Just an update, and please note that none of my Dot connected speakers are intended for critical listening. I simply want speakers that will produce good quality whole-house background music from Amazon Echo Dots playing 256bit MP3s. Also note that both my bedroom and family room already have really great sound systems, however an additional source of good quality always-on-tap music from my Dots are a big plus in my busy life.
Master bedroom:
Edifier R1280 powered speakers. These are the weakest of the bunch but are used where my needs here are the least demanding. The Edifiers have no power-on delay and are thus ideal for the intended purposes of alarm clock output, home control audio, and getting showered and dressed in the morning music. If I want to do serious listening I'll fire up the receiver and the Sierra-1s and Hsu sub, but for quick and dirty they do the job for cheap without the need to fire up an audio system. I do recommend being at least two-three feet from these speakers because they just don't work as very nearfield speakers.
Formal livingroom: My living room is used strictly for entertaining and the living room Dot just has to supply "conversational" background music, loud house cleaning whole-house music, and be there for home control. I just hooked-up a pair of
Monoprice 8" active studio monitors to the living room Dot and I like the results. Again I'm not using them for critical listening and they are doing everything that I want from them for $200 and without the expense of a receiver or amp to drive speakers or the complications of somehow connecting a subwoofer. The Monoprices have no standby or power-on delay so they are perfect for use with a Dot. I'll eventually add a Z-Wave switch to make sure that they are only powered up when I'm actually home but that's just to prolong the life of their built-in amps.
Garage: I'm using the Monoprice 6-1/2" powered speakers that I spoke of in an earlier post. These are pretty so-so but so are the acoustics of my unfinished garage and front porting makes for easy placement. These are not suitable for home control or general Echo use because they have to be manually switched back on from auto-standby mode using the included remote. Again these are for background music in an unfinished garage and not critical listening and for that they do a credible job.
Family room: The family room Dot setup is temporary. For now I'm feeding my family room dot's output into my KRK Rokit 6s but the Rokits will eventually be hooked up to a new video editing PC that I have yet to build. The Rokits are awesome but I'm thinking that I'll eventually connect a Dot to my receiver for a whole house Echo music feed in my family room. But for now that plan is not yet set in stone. Note that the Rokits have a 5 second startup delay making them unsuitable for home control.
