Chromecast Audio

End of Chromecast Audio is bad news for audiophiles – Back in Jan 2019, Google announced the end of Chromecast Audio. I supposed for the majority of the market Chromecast or Chromecast Ultra are logical replacement of Chromecast Audio. After all, Chromecast's hdmi has audio channel. However, if you are a die hard audiophile and prefer minimal circuit and toslink, then the cancellation of Chromecast… Read more

Audio is a painful news.

Shame on Google that none of their Google Home products - Google Home, Google Home Max, Google Home Mini, Google Nest Hub / Google Nest Hub Max have an audio port. I have said it before that Google Home has an issue with bluetooth audio where after a while, you would get crackling noise. This is especially apparent with Jazz and classical music with long notes, making them sound like old dusty records. Good for you if you have a fetish for that. But if you are not, the only way to get around the problem is to use a Chromecast Audio device, that's pretty costly for a problem with Google Home. Alexa Echo doesn't have the same problem. All their products have a 3.5mm stereo jack. Please let me know if this problem has been fixed and I will retract my statement about crackling noise problem.

Do note that I am talking about a specific use case. If your requirement is that you want to modernise your old active speakers in the house and outdoors speakers, Chromecast Audio is a good way to go about it, synchronising all speakers, streaming your favourite tunes out of Google Music or Spotify, especially if you manage to purchase them at a good discounted price. Sure to impress your family and friends for parties.

I can't really tell a significant sound quality difference between Echo Dot or Chromecast Audio on 3.5mm stereo connection. Volume is markedly louder with the Chromecast Audio. I do find Chromecast Audio has a bit more clarity at upper frequencies. That's about it. There are so many factors comes into play in an audio system anyway - speakers, amplifier, song materials, even cables.

Personally, I don't like the packaging and the bright yellow cable. Chromecast Audio isn't a hero piece, why have a bright yellow cable?! Why not make the Chromecast Audio yellow instead if you really want yellow? For $59, I expect a stereo to RCA cable to be included. What amplifier has a 3.5mm stereo jack input?! Is Google trying to tell us that Chromecast Audio is a mediocre product only good for budget chi-fi systems?

I am giving Chromecast Audio 3 stars - one star penalty for Google making customer like me buy Chromecast Audio because Google Home doesn't have an audio-out jack. Another star penalty because of the price of $59 is pretty stiff, pretty much the same price as Chromecast which does video as well. I don't like the 3.5mm stereo jack because it isn't very secure at all and prone to crackling sound if the cable isn't very good. But this is not enough to deduct another star for this and I don't want to be so mean to give it just 2 stars. It is better than 2 stars. I like it enough to have a couple of them.

Dreadfully unreliable!!! Avoid! – I have two and they’re both completely useless because they’re forever dropping the audio, skipping, asking weird sounds... useless crap. Shame because normal chromecast is awesome. I’ve had to go back to a wired connection to avoid going crazy. more words because i have to have 50 to submit my review - wth is that all about?  Show details

Beware of the marketing – The device itself is fine, it's what Google doesn't tell you that annoys me. I bought one assuming I could stream basically any audio to it. Unfortunately, it's very limited. - You can only use specific apps on your phone (eg spotify, google play music). You can't officially cast your own MP3s! There's an app for Android called LocalCast that can… Read more

do it but it's really flaky and it drops out

- You can't cast from a PC. I wanted to cast my itunes library but no dice. There's a Windows tool that can help but I haven't had much luck with it

A few mates told me they returned theirs once they found out how limited it was... I still use mine daily, just not as I hoped.

Today I purchased chromecast audio to solve my multiple input problem – I was listening to music, damn good, damn clear, damn crisp going through the setting when I found a section called "Advanced Hifi" They said, "Tell us how high quality your speaker are" To which I laughed and switched it to advanced studio quality. My amp is a 1.5 foot cylindrical magnet with heating fins, that I did heavy research to ensure it… Read more

could deliver 130% of the power required for my 98decible speaker system to prevent audio decay a the highest volumes.

Its. Beautiful.

Its like I'm there> apparently I had 2 deep secret base speakers hidden deep inside my speakers that I was not aware of. The base is so smooth is like chocolate ice cream flowing through your whole being. I probably would go deaf if there was a single imperfection, but there isn't. I've released a study. Its called the study of you cant go deaf if those waves coming at you are so smooth they do repairs.

Also: I have been using these at 60% capacity my whole life. That's 60% of what I assumed was their 100% capacity. The base was soo deep, and soo loud, I actually decided to keep it down a bit. I hope you all understand the implications. Fyi 96 decibels is a vertical takeoff jet taking off 12 feet away from you. Every 2 decibels, the sound is twice as loud.

It makes me want to dance, all the time, until I die. I dont care that I am bad get over it your bad

I'm gonna have this rigged to play action music if my house ever gets broken into

ill know what to do.

Easiest and Cheapest Way To Achieve Multi Room Audio – The Chromecast Audio is a cheap and simply way to achieve Multi Room Audio, without having to buy new amplifiers / speakers etc. There are many other devices that do a similar job as this does, but not at this price point! Streaming audio to multiple speakers can now be done for a reasonable price, and at a reasonable quality. Granted, it would… Read more

have been great to have Fibre-Optic / Bluetooth and all of the nice to haves, but that would have obviously impacted the final price.

Of course, it integrates with all of the other Google infrastructure (Google Home / Chromecast Video) and it all just works.

