Home Theater Speakers Reviews

CNet.com is currently the best place to read about home theater speakers, especially if you want to spend less than $1,000. The site's home theater speaker reviews are updated regularly, and though not as detailed as those at audio and video enthusiast websites and magazines, provide plenty of information for non-techies. Enthusiast magazines and websites, including Sound & Vision and The Perfect Vision, offer richly detailed reports and make recommendations, but don't do as good a job of comparing home theater speakers. They also tend to focus mainly on pie-in-the-sky speaker systems that cost up to $17,000. Consumer Reports rates and compares home theater speakers, but doesn't cover nearly as many models. Editors offer little in the way of discussion or insight, and the report is out of date. Helpful owner opinions about home theater speakers can be found at AVSForum.com, Amazon.com, CircuitCity.com and elsewhere.

One issue with buying home theater speakers is the wide range of options and prices available. Complete surround-sound speaker packages can be had for under $100, or cost as much as a moderately priced mid-sized sedan. Audio aficionados sometimes disparage budget speakers, and many are poor performers with insufficient bass, buzzy high frequencies and inaccurate sound reproduction. But there are also a lot of affordable home theater speaker systems that can produce audio -- both TV and music -- that will please all but the most critical or status-conscious listener. Our focus in this update is on those systems that cost less than about $1,500.

If you don't want to spend so much on speakers, consider a home theater in a box. This type of kit is aimed at those who want to minimize their number of decisions and keep costs down. Home theater systems include a matched receiver/DVD player and surround-sound speakers.in one box. Systems can be had for as little as $200. See our report on home-theater systems for more on this type of kit.

Our Consensus Report shows how many times products are top-ranked by reviewers included in our
All The Reviews Reviewed chart.

Despite the large number of home theater speakers on the market in a bewildering range of prices, we did find reviewer consensus on several surround-sound speakers, including some budget systems. HSU and SVS speakers are only sold directly through the manufacturer, so these are hard to find. Others are more widely available. Among budget setups, the Infinity Total Solutions TSS-450 has a true subwoofer while the Fluance AV-HTB does not. The Onkyo SKS-HT240 are especially recommended as wall-mountable speakers to accompany a flat-screen TV. The Mirage Nanosat's satellite speakers are tiny, yet reviews say their multidirectional technology lets them accurately fill a family room with sound. As for high-end speakers, the KEF KHT-3005 are a better value than the NHT Verve IV.