Cabin noise is a volume problem, not a volume knob problem. On a cruising aircraft the engine drone sits in the low frequencies, the air conditioning adds a steady mid-band hiss, and the people around you supply unpredictable chatter that no amount of raising the volume will fix. That is why the best headphones for … Read more

Fall-out is the single most common complaint in running audio. On r/Garmin, one runner put it plainly: “I have JBLs that fall out all the time. Same with apple airpods. Looking into over the ear options.” That sentence is the reason this list exists. The best wireless earbuds for running are not the ones with … Read more

A 4000 cubic foot great room with a vaulted ceiling and a tile floor is not a hard listening environment. It is a completely different job from the one most tower speakers were tuned for. Finding the best floorstanding speakers for large rooms comes down to one spec that buyers often skip: how many decibels … Read more

A turntable is the rare hi-fi component that arrives with no speakers and no amplifier. Powered bookshelf speakers solve that in one box: each pair has a small Class D amplifier and a preamp built into one cabinet, so a turntable, a TV, and a phone can all plug straight in without a separate receiver. … Read more

Three picks stand out for the best subwoofers for small living rooms right now: the Polk Audio PSW10 as the best overall, the Klipsch R-100SW for the most bass per dollar spent, and the Klipsch Sub-100 for movie nights. All three are 10-inch powered subs with adjustable crossover and phase controls, which matters far more … Read more

Whole house audio is a set of wireless speakers that all sit on your home Wi-Fi, grouped in one brand’s app so the same music plays in several rooms at once, with no speaker wire pulled through the walls. It is not the same thing as multi-room audio, where each room can play something different … Read more

The best soundbars for small apartments are compact bars under about 26 inches wide with no separate subwoofer, because the sub is what transmits through the floor and shared walls. Our top pick is the Bose TV Speaker, a 23.38-inch all-in-one built specifically around dialogue clarity. Every TV made in the last decade has speakers … Read more

The Polk Audio Signa S2 is our pick for the best soundbars under 300 because it does the one thing budget bars usually skip: it gives dialogue a dedicated home. The 5.1-channel bar pairs a wireless 5.25-inch subwoofer with Polk VoiceAdjust dialogue enhancement, and at just over two inches tall it clears almost any TV … Read more

Most outdoor speaker guides treat a patio and a deck as the same room with a different floor. They are not. A covered patio reflects sound back at the people sitting in it, so a pair of small speakers can sound surprisingly full. An open deck does the opposite, it lets every note escape over … Read more

The best Bluetooth speakers for beach trips are the JBL Flip 5 for most people, the JBL Charge 5 if you have a big group, and the Soundcore Select 4 Go if the surf is going to reach your towel. Every other pick below earned its place on a different beach-specific test: how the speaker … Read more