Don't see any info on this. Spotify Connect doesn't see to work on multiple devices at once and that's a pain in a multi-room system. Hoping Airplay 2 can do better. Also wondering if Airplay 2 will stream directly from the internet rather than from device selecting the music.

No. Not an anything. Not even on their own iDevices. Apple is behind the game. With iMessage cloud sync too.



Here’s an article from nov. No progress since then. [Link: 9to5mac.com]

Why bother with it when Sonos, HEOS, MusicCast and the others work so well?

I think that everyone, Players, Services, Manufacturers, Amazon, Google, Apple, etc. are scrambling to claim territory and lock customers into a vertical market. Along the way there will be some false starts and large flame outs. For example: at one point BlackBerry was king and Microsoft thought that it had enough resources and market clout to carve out some space in the phone market. In 2005 Sonos was viewed as a clueless upstart in a market where everyone else knew that audio gear was a black box with knobs. More recently voice control was a novelty only worthy of an eye roll.

This must be the reason vinyl, and now cassettes have made their return. Sooooo easy. Put the music (yes....physically put the actual music) in the machine, push some buttons to make some things move, and then sound comes out. Brilliant!

We do not need no stinking internet, firmware update, account password, or subscription.

Next thing you know, people will be ditching their "smart" phones and going back to using landlines and answering machines with those micro cassettes to send messages back and forth. Or hell, even re-learning how to write on paper with a pen and buying USPS stamps again.

I can play a single Spotify connect stream to every room in my home just fine... Single HC800 going into a 8AMP1..

Is this another stack of sonos's problem?

It's just that yesterday I thought I'd take a break from Sonos try to get MusicCast working in an installation. Sold them a Music Cast amp to work with a Two Zone Yamaha receiver with MusicCast. What a nightmare that is with Spotify. I was embarrassed at how difficult it was. So much easier with Sonos isn't it?

Right after that I set up a single zone Sonos system with Spotify premium. That was really fun setting up a crapload of accounts while the customer could not remember iTunes password to download Spotify app. To add to that the customer's iOs was out of date so I had to wait an eternity to update while other jobs were waiting for the rest of the day. How is anyone supposed to figure this out without hiring someone. It's all pretty f**k'd up.

I swear there has to be a better job out there, I'm done with all this.

Don't use a two zone receiver for MusicCast.
Get a RXV483 and a WXA50, this will give you independent Spotify / network streaming without the typical restrictions you get in AVR's. Budget won't be overly different.

It is called grouping in Sonos world. It is very easy to get going. Even with the new app I just fired up a couple rooms in my house.

That's a Spotify/Yamaha matter, from what I was told- Spotify won't allow the MusicCast app to work the way we want/need (licensing issue). OTOH, that came from Yamaha, so it's a bit like the Emo Phillips bit where he says "I used to think my brain was the smartest organ in my body, but then I realized what was telling me this".

Are you saying that Spotify connect can connect to multiple speakers using only the Spotify app? I understand that you can link multiple MusicCast zones together to get the same stream but I don’t want to open the MusicCast app first to do that. What’s good about Sonos vs everyone else is you can control Spotify in their app so unless others can do this or Spotify or Airplay can stream to multiple zones natively, I’m still not interested in othe solutions

Yup - only Sonos can link Spotify zones from the Spotify app.
Until Airplay 2 comes on-line or Spotify opens up to other platforms (who knows if / when they will do this with their recent moves) Sonos is the only one to do this.
Otherwise you'll need to group within the manufacturers apps.

Seriously how dumb are all of these companies who just can't do what Sonos is doing. My mind is blown over the fact that it's been over ten years and they still don't get it. Come on what the fu*k????

It's an exclusive licensing agreement between Sonos (the biggest player in the multi-room WiFi speaker game) and Spotify. It's not that they are 'dumb' or anything else like that, it's down to commercial licensing. Sonos will protect the agreements / approaches they have, see the current Sonos vs Heos lawsuit...

Over time the exclusivities will disappear, don't worry, there's too many people at the door of Spotify / Tidal / Deezer / Pandora / Apple etc etc. But it will take time as it always does.