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Jeff’s been involved in the IT industry since before the Internet and spent more than 20 years working in technical support, system administration, network administration, and consulting roles. He holds an undergraduate degree in English, a Master’s degree in English with a focus on professional writing and editing, and another Master’s degree in Computing & Information Systems.

After teaching university English and computer science for a few years, Jeff launched his writing career. He’s written for Macworld, Tom’s Hardware, groovyPost, The Mac Observer, and more before beginning here at XDA.

Whole-home audio feels very different once music is no longer confined to a single room. When every speaker in your house plays together, even quietly, it turns background sound into part of the way you move through the day. Systems like Sonos promise a smooth experience with minimal effort, but they also expect you to buy into their hardware from the ground up. If you already own speakers you enjoy, that trade-off may not make sense. A Raspberry Pi offers another path that keeps your existing gear while still delivering a polished, multi-room experience.

If you are willing to trade a little polish for a lot of control, a Raspberry Pi-based system can make your old speakers feel like part of a modern, whole-home audio setup.

Instead of replacing your favorite bookshelf speakers or a trusted old receiver, you can add a small Raspberry Pi and let it handle the smart work. With the right software stack, each Pi becomes a networked audio endpoint that can join rooms together or play on its own. A single Pi can act as the conductor, coordinating streams and keeping everything in sync so you don’t hear a messy echo. The result is a setup that feels like a whole home system rather than a collection of unrelated speakers. You get the convenience of a modern platform without giving up the personality of the gear you already own.

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Why Sonos-style audio is appealing

Whole-home sound should not require new speakers

There is a reason Sonos systems show up in so many living rooms and kitchens. They make a complicated problem feel simple by hiding all the networking and timing work behind a clean app. You select a playlist, choose which rooms should join, and the system handles the rest. The speakers stay in sync, the volume feels balanced, and handoffs between rooms require no thought. That is precisely the kind of experience most people want from home audio.

The catch is that this convenience usually comes with a stack of new hardware. Each room gets its own branded speaker or amplifier, priced for the convenience it provides rather than the parts inside. If you already own high-quality speakers or a capable receiver, it can be frustrating to pay for another device just to connect to the network. Over time, the cost of building several rooms mounts quickly. Many people stop after one or two zones, even though the idea of sound throughout the whole house is what drew them in the first place.

Raspberry Pi changes that equation by separating the smart features from the speakers themselves. Instead of buying a new all-in-one box, you keep your existing speakers and add a tiny computer that speaks the language of your home network. The Pi does not care whether it is powering a thrift-store amplifier or a high-end set of monitors. On your phone or tablet, each Pi appears as a room that can be grouped, muted, or turned up, just like a commercial multi-room zone. That flexibility is where the project starts feeling less like a compromise and more like a custom system that happens to be affordable.

How Raspberry Pi powers multi-room sound

Tiny boards become flexible, synchronized audio players

At the heart of this idea is the Raspberry Pi’s ability to act as a controller rather than just another device to plug in. You can dedicate one Pi to running your music library, preferred streaming services, and multi-room coordination software. That single board tracks which rooms exist, what they are playing, and how they are grouped. When you press play, it sends time-aligned audio streams across the network rather than pushing sound directly into a pair of speakers. The Pi becomes the brain that keeps your whole home in step.

Around that controller, each room gets its own Raspberry Pi that connects directly to the speakers in that space. In a living room, that might be a Pi with a digital-to-analog converter feeding an older stereo receiver. In an office, it could be a small board plugged into powered desktop speakers through a simple USB audio interface. Even compact soundbars and active subwoofers can join in, provided they accept a line input. The Pi in each room does not need to be powerful; it just needs to be reliable and always on when you want music.

Synchronization is what makes the whole thing feel like a single system instead of a loose cluster of devices. Multi-room audio software built for the Pi can keep each client in sync to within tiny fractions of a second. When you walk from the kitchen to the hallway and into the living room, the song follows you without sounding like it is slightly ahead in one room and behind in another. You can still treat each space separately when you want, pausing a bedroom player while the central system keeps going. The important part is that you get to choose how tightly everything behaves without asking a closed ecosystem for permission.

