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Hi-fi quality music was once only the preserve of audiophiles and those with expensive sound systems. But the rise of wireless speakers has brought high sound quality in reach of the masses – provided you know which speakers to buy. Our tests reveal the top products on the market.
Our expert lab and professional listening panel prove it no longer costs the earth to get superior sound. We’ve found remarkable Best Buy portable speakers for well under £50, and even exquisite-sounding multi-room speakers for less than £100. So whatever your budget, our experts give you the insider knowledge so you don’t have to compromise.
And for those looking to invest long-term in a multi-room audio setup, when even a single speaker can stretch into the hundreds of pounds, it’s even more important to make sure you’re spending your money the most wisely.Below we reveal the best speakers from our tests – whatever type or price you’re looking for.
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To see which models we recommend, head straight to our best wireless and Bluetooth speakers.
Smart speakers have voice assistants you can talk to to perform functions, rather than controlling them through your smartphone or the physical buttons on the speaker.
If you're considering a smart speaker, see our separate guide to how to buy the best smart speaker.
Portable Bluetooth speakers come in all shapes and sizes, from ones that will fit in the palm of your hand, to larger varieties intended for use at home. Their built-in batteries let you move them around easily without needing to be in range of a plug socket.
We’ve selected excellent Bluetooth speakers of different sizes to best suit your needs below.
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Pricing and recommendations correct as of March 2024.
Our Best Buy speakers set a high bar, and so if you’re not quite as demanding, we recommend Great Value models as well. These are cheaper options and still score well in our tests, making for excellent bargains.
We’ve listed speakers that are Great Value or other more affordable models below. For even more, head to our speaker reviews and select the Great Value filter (in the left-hand menu alongside our Best Buys).
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All portable wireless speakers have Bluetooth which lets you wirelessly connect to play audio from devices such as your smartphone, and the best portable speakers will be easy to carry around with you and have battery power that’ll last throughout the day.
Our experts have selected their top multi-room speaker recommendations in the table below. Smart speakers (which have voice assistants) are also often multi-room speakers - for more on smart speakers, see our dedicated guide including model recommendations for how to buy the best smart speaker.
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Some multi-room speakers can be among the most expensive on the market, offering premium build quality designed to last and a wide range of features, but cheaper options are available too. These days, multi-room systems usually connect over wi-fi to avoid costly and messy cable installations.
That said, investing in multi-room audio with multiple speakers can cost thousands. Many brands including Bose and Sonos only let you connect to other speakers from the same brand, so you need to choose carefully as you become restricted to the brand’s app and speaker ecosystem – regretting your choice later is incredibly costly.
To avoid this, many Chromecast and other Google Home app-supporting speakers let you connect to one another across different brands (to find out what speakers support Chromecast, head to our wireless speaker reviews and select 'Chromecast' using the filter menu).
Wireless speakers can vary greatly in price. Entry-level small Bluetooth speakers that are light on features can be picked up for less than £50, whereas larger, premium models can cost 10 times as much.
Wi-fi-enabled wireless speakers tend to cost a little more. There are few sub-£100 models on the market, so creating a multi-room speaker system can soon become an expensive venture.
Best Buy speakers need to score 70% or more in our expert tests, and Great Value speakers 60% or more.
To be awarded Great Value, a speaker also needs to cost at least 20% less than the average speaker of that type (such as other portable Bluetooth speakers). We only make speakers that offer the very best value for money Great Value. Some Great Value speakers even also score well enough to be Best Buys as well.
Watch the video below to help you choose which type of wireless or Bluetooth speaker is best for you.
Particularly when buying online, it’s very difficult to know how good speakers really sound compared with each other. Every manufacturer will say their speaker sounds exceptional, and that’s clearly not true.
We’ve found speakers costing many hundreds of pounds with poor sounding bass, and many portable speakers with tinny sound that distorts unpleasantly even if they have modest maximum volumes.
Below we are three of the many offenders our expert tests have exposed as well below standard – despite what their marketing says.
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Unlike other tech publications, Which? uses a professional lab and expert listening panel with decades of experience between them to really find out which wireless speakers are the best on the market – and those that offer superb value for money.