This is definitely aimed at the cheap and simple end of the market, and it nails it.

Another miss from a company pretending to know something about home automation – To be clear, I'm wanting a little more from my chromecast than making a dumb speaker "smart" and if that's what you're wanting to achieve then I'm sure this has potential. I've been struggling to find something that currently does what iTunes and the Apple Remote app do with a music streaming service. I had hoped the chromecast would achieve… Read more

that but it definitely does not. That combination allows me to kick off some tunes and use my iphone as a remote controller. This way my phone is independent of the music playing process - all it is doing is telling itunes what to play on my amp. It's great, works well, allows me to pick up any iOS device and take over but the real key is that even if I leave the house and take my phone with me, the music doesn't stop so the rest of my family don't have to do anything.

Unfortunately, it seems that google, apple & spotify all assume that the instigator of a music session (kicked off via an app on their device) is the centre of the universe and that they would never want to do anything else/be anywhere else. Basically their assumption seems to be that once they've started playing music from their device they will never want to do anything else.

This is where I had hoped chromecast would be different. I had hoped google would have put enough smarts into the device that it would run the audio stream independently from the rest of my ecosystem. Wrong, wrong, wrong. It's worthless to me. I can simply use Bluetooth to stream music from my iphone as this gives me no other benefit.

The other thing that annoyed me (because I don't think it would have been hard for google to do) was to connect to another wireless speaker that supported google's proprietary streaming. But no, google wanted me to go and spend another $60 on another chromecast for that.

Google chromecast is a fail if you've got other streaming options. It could have easily been so much better... but it's not. It will be going back.

Mostly works well – This device works well most of the time. It turns a regular speaker into a Sonos styled music speaker.i mostly use it to stream Spotify which is where problems occur. We often have music dropping out sporadically when we have to many devices over the network. It is hard to solve the problem.  Show details

Nothing super special but does the job – If you have a home audio device or setup that has a 3.5 mm audio jack and you want to use Google cast to send music to it from a device using Google cast then this is the right device for you. Spotify and multi room audio so works with this.  Show details

A totally awesome piece of hardware - chosen for listening to Spotify streaming audio – I initially listened to Spotify on my desktop, but the speakers there are only average and I have a great Denon Receiver and Klipsch speaker system sitting in the lounge - so it seemed logical to try to get it playing there? Yet - all my searching online only seemed to bring up out of date articles from 2014 focusing on Sonos or similar systems… Read more

or more up to date (and expensive) receivers and hardware - which I did not want or need.

Anyway - I dropped into the Good Guys and the first guy I spoke with basically told me that he was 99% sure that there wasn't an affordable way of doing what I wanted. He suggested that I might try one of his colleagues but that I likely still wouldn't have any joy.

Well - the next guy immediately put me onto the Chromecast Audio dongle - at a really affordable $58 - it would do exactly what I wanted. He even gave me a much better price - $43.

I took it home, but was really busy and didn't have the spare time to get it connected; but my wife (very tech savvy), looked at it while I spent hours working in my home office. I must say that she tried everything, but it was not seen on my Motorola MotoG. This was supposed to be easy, but to give her credit she stuck with it for hours, until she eventually determined that there was something wrong with the hardware.

In the end - it was the supplied Chromecast cable that was loose where it plugged into the unit. We swapped it with another cable that we had - and hey presto - it worked! It was that cable all along!

Now - we can listen to Spotify streaming millions of songs with super-quality! And on my system, I can crank up the volume, so that it can be heard all through the house!

It's looking like the future of music in the 21st Century is streaming and it may change what we do, just like streaming videos have changed the future of home video.

Great device! – I hooked the Chromecast audio up to my Receiver with an RCA cable adapter/converter and it works great, sound output is perfect, there's not a lot to say it just works. I can now control it with my "Google Home" to play tunes from Google play music I've uploaded with requesting my playlists, not a verified purchase purely because I threw the receipt out (ooops!)  Show details

Very pleased – I bought the Chromecast audio to replace a bluetooth adapter on our excellent Yamaha stereo. I'd read in reviews that the sound quality was superior to Bluetooth. They weren't wrong! It's like playing a CD (not a vinyl...nothing sounds as good as vinyl). Easy to set up and so impressed I went and bought a Chromecast for the TV.  Show details

Cheapest way to get multiroom audio – I do wish it was a little cheaper as paying around $50 per device per room can get expensive quickly, but it is still cheaper for a solution for multiroom audio. It does only work over wifi which can be a bit limiting but I don't see it as too much of an issue. I've got two of these and it works great!  Show details

Great size but wifi only, no bluetooth, and only works with some apps – Key point!! This is a wifi device and works over your home network and has nothing to do with bluetooth. This is a neat little gadget powered by USB (wall power adapter also in the box) so you could power it from a modern amplifier then input this via a RCA-3.5mm jack cable (no supplied) The box says that it does digital audio output as well,… Read more

but I'm dubious on this as the only output is 3.5mm headphone jack.

As this is a wifi device, you need to download an app to set it up (there are tons of steps and you will need to add it to your list of MACs allowed on your network, unless you are bonkers and dont have a MAC white list on your router). From there you can only use it with a very small number of iPhone apps - Pandora, Deezer and maybe Spotify.

A simpler solution would be to get a bluetooth receiver and just stream stuff from your phone (I returned my Chromecast and bought a TP-Link HA100 Bluetooth Music Receiver instead)