A few years ago I was searching for solutions to stream music around the house, specifically the same stream in multiple rooms, or whole-house streaming.

There were some speaker systems that do this natively (Sonos for example), which I bought for some areas, but I have other amplifiers and speaker situations that are too costly for Sonos solutions.

The speaker situation I am referring to are speakers installed by the previous owners, in multiple rooms. Five of these speakers are installed in the ceiling for surround sound, and four more pairs of speakers are in other areas. Sonos has its benefits but their amplifiers are very expensive for what they are.

Multiple Room Streaming the Old Way

The old way of accomplishing a multi-room speaker system was to run speaker wire from the amplifier to each set of speakers, even speakers in other rooms.

This is why many receivers in the 70s and early 80s had multiple speaker outputs, such as an A/B or A/B/C selector. Many would allow multiple selections at once while others allowed only one to be selected at a time.

Usually these receivers had the speaker sets connected in parallel and the better designed amplifiers would support speaker impedances as low as 2 ohms for example, which allows for 3 sets of 8 ohm speakers to be used at the same time, or two sets of 4 ohm speakers to be used at the same time.

It should be noted that you should avoid loading an amplifier with an impedance lower than its minimum rating. For example, most lower cost amplifiers these days will allow only speaker impedances of 8 ohms. Some will go down to 6 ohms. Few (more expensive) will go down to 2 ohms. If you go below the minimum allowable impedance, you could either trip the output protection circuit (if the amplifier has one), or worse, you can damage the amplifier.

Alternatively, another option for multiple room streaming is piping a music source into a low power FM transmitter, and then tuning into the transmitted FM signal on the receivers in each area.

Some amplifiers I have offer Bluetooth as a source, but Bluetooth does not support multiple targets at once (at least not yet) and the range is limited.

Streaming Devices

Adding a streaming device to amplifiers I already own would be far less expensive than other options. A streaming device is something that connects to your WiFi network (or hardwired network) and connects to your amplifier via an audio input connection, either digital or analog.

There are many streaming devices out there which are compatible with both the Android and Apple platforms. Some will even connect directly to a streaming service such as Spotify for example without the need for a smart phone or tablet to stream music.

In addition to streaming, many devices support synchronized or simultaneous streaming amongst multiple devices. This is a feature needed for multiple room streaming where each room or area has its own amplifier.

One example of multiple device streaming is AirPlay 2 for the Apple ecosystem which allows multiple streaming targets, all synchronized.

The synchronization is important because you would not want the music in one area to be out of sync in another area, especially when you can hear multiple areas at once. The effect of poorly synchronized streaming would be at best a slight echo effect, and at worst, audio that is separated by several seconds.

The audio streaming must be synchronized as if it were the same source directly connected to each of the amplifiers.

Apple AirPlay 2

I use Apple devices (iPhone and iPad) to stream. I do this because of the fact that all of my music is in iTunes, which is synched on all of my Apple devices – it is convenient.

If a device supports AirPlay or AirPlay 2, you can stream to it from any Apple device. For example, Sonos supports AirPlay 2 and those devices, when on the same network, become visible to Apple devices for streaming.

Many devices support AirPlay, even some of the amplifiers I have. However, not all support AirPlay 2, which is what adds the simultaneous streaming protocol needed for multiple room streaming.

I have tried other devices by other brands and other protocols with varied success. Most often what I have found is they do not synchronize very well or they drop off after awhile. Others require an app to accomplish streaming to multiple devices. Lastly, some of these devices are quite expensive, especially if many are needed.

AirPort Express (2nd Gen)

The AirPort Express was a device sold by Apple which was intended to be used as a network bridge. It was used to connect a wired device to a wireless network. Most commonly, these would be used to add a wired network printer or USB printer to a WiFi network.

As of the writing of this article, these devices (2nd Gen) are no longer in production, no longer used much these days, and very easy to find on auction sites. For example, I picked up three of them for $50 off eBay a few years back.

Why would I mention a network bridge device for home audio streaming?

If you look at the back of this device, you will notice a 3.5mm audio output jack on the far right side (with a speaker icon above it). Why would Apple include an audio output on a network bridge device?

In addition to taking a hardwired printer and turning it into a shared printer over WiFi, these devices also show up as a destination for Airplay 2.

The 3.5mm audio output from the AirPort Express can be connected to a line-in on an amplifier such as a tape or CD input for example.

3.5mm to RCA cables were ubiquitous in the early days of the PC/sound card era, for connecting your computer to a stereo system. They were also popular for connecting a portable audio player such as a CD player or early model iPhone to a receiver.

The AirPort Express (2nd Gen) can be configured to join your WiFi network via the AirPort Utility app for example. Once configured, they will then appear as a device you can stream to. You can also set the label for each, such as the room name or location.

If a device on your network supports AirPlay 2, it will appear as a device you can “check” on and off, supporting more than just one at a time. With AirPlay (one), the previous standard, only one can be selected at any given time.

In the example above, I selected three areas to stream to all at once. Each has its own volume control as well.

Adding AirPlay 2 to Old Receivers

Because these AirPort Express (2nd Gen) devices are inexpensive, I added one to each of the old receivers I have. This instantly brought them onto the network and made them available for whole-house or multi-room streaming.

I even added one to a vintage Pioneer SX-626 receiver from 1973, and it works quite well.

Final Thoughts

After much trial and error with other streaming devices, more expensive solutions (Sonos for example), I discovered a great use for old hardware. The AirPort Express (2nd Gen) are inexpensive devices these days and can bring older amplifiers and receivers onto your network as AirPlay 2 devices.

A whole-house streaming solution can be configured using existing equipment and speakers, even vintage equipment.

While I am a fan of Sonos products, they are good for entry to mid range level audio, but they do not compare to HiFi speakers (both vintage and modern). Most often you can get much better fidelity by purchasing an amplifier and speaker combination yourself rather than an integrated amplified speaker system. Often times this can be done for far less money than Sonos for example.

If you are a fan of vintage HiFi or other equipment which does not natively support streaming, and you are in the Apple ecosystem, this solution is worth a try.