay.

There are a ton of audio solutions nowadays but a lot of them will still require either a wire somewhere or playing with standardized protocols.

I too wish there were a more “self hosted” options. It seems like sooner or later some more viable options will come to light though.

LMS would fit the bill perfectly. LMS, or Lyrion Music Server, formerly known as Logitech Media Server, is open source software that’s been given to the community by Logitech themselves. It used to be used to stream music from your computer to Squeezebox devices, but now you can stream it to nearly any computer, including…

Raspberry pis! By using piCorePlayer, you can turn your pi into a server for LMS, a player, or both at the same time!

I’ve been using LMS for years and can’t praise it enough. I’ve got whole house audio. My server runs on a Pi 4 and streams music from my NAS, but you can even stream it from a connected drive, Spotify, Deezer, or Qobuz!

Also, don’t fret about LMS’s…dated…UI. There’s robust themes out there, including the legendary Material Skin https://github.com/CDrummond/lms-material

Since you can use a Pi, you can connect any amp and speakers to it. Hifiberry makes great DACs that you could use for a cleaner sound, but any modern USB DAC would do well IMO.

You can still get Squeezeboxes cheaply on eBay, BTW. The Squeezebox Boom and Radio both are all-in-one WiFi enabled devices that can connect to your LMS server and stream music. Their sound quality is excellent, even for 10+ year old hardware.

If you have any questions, hit me up or check out the forums: https://forums.slimdevices.com/

https://lyrion.org/ https://www.picoreplayer.org/

When I encountered a similar situation I tried with the ikea speakers (Sonos Based) and I couldn’t get them to work without the sonos app, so I returned them.

I figured that a solution could be having, in each room, a mini-pc (RPi or similar) running RuneAudio and a set of speakers connected via audiojack.

I tried with 1 room and the proof of concept seemed to work, but didn’t invest on getting the rest of the house work.

In the end went for a couple of portable Bluetooth speakers to have floating around the place. Cheap and simple