Which? uses a unique benchmarking system that means you can directly compare our results, including sound quality, to find out which speaker really is best for you.
We're also entirely independent – we don't take advertising and buy every product ourselves just like a consumer would. For more, read our guide on how we test wireless, smart and Bluetooth speakers .
Modern wireless speakers aren’t simply passive speakers you plug into a hi-fi. Everything is built-in, and they come in all shapes and sizes from large, powerful wi-fi speakers that can be audio systems in their own right, to compact battery-powered small Bluetooth speakers.
Here are the key things to consider to buy the best wireless speaker for you:
It used to be accepted knowledge that wired speaker connections offered better sound. This was because it was much easier to transmit large amounts of electrical audio data down a wire than it was to transmit it wirelessly.
However, wireless technology has now come on leaps and bounds – including Bluetooth. With an excellent product, any remaining gap has narrowed to the point where it has become extremely hard to notice the difference, even to trained ears. Unless you’re spending many hundreds of pounds on the most high-end audio systems money can buy (these speakers will be clearly marketed towards audiophiles or music industry professionals) and using very high-quality audio recordings, wireless technology effectively now matches wired connections in the vast majority of use scenarios.
In Which? tests, we still choose to test wireless speakers over wi-fi when there's the option versus Bluetooth, so we can score them on the best possible sound they can produce. This is since you can still transmit more data over wi-fi than Bluetooth for the potential for higher quality sound. But we also check the Bluetooth sound quality as well, and with the latest Bluetooth versions, rarely does it disappoint when the sound proves great over wi-fi.
We’re confident that, these days, even those looking for audiophile-friendly high-end speakers will find the sound produced over wireless connections from the best models acceptable.
What is far more important for sound quality is the quality of the speakers themselves, so make sure you check out our wireless speaker reviews to make sure you get the best-sounding wireless speaker possible.
Many wireless speakers, particularly portable models, are rated as being water resistant or waterproof.
The official system for this is known as IP ratings (ingress protection). This system is also used for dust protection – such as to prevent sand getting in if using the speaker on a beach.
The first digit of an IP rating tells you the level of protection against solids such as dust, and the second digit is the key one for protection from water.
Ratings | What it means |
---|---|
IPX4 | Protection from splashes of water or a bit of drizzle. |
IPX5 | Protection from jets of water - from a garden hose, for example. |
IP55 | The same water resistance as IPX5, but this speaker is also dust-protected. You’ll only ever see a ‘5’ or ‘6’ for dust protection on speakers. 5 means small amounts of dust may enter, but not enough to impact the function of the speaker. |
IPX7 | For properly waterproof speakers, look for a second digit of 7 or 8. IPX7 means the speaker can be fully immersed to a depth of up to one metre in water. The manufacturer will state how long this is for – a typical time would be up to 30 minutes. |
IP67 | The same water resistance as IPX7, but this also means the headphones are fully dust tight, meaning no dust should enter. This is the most common IP rating for portable speakers, and is a good choice if you regularly use your portable speaker on the beach. |
IP68 | This is the highest waterproof IP rating on the scale. The speaker can be immersed in water to depths beyond one metre, and the manufacturer will state the maximum depth and time. The speaker is also fully dust tight. This rating is rare – IP67 should be enough for anything other than the most extreme environments. |
Do take care though: don’t assume a waterproof model can survive any amount of submerging. The tests are done by the manufacturer under lab conditions to limited time and depth, and usually only done in fresh water and not salt water.
If your speaker has any flaps, such as for the charging port, these often need to be firmly secured, and if they degrade over time this can affect the waterproofing. The water resistance rating is usually only intended as protection from accidents.
All wireless speakers can access music streaming services like Spotify by streaming it over Bluetooth from your smartphone (may require subscriptions). If you’d like music streaming built-in to the speaker itself, you’ll need a wireless speaker with wi-fi, so it can connect to the internet directly.
Each wi-fi speaker will support a different range of music streaming services, so make sure it features the one you want to use. To discover the best music streaming services to go for, see our expert best music streaming services guide.
To browse all the wireless speakers we've tested, head to our wireless, smart and Bluetooth speaker reviews.