DCAudioDIY.com

Chromecast Audio probably would have worked for you but Google discontinued it early this year.

https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/11/18178751/google-chromecast-audio-discontinued-sale

I am less familiar with the Amazon Echo Dot but maybe it could work. It has a 3.5 mm output jack.

https://www.amazon.com/All-new-Echo-Dot-3rd-Gen/dp/B0792KTHKJ

ray

I use the nas in four locations. Two with RPi’s and days, one as a hat the other with usb. The two other locations are with computers with foobar, or JRiver

What Roscoe and others have said. Check out HiFiBerry.com. A few Raspberry Pi's with add-on DACs, install Volumio in each one, and you've got instant multi-room playback. You don't even need a NAS, just a UPnP server on whatever computer has your music on it. A NAS is preferable but not necessary.

rooms are next to each other. have to run wire in the ceiling for the speakers anyway. wire shouldn't be a problem. do you have a link to get started designing the system?

also already have a couple of mybook nas i can use on the network.

The Raspberry Pi seems like the best client, and you don't need an external DAC unless you're unhappy with the built in audio. One option is to use Moodeaudio on the Pi:

https://moodeaudio.org/.

An older PC, Core 2 or better, with the required disc space, Windows (preferably 7) & Foobar2000 as your "server". Foobar can be configured to stream to Moodeaudio (last post give the steps):

http://moodeaudio.org/forum/showthread.php?tid=88

Both the Pi and PC support remote desktop so you can control all from pretty much any device. If you want the same music in multiple rooms play from Foobar on the PC, if you want separate music in any or all rooms play music from Moodeaudio. One option that seems to have been tested and works. Foobar plays pretty much any audio format and can convert on the fly to whatever the destination can play.

Check out Volumio.org as well. They also sell preconfigured devices that are quite good.

There seem to be plenty of free options, probably worth it to try several.

thanks guys. have a lot to look into.