Whole House Audio on a Budget

Recently I was able to review some products made by Arylic that make whole house audio possible for those that don’t want to drop $1,000’s of dollars on a Sonos system. As you would expect, I was a little curious, especially at the prices they were selling their units for. This could mean one of two things. Either, they were really cheap products or they were trying to enter a market by cutting their prices enough that people would give them a try. Which one is it? Well’ let’s take a deeper look at their flagship model the A50 to get a better idea.

The A50 has a really sleek look to it. It has an aluminum body that is small in stature, but big in features. It sits at 4 3/4″ wide and 5″ deep and 1 5/8″ tall (4 3/4″ with antennas all the way up). The front is a glass black piece of acrylic with the Arylic logo, one color changing led and and ir sensor for the remote control.

The Rear really shows off the power of this unit. As it has external antennas for both wifi and bluetooth, a line in for an external device, a line out to hook up to an external powered speaker or amplifier, an ethernet port, wps button, USB and screw terminals to hook up a pair of speakers (4-16ohm). The amplifier is a class D amp rated at 2x50w when using 4ohm speakers. It does come with a power supply (24v 4.16a) and a remote control. The remote control has your basic functions, such as turning it on and off, changing the song and even eq’ing your speakers.

So you are probably wondering. How does this work? Well it is quite simple. You just hook up the Arylic unit to your wifi network. It then connects to other Arylic units on the same network. It can combine up to 10 different units. The easiest way to navigate and setup these units is using their Muzo app. The Muzo App will search for new devices, and then add them. Once they are added you can label where it is located through a list of predetermined names. Once it is labeled you can drag and drop them to create different zones (up to 10). Once you play music on that zone, all the Arylic devices hooked up in that zone will play the same music. If you want to play different music in different zones, you can easily do that as well. Here is a video that helps show it as well as Arylic’s wifi board.

Now the thing that makes the A50 so powerful is the fact that it is like having multiple devices in one. Let me explain. It allows you to input directly into the system with a device like a television, phone or even computer. It then allows that signal to be broadcast throughout the house. I can’t help but get giddy, thinking of how I could use this at my next Super Bowl Party. But not only that, it has bluetooth and even a line out to go along with the amplifier. That means you can either hook this up to a pair of speakers you already own or hook it up to a powered speaker or external amplifier. If you wanted that from Sonos you would have to buy the Sonos Connect and the Sonos Amplifier. And that still doesn’t give you everything the A50 offers.

As you can tell, I have been very happy with my Arylic units. However, there are some ways they could improve. First there is no on screen display. So you cannot see the volume level, the eq you have set. However, they did add a color changing LED, so you can at least tell which input you are on. Second, there are no buttons on the unit, SO you want to make sure you do not leave your remote control. Without it, you can’t change the input or even power off the unit. However, you can still switch songs and change the volume in the Muzo app. Third, the only way to connect speaker wire is via screw in terminals. They do provide a mini screw driver, but I would personally like binding posts. But I do understand why they didn’t add those, it would take up more room, thus making it bigger. However, when I build my DIY amplifier kit, I will be adding binding posts.

Should you get one? Well that is up to you. If you have been looking at whole house audio for a while, this is one of the most powerful budget systems I have seen. In fact, it is what I use in my house. So if you have been considering it, go check out Arylic’s website for more information. www.arylic.com