Any Experiences with a JBL Playlist Wi Fi speaker

Audio Gear Talk
1

I am looking for a cheap and cheerful wi fi speaker , that does other than Bluetooth , the JBL Playlist seems to fit the bill

It has built in Chrome Cast , so Roon should talk to it directly . Has anyone out there tried one

I am particularly interested in connectivity especially to Roon and obviously a decent sound quality would be a bonus

Mike

2

+1
Looking for something cheap for the laundry room. JBL Playlist seems to fit the bill especially with Chromecast audio included, hence roon enabled. Have checked some local stores who were said to stock the Playlist but who didn’t have it at the moment.

Easy to order on line but hesitant to buy something not auditioned…

3

There are quite a few reconditioned ones available here in the UK from JBL. Not sure might that is an indicator or not. I was interested in it myself to replace my aging Squeezebox radio in the kitchen.

4

We all want the same reassurance !!

I want it as my Cooking Speaker , Bluetooth is such a pain I’m using an old Logitech Docking Station with an iPod Classic at present but my iPods are aging , one has just gone to the big iPod Resting Place , no replacement hard drives in South Africa !! Hence I have no iPod for the car at the minute …

Will it work , who’s going to dip the toe ?

Or who has dipped the toe

Mike

1 Like
5

Consider toe dipped…

I found a local retailer that had JBL Playlist in store. No auditioning possible so bought one unheard.

Easy setup of Chromecast. Readily visible in roon and could start playing within minutes.

Early impressions - Perfectly adequate for my laundry room. Used roon’s very good equalizer to lower a bit of mid-bass bloat, which I suppose is there to make this small speaker sound ‘bigger’.

Haven’t had time to listen much but I left the Playlist playing and noted that it seemed to stop at the end of some tracks instead of progressing to the next track in a playlist. The Playlist is served by a strong 5GHz WiFi signal. Will need to spend some more time with this new device to see how it behaves in the longer term.

Overall, happy with this purchase and great that roon now supports Chromecast.

BTW. Purchased 2 Chromecast Audio pucks during summer. One connected to the main rig where it is connected via optical to a Peachtree Grand Integrated and set up in roon but mostly functions as a regular casting device as our youngsters have not taken to roon (or more specifically Tidal. They much prefer Spotify where they can play their native playlists).

The second one is in our holiday home, connected to an old Linn Classik via RCA. No roon, only standard casting. That said, I tried this CCA at home first, connected to an old clock radio but as I already have a roon connected Squeezebox there it made more sense to take the CCA to the holiday home.

I do find the Chromecast Audio to be very good value for money!

6

Just bought one. The sound quality is amazingly good for such plastic stuff :wink: Maybe a little more crisps and a little less boom. I’ll use a Roon equalizer to get this to my taste.

The main reason for buying Playlist is the fact that while I’m cooking in the kitchen my wife complains about the volumelevel of my living room stereo. The reason for having it a bit loud is that I want to hear my music while cooking…

BUT however I cannot ‘group’ JBL Playlist with my USB DAC. Roon doesn’t allow that the message says.
Does anybody has a ‘work-around’ in solving this nasty first world problem?

7

Nope can’t group Chromecast with RAAT.

8

Bad news :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

9

@support Not any possibility to play the same music simultaneously on RAAT and Chromecast (without Grouping)?

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Not in synch. You can play the same thing to any number and types of zone but only like for like can be in synch.

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Have to look for other software solutions than Roon…

12

Don’t know anything that will synch across Chromecast and “other” but there might be something out there.

13

Hi @Jan_Willem,

Grouping Chromecast zones with RAAT zones is not possible, as mentioned our Zone Knowledge Base article:

Zone Grouping

Roon supports Zone Grouping , or synchronizing audio playback in several zones within your house.

Zones can only be grouped with other zones of the same type , meaning Squeezebox zones cannot be grouped with RAAT zones, Meridian zones can’t be grouped with Airplay zones, etc.

Not all technologies support grouping, but the most commonly used options do. These are the types of zones within which grouping is possible:

  • RAAT Zones
    • Roon Ready devices
    • Roon outputs on OSX, Windows, and Android
    • Roon Bridge outputs on OSX, Windows, and Linux
  • Squeezebox zones
  • Meridian zones
  • Airplay zones
  • Sonos zones
  • Chromecast zones

Note that Chromecast zones are not grouped using Roon, but grouped using the Google Home app. See the Knowledge Base article on Chromecast for more information.

Thanks,
Noris