On-Wall Speaker Reviews

Sort By: Post DateTitle Publish Date
Daniel Kumin  |  Apr 05, 2005  | 

Santa squeezed an awful lot of flat-panel TVs down an awful lot of chimneys last year. (He bends the space-time continuum, that's how.) And as those lucky households recover from holiday bills, thoughts are turning to sleek on-wall speaker systems to finish the job.

Brent Butterworth  |  Nov 20, 2012  | 

The dirty little secret about on-wall speakers is that many aren’t tuned for on-wall use. Most come with a foot that allows them to be used atop a table or stand.

Brent Butterworth  |  Jul 15, 2013  | 

Now that the weather is warm, everyone’s urge to go outside is irresistible. For you, it’s easy: Just walk out the door. For speaker manufacturers, it’s a lot harder — and not because they’re all pale geeks who never leave the lab. It’s because the outdoors is a hostile environment for anything that uses electricity. Water can corrode metal parts, or even short out circuits.

Brent Butterworth  |  Jul 15, 2013  | 

Most outdoor speakers share pretty much the same design. But the OE5 One, like Speakercraft’s other Outdoor Elements speakers, has a feature found in only a few outdoor models: a ported enclosure. The port allows for deeper bass response than a sealed cabinetdoes.

Brent Butterworth  |  Jul 15, 2013  | 

When we put together comparison tests, we often give manufacturers the parameters (i.e., outdoor speakers at $400/pair) and let them figure out what they want to send. For some reason, Niles chose to send the OS5.5, a speaker that costs just $259/pair.

Brent Butterworth  |  Jul 15, 2013  | 

Klipsch is of course known for making high-efficiency speakers with horn tweeters. Whether or not that concept pays off indoors, where high-powered amps are common, is a subject of debate among audiophiles. But it definitely pays off outdoors. There, you have no room gain to boost the bass, so you may need more volume.

Pages

X