Yes, a serious review by you and Rege would be immensely helpful. I am planning to set up a whole home audio using the Chromecast Audio if things work out well. I am contemplating between the Chromecast Audio and the Fon Gramofon. I plan to have simple inexpensive amps in each room connected to reasonably good speakers such as the Aperion Audio or Andrew Jones.
Thanks
I will hopefully get some time this weekend to do a good comparison. Having said that, Rege has already made detailed posts about his impressions.
Based on casual listening, CCA works quite well, and "just works". Setup is a breeze. It literally took 2 minutes.
One thing to note about the way Chromecast (and CCA) works. Every Chromecast device broadcasts itself to all Android or Chromecast enabled software (if you are using a PC or Mac or something else). So if you get 3-4 Chromecast devices, one for each room, you will name them something like:
Chromecast - Living Room
Chromecast - Bedroom
Chromecast - Kitchen
and so on.
When you are casting audio from, say, your Android phone (from Pandora, Tidal, Spotify, etc. - or from a browser with the Chromecast plugin - or from a UPnP client audio browser/player) - you select which Chromecast you want to stream/cast it to. That Chromecast then picks up the command and directly connects to the source and starts playing it.
So you can play Tidal in your listening room by controlling the songs from your cellphone, while your wife can play Pandora in her kitchen by controlling her songs from her cellphone.
I do not have a multi-room setup (but do have the older and newer CC devices) - but I imagine this is how CCA would work in a multi-room setup. Rege, please correct me if I am wrong.
On a side note, a good wifi router would really help in ensuring good audio quality. I personally benefited immensely when I upgraded from Netgear to an Asus router with 3 antennae. The Asus is so much more reliable and stable and has a lot more broadcasting power as well. Only downside is the price - the AC routers are all so expensive and Asus models even more so.
CCA actually supports AC too!
In hindsight, I would have probably ditched the Asus router and gone for a Ubiquity UniFi based router solution.
Review here. It has so much more flexibility. For example, if you have bad coverage in a remote section of the house, just buy another wireless access point and it will attach itself to the existing setup and network seamlessly. And it allows you to create multiple wifi networks each with its own policy. And despite it being an "enterprise grade" product, it is still cheaper than the high end consumer routers. And is still reasonably easy to manage. But I digress.
Finally, here is a really good objective review of CCA with tons of measurements.
CCA analog output review
CCA digital output review