Affordably Outfit Your Home with iLive's Wireless Multiroom Speakers

iLive Platinum Multiroom WiFi and Bluetooth Speaker Review (ISWF576)

Buy it at Amazon: iLive Platinum Multiroom WiFi and Bluetooth Speaker [Affiliate Link]

Takeaway: These speakers have great sound, multiple units can be synced across different rooms over WiFi.

You'll receive the speaker, a charging base w/5' power adapter, 40" male-to-male audio cable, and an instruction manual. This is speaker fairly compact, measuring 8.5" L, 2" W and 4" H. It has a solid build with a rigid metal grill, rubberized non-slip foot, and playback controls along the top. On the back towards the bottom is the Aux in port and on the bottom are the contacts for wireless charging. When the base is plugged in, set the speaker on the base to charge it. The charge indicator will turn red when charging and shut off when the battery is full.

For the controls you have a power button, WiFi WPS pairing button, 6 internet radio preset keys, mode and playback key, and volume and track navigation. In order to set the speaker up on your home network for internet radio streaming, you'll also need to download the iLive WiFi control app.

There are several ways to connect to the speaker to stream your music: Bluetooth, Aux-in, and WiFi via WPS or manual network setup. In WiFi mode you can stream to the speaker from any DLNA and AirPlay device on the same network. However, the app lets you do a handful internet radio streaming as well like Spotify, Pandora and iHeartRadio. Regardless of which service you use, you can select a preset position to save it in and store up to 6 stations. The speaker automatically connects to your network when turned on and you can listen to those stations without using the app by pressing the corresponding number on the speaker. If you have multiple iLive speakers on the same network you can control each one separately and play something different in each room, or sync them. You can even link them up to play separate left and right channels for a true stereo experience.

Regardless of the mode, the audio quality from the speaker is really nice. It has good balance across the ranges, though tends to bring the trebles forward for brighter vocal tracks. The bass is present but not super powerful. The speaker can also get pretty loud, enough to fill a small room, but flirts a bit with distortion at max volume so it performs best at moderate volume levels. Overall, the iLive Platinum provides an enjoyable listening experience across a number of genres, has a decent amount of functionality, and is a pretty good budget-friendly alternative for creating a multi-room connected home audio system.

Buy it at Amazon: iLive Platinum Multiroom WiFi and Bluetooth Speaker [Affiliate Link]