Ruark Audio MRx: A multi-room speaker with reassuringly tactile controls

Following on from the success of the Ruark Audio MR1 Mk2, the British audio brand has announced the MRx, its first ever multi-room speaker. 

We liked the MR1 Mk2 enough to give it an award for best home audio product at last year’s Trusted Reviews Awards, but our one complaint was that the speakers lacked any form of multi-room capability.

Now our prayers have been answered. The new Ruark Audio MRx is the company’s first multi-room speaker. At its core the MRx has a set of full-range speaker units based on the award-winning MR1s, but it’s compatible with a full array of wireless connections, including Spotify Connect, Bluetooth AptX, and DLNA media servers over Wi-Fi.

Ruark Audio will be launching its own app to tie its ecosystem of speakers together, with which you’ll be able to pair the MRx with existing speakers like the R2 or R7.

Reassuringly, the company hasn’t gone for an app-only control scheme. The MRx still features the same physical control knob that we’ve grown accustomed to over the years, and you’ll be able to use this to change input sources and adjust volume.

A physical combination 3.5mm/optical port is also present along with a USB port if you’d like to play locally-stored music files, and there’s an Ethernet connector if you don’t want to rely on Wi-Fi for your streaming.

In an ideal world we’d love to see support for Google Cast or AirPlay mentioned alongside the rest of these standards, but if the MRx sounds as good as its predecessors then we’re not going to complain too much. That said, it should be easy enough to hook up a Chromecast to the optical input and charge it via the USB socket.

The Ruark Audio MRx is available for £399.99 from today.

How important is multi-room streaming to you? Let us know @TrustedReviews.