re: Inexpensive 2 zone amplifier with wifi

quote:

---

Inexpensive

---

Subjective, of course, but what you’re asking for is a generally expensive thing to do. You can do a lot of things to work around and gain this function, but a plug and play solution with two zones doesn’t exist in the “cheap” space unless I’m out of touch.


An interestingly cheap option would be:
2 Apple Airport Express routers/airplay 2 (supported, but you’ll need to update firmware if it is not up to date) receivers. You can find them on eBay for around $50
A Dayton Audio DTA30HP is around $70 and a pair of them should nicely power most built ins, but knowing the speakers would be helpful. If you have an old stereo receiver lying around that has RCA in, you can just grab a 3.5mm to RCA breakout cable and use that as the amp.
A Lepai 2020a+ can be had used on eBay around $20 (careful- make sure it has a power adapter or that you have an appropriate adapter for it!) and would probably be adequate for home use, or at least a test use.


If your phone does not support Airplay 2 (there are android apps that support it), Chromecast Audio receivers would be an option if they were available, but a quick search shows not much available.


Most every other “budget” option is Bluetooth instead of wifi. There are a number of “DLNA” devices out there with RCA outs, but they’re essentially all outdated and “casting” to them may be unreliable.

Then a step up would be any 2-zone receiver that has wifi (I would bet you’re looking $400ish for these, but who knows what’s on Craigslist, but new ones are generally $500+, and 2-zone receiver apps are probably going to be “clunkier” than airplay or DLNA “casting” from android, honestly. I have not used a particularly good one- I definitely have never used one that is as easy as opening your streaming app of choice, picking a song, and casting to the zone 1/2 of choice. You can do this inside of their apps, but Marantz’s offering was clunky as hell. Pioneer’s I didn’t like. Yamaha I didn’t like- they just require too many clicks for something that should be simpler/as simple as Sonos makes it. It’s easy for me to use. Wife/father in law/etc couldn’t figure it out. Not sure who is using this in your place)


And then you get to the Echo Link Amp which is $300 and single zone (so $600 for two zones) and I don’t have any experience with control of it. If you use Alexa a lot and like it, it will probably be fine.


Above that, Sonos amps are $700/zone (you can hook both sets of speakers to one quite easily and push them comfortably, but you get one source that way).


Above that there are a number of dealer systems, but these are probably the most common methods to achieve what you want.