I’ve recently joined the 21st century by sticking a Chromecast Audio on the stereo in the living room & subsequently bought an Audio Pro Addon T5 for the bedroom plug another Chromecast Audio into.

The Audio Pro speaker has been reduced even further in price (down to £100 in some places) so I was contemplating getting one for the kitchen, but the shape of it means it wouldn’t be easy to place anywhere without sticking a shelf up.

So, I had a look around yesterday morning & found this Onkyo speaker with Google assistant reduced from £200 down to £60, and even the delivery is free.
I’ve not actually tried it yet – it was only delivered 30 mins ago, but I’ve taken it out of the box & it’s a solid feeling piece of kit. It looks better in the flesh than in the pics & seems to get good reviews – worth a punt for £60, I thought.

https://www.hughes.co.uk/product/audio/hifi-and-speakers/multiroom-audio/google/vcgx30w

I’ve recently joined the 21st century by sticking a Chromecast Audio

Haven’t Google discontinued the chromecast audio?

to be fair to the OP they didn’t say which bit of the 21st century they’d joined.

They have also been available for £50 from Richer Sounds recently.
Look like a good bit of kit and amazing value at anything around that price.

The CCA has been discontinued but they should continue to support the functionality as it’s built into other Chromecast hardware and their own smart speakers.

Haven’t Google discontinued the chromecast audio?

They’ve ceased manufacture of them; I guess because they now offer smart speakers which give them more data.
I got my first one as a Christmas present before it was announced they were canning them, which I suppose was unfortunate timing.

I bought 3 more on sale, so I can get the rest of the house connected up & they should be supported for the foreseeable so don’t really see it as an issue.

Yes, I got one of those Onkyo speakers for £50.
Decent enough sound quality, from a neat little box. The voice control works quite well. It is handier than needing your phone to cast stuff anyway. And you can ask it random questions if you want…

Interesting. I have ordered one.
Have a Google Home Mini in the bedroom for alarms and getting weather/calendar etc while I’m getting ready. But the sound quality is a bit rubbish for music. So hopefully I can move that to the kitchen for timers/recipes/conversions and controlling the main stereo…

If it works out well I might get another for the brew-shed….

Cheers for heads up.

Cashback on Quidco too

We bought one at Christmas when they were 60 and were so pleased with it we ended up buying 6 more when they went down to £50 for a short period so we have them all over the house and in the garage.

For the size they have a nice sound quality (if a little bassy), though the Google Home mini we have is better at detecting voices.

I got it set-up yesterday – only had a short play around with it as my daughter was asleep, so didn’t think she’d appreciate music being blasted out all night.

It seems pretty good to me – general reviews state that the bass is a bit heavy, but for some music in the kitchen I can’t see this being an issue.
I had assumed that as with the Chromecast Audios there would be some kind of EQ settings, but that doesn’t appear to be the case – no big deal though.

I was planning on moving an old Sony stereo to the garage & running a Chromecast Audio into that for turbo trainer music, but I’m tempted to just get another one of these; the ability to do hands-free music selections is appealing.

and were so pleased with it we ended up buying 6 more

Nice – sounds like you’ve done it properly! 🙂

How does it compare sound wise to the Audiopro?

How does it compare sound wise to the Audiopro?

There’s obviously the mismatch of location (Audio Pro in bedroom and Onkyo in kitchen) but I would say the Onkyo without too much worry.

Both err on the side of bassy, but because I run a Chromecast Audio through the Audio Pro that lets me tune the sound a bit via the eq setting, so I have turned down the bass a smidge.

The Onkyo sounds a bit muddy at lower volumes. This could be because it’s only had a couple of hours of light music played through it….the driver’s might need a bit of running in.
Yesterday I managed to whack the Onkyo up a bit and it sounds much better. Almost like when you play music louder, the rest of the sound catches up with the bass and makes it much more balanced.

Out it this way. If I’d paid full price for the Audio Pro I’d be happy with the sound.
If I’d paid full price for the Onkyo, I don’t think I would be quite so pleased. But….for £60 – absolutely nothing to complain about and the Onkyo is smart, while the T5 I bought isn’t (they do a smart version though…)

Thanks very helpful

@ampthill Just realised at the top of my reply to your question, I said

There’s obviously the mismatch of location (Audio Pro in bedroom and Onkyo in kitchen) but I would say the Onkyo without too much worry.

I think I wrote that sentence several times, chopping and changing what I was supposed to be saying….but I said Onkyo, when I should have said Audio Pro….

My post was a bit garbled in it’s entirety, and I think I was perhaps being a bit harsh on the Onkyo. It sounds fine, but the bass at low volumes does dominate the sound. I’ve listened to it a bit more over the weekend and banging out cheesy pop for my 3yr old daughter to dance around the house to, it really is fine.
I saw a review that said the speaker struggles to pick up the ‘hey google’ command which renders it relatively pointless. We haven’t found this to be the case at all. On Sunday, we were sat in the dining room next to the kitchen with a solid brick wall in between them and we wanted to change the song playing. Even though it was playing music at the time, it heard us say ‘hey google’ at little more than a conversational level, which was seriously impressive. Definitely no complaints there.

But….purely based on sound quality the Audio Pro is definitely the more composed of the two with greater clarity, while still capable of impressive bass.

I saw a review that said the speaker struggles to pick up the ‘hey google’ command which renders it relatively pointless. We haven’t found this to be the case at all.

We had one that was like this, it was swapped for a replacement that was fine.

They are not as good as the google home mini we have at picking it up though – but perhaps that is because the mini is never up as loud.

The bass is definitely overpowering at low volumes