Speaker Quality Compared

I’ve tested all my speakers with a few electronic music tracks¹ to see how they perform.

In decreasing order of quality:

1. Floorstanders, specifically the Q Acoustics 5040 powered by the Denon DRA-800H receiver.

2. Portable speaker, specifically the Bose Portable Smart Speaker.

3. TV, specifically the Sony A95L 55-inch.

4. Echo, specifically the Echo Dot with clock (3rd gen)²: Worse in all dimensions than the TV.

5. Mac, specifically the Macbook Pro 16-inch (M1): Compared to the Echo Dot, it has less volume and no bass. Music is devoid of energy. You can hear the sound, but it doesn’t have the impact. It sounds tinny, like the laptop speaker it is.

6. iPhone, specifically the iPhone 15 without any suffixes: Compared to any of the above, it has less clarity. It has less bass, so it sounds tinny. It has less volume. It's effectively mono, in the sense that the sound seems to come from one point.

7. Pixel, specifically the Pixel XL 1: An iPhone with lower volume and bass.

This was all about music. Now let’s see how they perform…

For spoken content

Each of these comments is in relation to the item immediately above it. For example, when I say that the Pixel has less volume, I mean in comparison to the iPhone.

1. Floorstanders

2. TV: less clear, more processed and artificial. It was configured with these settings.

3. Portable Speaker: similar to the TV, just a little too bassy. It was configured with these settings.

4. Echo: less clear, and can’t get as loud³.

5. Mac: same clear, but lower volume, and it doesn’t fill the room the way the Echo does. You can even hear the Echo clearly from the next room, while you can hear the Mac only in the same room. As an aside, if you don’t have an Echo, try using your Macbook Pro as a speaker — it’s suprisingly better than what you’d expect from a laptop speaker and would meet some people’s needs.

6. iPhone: less loud, less clear, more processed, narrow soundstage, too little bass.

7. Pixel: less volume, less clear, missing bass. I never thought I'd say the iPhone has good bass, clarity and loudness.

For spoken content, the speakers mostly rank in the same order as for music. The EQ may need to be tweaked for music as compared to spoken content. If you listen to one primarily on a given speaker, you can optimise it for that. For example, I use my Echo for spoken content more than music, so I dialled in those settings and left it at that.

Conclusions

As you’d expect, floorstanding speakers outperform everything else.

The Portable Speaker is excellent if you don’t have the space or budget for floorstanding speakers + a receiver + a rack, or don’t want multiple cables snaking around. If you’d like to learn more, read my review.

Stereo doesn’t matter on small devices like the Portable Speaker, since stereo requires a lot of stereo separation — the two speakers and you should form an equilateral triangle. Otherwise, there’s no real stereo, and you’re better off buying a great mono speaker.

Dedicated speakers generally outperform speakers built-in to other devices.

The TV’s speakers are exceptionally good for built-in speakers, even when listening to music, and not at all what TV speakers are stereotyped to be. Don’t rush to buy additional speakers before evaluating the built-in speakers.

1. If you listen to a different kind of music, the results may vary.

2. I’ve adjusted the equalisers as follows, for the best music quality:

3. Placing it here:

made it sound terrible. This was because the sound was reflecting off three surfaces: below, behind and above.

Placing it 3 feet from the side wall made it sound better than placing it closer. More than 3 feet distance made no difference.

Placing it 2 feet from the back wall made it sound better than placing it closer. I couldn’t test a greater distance because my kitchen counter wasn’t deep enough.

All distances are from the wall to the closest point on the speaker’s circumference.

Placing it on microfiber cloth made it muffled and less clear. Likewise with this metal trivet:

I also tried using a coaster on the right to angle up the speaker:

… but it made the sound slightly worse.

I also tried:

and

…but they didn’t improve quality.

I adjust the graphical equalisers adjusted as follows, for the best vocal clarity: