Audio Pro Addon C5A with Alexa built-in, Wireless, Bluetooth, Smart Speaker with Multi-room – Black

Product Information

Everything is tested by our dedicated team of in-house reviewers in our custom-built test rooms in London, Reading and Bath. Sonos' main rivals are Audio Pro, who have picked up an armful of awards over the last couple of years with their fantastic range multiroom speakers.

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There's also a separate panel for the built-in Alexa feature, with an LED strip to tell you when the C5A is listening and a button to manually mute the microphone. While its app may not be as intuitive as Sonos', it's much more pleasing to the eye, and the sound quality from this speaker is truly astonishing.Listening to Apple Music’s Dolby Atmos version of The 1 by Taylor Swift, the vocals hold a wonderful clarity and warmth. Inputs on each Audio Pro’s behind are reserved for more permanent fixtures, such as the power cord, ethernet cable and stereo RCA. It worked, but I wanted to be able to do more like set shut-off timers and have ten bands EQ to really dial in my music to how I want to listen. Moving up to a Drumfire would be the next step, but that is a significantly bigger and more expensive offering. The Addon T3 was our wireless speaker Product of the Year in 2015 and held onto its Award the following year, while the T5 earned itself a five-star review.

Audio Pro Addon C5A Speaker Reviewed and Rated - STOZZ AUDIO Audio Pro Addon C5A Speaker Reviewed and Rated - STOZZ AUDIO

The great thing about these is current Addon users needn’t replace their existing units to incorporate them in the household set-up. You can't jump through a huge list of artists or albums by typing a letter or using an alphabet scrollbar like other music apps. The C3 is best used as a combination of semi-portable (due to it having a built-in battery or for smaller rooms like bathrooms and studies. The power output from the Class D digital amplification rises in similar increments: 15W, 40W and 80W respectively.They were one of the first audio brands to develop multiroom technology, and their products have always been held in high regard by consumers. Given Audio Pro's popularity over the past few years, it’s only fitting to give the Addon C5A a full review and let you know what we think of them. And while Audio Pro's offering just edges it on sound quality, the HEOS makes a superb all-rounder – and it offers a wider choice of pick 'n' mix components. Both Bose and Sonos offer speakers and soundbars that can talk to each other wirelessly to create a multi-room system.

Best Sonos alternatives 2023: multi-room music systems

The Drumfire is a 65cm-tall floorstanding colossus reminiscent of a guitar stack that proves Audio Pro’s ability to retain its Award-winning sonic signature even when the speaker tips the scales. Audio Pro refrained from that, and to myself, as a hobbyist, I felt it was very accurate and allowed more spacing to be shown in the midrange frequencies. In some ways it’s simple –‘drag and drop’ to partner or separate speakers, either in stereo pairs or multi-room zones, and tweak the bass and treble at your leisure. These are alongside outputs for sub-woofer and USB device charging, as well as a toggle switch for optimised playback depending whether you’re using wi-fi or anything else. Their level of detail is insightful, exposing the texture and timbre of each instrument and vocal line alike without underplaying cohesion or organisation in favour of nit-picking analysis.

One last thing to note: should you want something that looks a bit more like your standard smart speaker, then the Audio Pro A10 is also worth looking at, and has a few more smart assistant functions built in as well. If it was my money, I would go with a C10 in the living room, C5A in the kitchen and bedrooms, and perhaps a C5A set up in the garage and study. As much as anything else, your chosen path for migration to multi-room should be about whose speakers you want around your house. Things start to differ as we peer at the roof of the Addon C5 - there's a large circular volume control surrounded by sets of four smaller buttons: power, play/pause, input selection and Bluetooth pairing to its left, pre-sets to its right. Using your voice, it turns into more of an active speaker than a stationary piece of audio equipment.