Chromecast Audio Gets Multi-Room Streaming, High-Res Audio Support

This means subscribing to Tidal’s hi-res streaming platform or have better-than-CD quality downloads can now send them to speakers with full support. But at the time there wasn’t much you could do with Chromecast Audio that you couldn’t also do with a Bluetooth speaker (or Bluetooth audio adapter).

The other products Google announced at the event was the launch of a revised Chromecast, along with another sibling Chromecast which was specifically designed for audio, the aptly named, Chromecast Audio. Plug it into just about any set of speakers with 3.5mm, RCA, or optical input, use your phone or tablet to find content you want to stream, and hit play to make the sound stream over the internet.

Chromecast Audio, Google’s dongle that turns any speaker with an aux jack into a wireless speaker, has only been out in the world a few months, but it’s already getting some new powers that help justify the teensy dongle.

Apart from hi-res audio, the Chromecast Audio now offers a multi-room feature, so you can fill every room, or wherever you have a Chromecast Audio connected, with synchronous tunes. Not bad for all the stuff it can do now, and with confidence that Google will keep improving the device down the line we’d say it’s not a bad pickup if you aren’t interested in a more expensive (and complicated) tool. You can cast to the group the exact same way you would cast to a single Chromecast device.

You can find the Chromecast Audio at the Google Play Store.

The update also adds support for 96KHz/24-bit lossless audio playback, which is important for those in the audio community concerned with larger, higher numbers that are ostensibly significant in terms of quality.