The DAX88 is overkill if you want independent sources per zone, and the advantages of the chromecast + multichannel amp are pretty hard to beat:
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No zone switching in a separate amp - if you use casting, you select the destination zone and just audio in one single app - no app switching
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Only one volume control - you control the audio from the casting app - no app or keypads needed to set volume, and much easier when you are casting to a mutispeaker zone
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Easy airplay compatibility - after setting up chromecasts and amp, you can have home assistant turn all chomecast speaker and multispeaker zones into airplay zones using the aircast addon:Home Assistant Community Add-on: AirCast
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Easy streaming from the web by casting from chrome - sometimes you have high school football games or or web content you want to stream but don’t have support in spotify or a specific streaming app. If you can get audio fronm a website, you can stream it using casting
Spotify can talk to chomecast audios using cast too of course, but the flexibility provided by using casting and a simple multichannel amp is amazing, and a lot cheaper too! I wish the DAX88 support the cast protocol, but its a definite shortcoming of product. Russoiund now supports cast in their streaming amps, but they are much more expensive that chromecast audios and a “dumb” multichannel amp.