The Chromecast Audio is an underrated and awesome little streaming device. The promise of this dongle is simple: turn any set of speakers you own into sweet, high-fidelity, Cast-enabled playback machines. Many of us already own good speakers in one form or another, but those devices tend to be wired or Bluetooth. If you’ve ever used Chromecast, you know the benefits of casting over simple Bluetooth playback.
With Chromecast, you can begin playback and then leave the room with no issues since the Cast device is the one fetching the audio from the cloud. This means higher-fidelity audio, almost no battery drain on the controlling device, and no limited range between you and the Casting speaker. Oh, and you can easily group Chromecast speakers, too; creating home or office-wide synchronized playback with as many or as few of the connected speakers as you wish.
Along with the lossless audio quality you get with Chromecast Audio, these little dongles have another trick up their sleeve: optical output. Yep, with a little adapter from Google, the headphone jack actually has the ability to output full optical audio via TOSLINK. Until just a few days ago, I didn’t even realize that was an option. With this connector, however, many users with existing high-end stereo setups will have all they need to fully leverage the Chromecast Audio.
All that being said, today’s news is more about the Chromecast Audio being on sale for a measly $15.
$15!
Just head over to Best Buy to snag one, or two, or a few! These make fantastic stocking stuffers and anyone with some speakers in their home or office will really appreciate this little streaming wonder. You are welcome!
