Everything You Need to Know about Smart Music System In your Home

By Mamnun Ahmed Nihal

Music is an essential component of our existence. From being in a happy state to the gloomiest part of our life, we require the succor of music. Continuing with everything smart in your house, your music system should be upgraded too. Smart music system can be a little complex to grasp at first but today you’ll comprehend all you need to know about smart home music system, in as simple way as possible.

Important Factors You Need to Know Before Acquiring Any System :

• It’s a Continuous Process: You don’t necessarily have to purchase everything at once, you may buy some products then you can decide what more you can add to complete your system.
• Compatibility is Necessary: Smart Music system can be compared with an ecosystem, where everything you buy have to be compatible with each other. You have to make sure your existing apps and devices support the music system you’ve acquired.  
• Make Sure Your System Offers Multi-room: Since we are focusing on a complete house structure (to make it smarter), we just can’t rely on a product that only offers a single room music solution. Multi-room systems presents its speakers in multiple rooms which are distributed with sound from a central music source. With smart multi-room system, you can play different music in each room or the same music in all of the rooms.
• Say No to Wired Music Solutions, no to Bluetooth too: You might think wired systems will provide more steadiness to your music, but trust me on this, nowadays Wi-Fi based audio systems are more dependable. And you can’t use Bluetooth for the whole house as for its low range. Consequently, wireless systems are most suitable for smart homes. However, you can use hybrid system as well. Wireless solutions are easy to setup too.
• Making Sure that the Sound Range Matches with the Room Size:
• If your device intended for a tinier space, you won’t need a full 7.1 channel setup; a soundbar or single speaker will do the work effectively. For larger Rooms, you need to purchase a full setup.
• Having Waterproof Products for Your Yard and Restrooms: Though clearly, making sure of water-resistant products in the possible moist area is a judgment call, you can take it as a simple reminder.
• Don’t Forget About Sound Quality: Never compromise with Sound quality because sooner or later we sense the need of a quality sound from our audio devices.
  By keeping these factors in mind, you’re ready to proceed for purchasing a system.

Now Let’s know about the pros and cons of the most popular smart music systems :

When you start researching about smart music systems, the name that will occur the most is SONOS.  It’s one of the best wireless home music system you can ever find. For four room set (Sonos One SL) It will cost you about 65000-75000 BDT.

Positives:

• Easy to setup
• Alexa voice assistance system
• Compatibility with your existing audio devices
• Vast Music Streaming Support
• Not so Expensive

Negatives:          

• Sound Quality is good but not top-notch.

Here’s Everything you need to know about SONOS.

Although Bose are famous for their Headphones, they also have sound smart sound systems. Bose SoundTouch 30 wireless speaker will cost 50000-60000 BDT.

Positives :

• Neat app support
• Works in both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth
• Alexa voice support
• Preset buttons on speakers for playing favorite sources
• OLED displays on most of the devices 
  

Negatives :

• Low user rating

Bluesound Node 2i will cost 55,000 – 65,000 BDT.

Positives :

• Good sound quality
• Supports MQA (Master Quality Authenticated)
• Airplay 2 and Alexa compatibility.

Negatives :

• Not suitable for low-res music
• A bit expensive.

 Yamaha MusicCast 50 will cost you around 50,000-60,000 mark.

Positives :

• Excellent ecosystem
• Various options to choose from
• Alexa Support

Negatives :

• Bad user reviews
• System App is not as good as others.

Denon HEOS 5 will cost you 40,000-50,000 BDT.

Positives :

• Can access hi-res music from a flash drive
• Alexa support

Negatives :

• Plastic build seems fragile

These are the solutions that provides whole system solutions. However, there are more companies that provides some devices, not the whole package, we can mention Chrome cast built-in, Apple Air Play/Air Play 2, Naim Audio Mu-so, Samsung R-Series and the most gorgeous one Ruark.

Author’s Recommendation: SONOS is the all-round smart music system that’s not too expensive, provides good music and can be found easily in our country. Therefore, we recommend it.

Best overall: Sonos One

Great sound Quality: Naim Mu-So

Best for hi-res audio: Bluesound Pulse Flex

Great looking speakers: Ruark

Versatile multi-room: Samsung

Best Ecosystem: Yamaha MusicCast

Easy to Use: Bose SoundTouch

Useful In-wall Cables & Accessories: Here total cost will be less than 10000 BDT.                                

• In wall sound control
• Bulk cable
• Wiring enclosures & brackets
• In-wall speaker cable
• Wall plates & inserts
• Terminals
• Cable adapters
• Cable tools
• RF splitters
• Power supplies & distribution

Where to Buy:

The best option would be, to buy things from Amazon or Alibaba.com, since, Amazon does not deliver products in Bangladesh and Alibaba is a platform to purchase mostly for business owners, you have to buy them from mediator platforms. There are many groups and websites who’ll buy you the products you want from international online stores, you just have to pay a little extra to them (the mentioned prices are set considering this fee also). Another option could be bringing the devices by a relative or friend who’s living outside of our country. However, if you want to purchase from a Bangladeshi store, Sony would be a good option, available in Sony dealer stores or from online platforms of our country. Physical store options are ‘Bose’ Address: 134, New Eskaton Road, Dhaka 1000, any computer stores from BCS computer city specially Star Tech or Ryans Computer. The cost will completely depend on what devices you’re going to buy and how will you set your system up. The price that I’ve mentioned is very much relative, and for just to give an idea about the brands.

Now you’ve got everything to start planning about your house’s smart music system. Prioritize your needs and start comparing the devices of the brands that I’ve mentioned; many reviews can be observed in YouTube and blogs, comparing and guiding which particular devices are best for you.