What you actually need to begin

A few Pis, good speakers, and some patience

music assistant

You don’t need a rack full of hardware to explore this kind of setup, but you do need to think in terms of zones instead of individual gadgets. Start by imagining your house as a series of listening areas: the living room, kitchen, office, and bedroom. Each of those areas will eventually get its own Raspberry Pi, serving as a bridge between the network and the speakers in that space. Additionally, you need a Pi with sufficient power and storage to handle your music library and the control software that ties everything together. Once you see the layout in your head, the hardware list becomes much easier to understand.

An excellent way to let your Raspberry Pi manage your music library is the Music Assistant add-on for Home Assistant. This powerful Home Assistant add-on connects to most streaming music services, allowing you to bring your own music library and preferred subscriptions. It integrates well with Snapcast, which is probably the most recommended option for enabling the whole-home music experience you’re looking for.

The nice part is that Raspberry Pi boards are flexible about what they drive. A Pi with the right audio HAT can behave like a high-quality source for an old receiver, essentially turning it into a networked smart amp without changing the front panel. A smaller Pi can hide behind powered monitors or a soundbar, feeding them clean audio through a simple adapter. Even wireless speakers that accept analog input can be integrated into the system if you place a Pi nearby. Instead of buying brand-new devices, you are teaching your existing equipment to speak a common language.

On the software side, you have a choice of open-source tools that specialize in multi-room audio and work well with Raspberry Pi hardware. Some prioritize music library management, while others focus on ultra-precise synchronization or integration with home automation platforms. A few options include:

• Home Assistant with Music Assistant and Snapcast
• Mopidy with Snapcast integration
• Lyrion with Squeezelite
• Volumio with multi-room support, a premium add-on
• Roon with Raspberry Pi endpoints

The details matter less than the overall pattern, which stays the same across most setups. One Pi runs the central services and tracks what is playing, while the others act as slim clients that only handle converting a network stream into sound. It takes some experimentation to find the combination that works best, but you end up with something tailored to your needs rather than a one-size-fits-all solution.

Trade-offs versus a proper Sonos system

You sacrifice polish but gain meaningful control

Credit: Source: Sonos

A Pi-based multi-room system will never feel quite as plug-and-play as a carton of Sonos speakers, and that is worth acknowledging. You will spend time flashing the storage, installing software, and adjusting settings until everything behaves as you expect. When your network hiccups, you are the one who has to figure out whether a cable, a switch, or a power adapter is to blame. There is absolute satisfaction in solving those problems, but not everyone wants their listening experience to double as a hobby. If you prefer to tap a single button and forget the details, that is a plus for the commercial route.

The user interface story is also different when you roll your own solution. Sonos invests heavily in ensuring its app is consistent across devices and easy for anyone in the family to understand. With Raspberry Pi, you often mix web interfaces, mobile apps, and home-automation dashboards you configured yourself. The result can be very friendly, but it reflects your preferences and habits more than a product manager’s idea of simplicity. That level of customization is part of the charm for many enthusiasts. It can also mean explaining the system to guests or family members instead of handing them an app they immediately recognize.

Streaming services add complexity, regardless of how you listen. Commercial platforms work hard to maintain relationships with providers, so features like casting and direct control continue to function as services evolve. On the Pi side, you rely on integrations maintained by open-source communities that track those same changes and adapt accordingly. Most of the time, everything just works, and you get access to a surprisingly broad range of sources. Occasionally, an issue may arise after a service update, and you may need to wait for a fix or adjust your configuration. That is the bargain you strike when you choose flexibility and control over a fully curated experience.

Let your Raspberry Pi speakers sing

If you are willing to trade a little polish for a lot of control, a Raspberry Pi-based system can make your old speakers feel like part of a modern, whole-home audio setup. You keep the sound you already enjoy and let small, inexpensive boards handle networking and synchronization. The experience of walking from room to room while the same song plays cleanly everywhere feels just as satisfying as with a commercial ecosystem. The difference is that you know exactly how it all fits together, and you can expand it on your own terms whenever you like. For anyone sitting on a pile of good speakers and a few spare Pis, this is an experiment that often becomes a permanent upgrade.

Home Assistant

With the available Music Assistant add-on and Snapcast integration, Home Assistant will help your Raspberry Pi devices deliver an outstanding whole-home audio experience.