[Connect] Multiple Speakers / Devices simultaneously

[Daniel]

Now that connect is becoming available it would be nice to be able to connect to multiple outputs at the same time. For example I have 2 connect compatable speakers... it'd be great to have these in different parts of my house and be able to stream the same music to both.

I would suggest a maximum of 3 devices at the same time. This will allow for most scenarios to be catered for without streatching the bandwidth too much that it will degrade quality.

[MarcGoodman]

Yes, I want to play Spotify through multiple devices to have it throughout my house.  Seems silly it won't do that.  When one device comes on the others stop playing.

[oldseeker]

Last night I had a dream. I saw a big, successful, multinational company not completely ignoring its customers.

..on their own so called "Community" website.

..on a section of that website that specifically asks users for ideas and invites open discussion.

..on a thread where their own "Community manager" said "Good idea. Let's see how many people agree with it :)"

..SIX YEARS ago.

Just how hard is it to spew out a corporate non-answer like "for reasons we cannot legally divulge, we are unable to implement this feature at the moment", just to say something back to the community, anything, instead of silence.

[oldseeker]

To all people using Chromecasts/Google Home and waiting endlessly for Spotify to address the multi speaker/multi room issue, this is how I got Spotify music playing simultaneously all across the house, in three different rooms.

I know this is a very specific scenario, but perhaps someone else would find this set up useful.

Instructions for Android and/or PC:

1. Create a speaker group in your Google Home app. Add all rooms/speakers you want to stream simultaneously to. Instructions from Google here.

2. If your Spotify account isn't already connected to your Google Home account, connect them now.

That's it. The new speaker group will now automatically appear on the Spotify Android client as a valid output device, just like any other Chromecast device connected to that Google account. Just hit the little "devices" icon on the bottom left and choose it from the list. Music will play on all speakers, in perfect sync.

For some unknown reason, you still cannot choose this group on the Windows Spotify client. You can't use *any* Chromecast devices on the PC unless you start the playback session on them first. Only then you can control playback from the PC. This is needlessly annoying. I submitted a new idea here on this very issue, but there are no votes yet (wink wink).

So, until they get around to that (could be another 6 years, give or take):

Instructions for PC only:

3. Download, install & run ChromeCast-Desktop-Audio-Streamer from GitHub.

4. Go to the options tab and set your recording device to the same audio device Spotify is outputting to. This would usually be the default. I've had better results with digital out rather than speaker out.

5. Set the stream format to WAV. If you get hiccups in playback later, or if your home WiFi is slow or busy, try MP3 320 kbps and 128 kbps instead.

6. Go to the Devices tab. The speaker group will appear on it. Click the name to start streaming. Voila.

One potential flaw in this workaround though, there's a slight delay between PC speakers and all other speakers. If you mute the PC speakers, it's all good. The rest of the house is perfectly synced.

It's very nice walking around the house without interrupting the song you're moving your hips to for even one second.

[MarcGoodman]

So, if I understand correctly this only works with Chromecast and Chromecast receivers/adapters on all the speakers you want to connect, correct?   I use a different streaming device (GE) to stream from my PC to my 3 stereos. It's transmitter is just connected to audio out port on the PC so I don't think the PC is even aware of its existence as a connected device.   I have one Google Home Mini and two Amazon Echo Dots that are also connected to Spotify but it will only play through one of these at a time and that kills the signal to the stereos.  I can't just make the Echos part of the Google Home speaker group and connect them to my stereos instead of my current streaming receivers, I take it.

[oldseeker]

Yeah, the desktop audio casting program I linked to is only for Chromecast connected speakers. Echos are Amazon products, unlikely they'd let us use them with a major competitor's system.

But(!) Amazon does have a speaker group equivalent. If you add the two Echos to a speaker group (on the Alexa app, it seems to be called a "Multi-Room Music group"), I bet the group would show up as a single output device on Spotify. You could output from any Spotify client to both Echos at once using the speaker group. On the mobile app, it would automatically appear on the devices list, but on the PC it would only appear after you had already started the session elsewhere (i.e. on the mobile Spotify app or via voice command to Alexa).

Until the good people at Spotify finally allow us to output to more than one destination at a time, the speaker group solution will sadly also kill the transmission to your stereos via the transmitter on the audio out port. I doubt the music streamed out will have been synced with it anyway, what are the odds that GE device and a Chromecast stream have the exact same delay.

Ideally, once Spotify finally go multi device, they would also allow advanced users to assign a delay in milliseconds to each output destination, so we can sync them manually if necessary. I previously had some Chromecasts connected to Bluetooth speakers (it's a nice touch by Google that they can even do that) and had to add a few seconds buffer on them for the music to be properly synced.

[MarcGoodman]

Thanks. So I could have an Echo Dot or a Google mini inputting to each stereo and control the system from any of them. Sounds like a better solution than what I have been doing, which often comes through scratchy or with interference.

[4runnersrule]

I can confirm that in the Alexa app you can link multiple echos together and call it everywhere then proceed to the Spotify app and it appears.

Step 1 -open Alexa app

step 2- click on the top right + button

step 3- select create multi room audio

step 4 name it whatever you like and click next and then it will take a few moments and it’ll link them all together and show up in the seperate Spotify app as “everywhere” or what you named it

unfortunately still can’t link multiple brands together.

See picture 

 

[MarcGoodman]

Thanks.  Yes I have done this.  So if I had some wireless speakers - not home assistants - they wouldn't show up to link in there, right?  One needs to get Alexa's for each room and connect them to the stereo there, right?

[4runnersrule]

The only other work around I’ve seen is hardwired and uses the telephone jacks you have in your house that aren’t being used and you plug in a rj-11 to 3.5 adapter into the wall and run a aux cord from the back of a Alexa to that adapter then you’ve essentially livened up all the phone jacks with stereo sound.(make sure you disconnect the city side connection so not to fry your echos and or liven the whole city up with Taylor swift)  Now just plug any old stereo that you have that takes rca in or aux in and run from another phone jack to 3.5 adapter and bingo bango you got multi room audio hard wired. Butttttttttt there could be a lot of “noise” on the line and also the little amplifier in the echos will have a hard time driving too much without distortion but so as long as what ever you plug in has its own power supply and amp then it’s really just getting the signal from the echo and amplifying it. 

[MarcGoodman]

Thanks again.  Yeh, my phone jacks are all in use for phones.  I think I will just have three Echo dots linked in the group and wire each of them to an existing stereo in my bedroom, living room and kitchen.  The only thing I will lose is the music now coming directly from my computer speakers. I believe the sound quality from that will be better than my existing streaming system plus I will be able to control it from each location instead of only from my computer.