Sonos. Recent app troubles aside (it’s really not that bad, just kind of clunky for certain tasks), the longevity alone make them so worth it. Despite being essentially computers/smart home devices, they support 10+ year old devices in their latest app, older devices in their S1 Controller app, and the sound quality & setup ease is amazing.

Plus, they have pretty good Black Friday sales and make it easy to build piece by piece if pricing is too high. You can also used replaced pieces to build a sound system in another room.

Over ~3 years I started with a Beam, then bought a Sub and two Play:1s as rears. Bought an Arc, moved the Beam to the bedroom. Just recently I bought 2 Arc 300s as rears/upward firing Atmos speakers, and moved the Play:1s to the bedroom. Resale value stays high so if you have no use for a piece, you can sell it and get 50%-75% of what you paid out of it easily.

There are cheaper devices with better sound quality out there, but nobody else can compete on the whole package with Sonos.

You might check out wiim stuff. They seem to be the darling of budget streaming for the moment.

I didn’t even know the app was updated before this post. I only start it when I add new devices, which is never.