Sonos & Apple Alternatives (European & Canadian)

Sonos and Apple are the default answer for wireless speakers in every room — and both are American. The good news: Europe and its close neighbour Canada quietly build some of the best multi-room and hi-fi speakers on the planet, and the hi-fi press ranks several of them above Sonos.

From Sweden's Audio Pro and Denmark's Dali and Bang & Olufsen to Britain's KEF, Ruark and Naim and Canada's Bluesound, these are companies with deep engineering heritage, open ecosystems and — crucially — sound quality that embarrasses the mainstream. Most are not locked into a walled garden the way Sonos and Apple are: they support AirPlay 2, Chromecast, Bluetooth, hi-res streaming and a wall of file formats.

One honest note: like almost all consumer electronics, some of these speakers are assembled in Asia. What is European or Canadian is the ownership, the R&D, the acoustic engineering and where the profits land — the opposite of buying an American default brand.