Best Speaker Brands

The Best Speaker Brands of (Summer) 2022: Buying Guide

If you’re looking for the Best Speaker Brands you can buy in (Summer) 2022, which is affordable, high quality and better performance, then you’re in the right place. In this guide, I have listed down the Best Speaker Brands in 2022.

We made this list based on our own opinion, research, and customer reviews. We’ve considered their quality, features, and values when narrowing down the best choices possible.

The Best Speaker Brands you can buy today.

So, here are the Best Speaker Brands of 2022. If you want more information and updated pricing on the products mentioned, be sure to check the links in each product we mentioned.

1. Amazon Echo Studio

Amazon Echo Studio
Amazon Echo Studio

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Amazon is a major global technology company that produces various electronics and is among the best speaker brands we’ve tested for smart home speakers. Their speakers tend to come with Alexa built-in and often need to be plugged into a power outlet to work since they’re for home use. Their newer models are more like smart home hubs that you can use to control Zigbee-compatible devices using your voice.

For example, the Amazon Echo Studio is a wired smart speaker that comes with Alexa built-in. You can activate Alexa with your voice, and it can easily understand you from far away. It has a Zigbee hub built-in which you can use to connect it to other compatible smart home devices like light bulbs and thermostats, and you can control them using Alexa. With its default ‘stereo spatial enhancement’ feature enabled, it has a balanced and neutral sound profile that ensures vocals and lead instruments sound clear and present in the mix, making it great for listening to a wide variety of audio content. While it isn’t as good as the Amazon Echo Gen 4 at registering your voice in noisy rooms, it can get louder with less compression at max volume, resulting in cleaner and clearer sounding audio when the volume is maxed out. It’s also advertised to support Dolby Atmos and Sony’s 360 Reality Audio content.

Pros

  • Excellent value for the size and power
  • Loud, clear sound
  • Compelling directional audio

Cons

  • Requires Amazon Music HD to listen to fully 3D Ultra HD music

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2. Anker Soundcore Motion+

Anker Soundcore Motion+
Anker Soundcore Motion+

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Anker is a young company that produces lots of different audio equipment, as well as portable power banks and affordable charging cables. They’re one of the best Bluetooth speaker brands if you’re on the market for good, budget-friendly speakers. Their models are compatible with the Soundcore app, which lets you customize their sound using the included graphic EQ and presets. While they don’t tend to have any built-in voice assistant features, some are compatible with the voice assistant on your paired smartphone.

The Anker Soundcore Motion+, for instance, is a small, portable, and lightweight speaker that’s well-built. It’s rated IPX7 for water resistance, meaning it’s certified to be immersible in up to a meter of water for 30 minutes, so you can take it to the pool without worrying about accidentally dropping it in the water. It has a balanced mid-range, so vocals and lead instruments sound clear and present in the mix, making it great for listening to a wide variety of music genres. It’s compatible with the Soundcore app, so you can adjust its sound to your liking using the featured graphic EQ and presets. While its soundstage isn’t as wide and spacious-sounding as the Anker Soundcore Flare 2, it gets louder and has a longer-lasting battery life of over 15 hours, making it better suited for longer listening sessions. That said, battery life varies depending on your chosen volume levels and settings.

Pros

  • Amazing battery life.
  • Can get quite loud.
  • IPX7 rating for water resistance.
  • Very portable.

Cons

  • Fairly narrow soundstage.

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3. Apple HomePod mini

Apple HomePod mini
Apple HomePod mini

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Apple is an American technology company known for selling phones, headphones, laptops, tablets, watches, and more. Their speakers offer great voice assistant support with Siri built-in, and if you’re an iOS user, they make a great addition to your Apple ecosystem. Since they’re for home use, these speakers aren’t very portable due to their wired design and need to remain plugged into an outlet to work. Unfortunately, while the Apple HomePod can even operate as a soundbar for your Apple TV, the manufacturer discontinued this speaker, leaving only the Apple HomePod Mini currently on the market.

The Apple HomePod mini is a small spherical home speaker. You can activate Siri with your voice, and the speaker is excellent at hearing you when you’re far away. It has a balanced mid-range out-of-the-box, so voices and lead instruments reproduce clearly and with detail in the mix, though they sound dark at times. It also lacks a graphic EQ to tweak its sound to your liking. Thanks to its 360-degree design, it has outstanding directivity, so you can hear your audio clearly from most angles, resulting in a wide and spacious-sounding soundstage. You can also pair it to another HomePod speaker when you want to create a stereo pair or to multiple other speakers when you want to play different audio in different rooms of your home at the same time.

Pros

  • Sophisticated, engaging sound
  • Substantial smart skills
  • Impressive music discovery

Cons

  • Limited third-party service support
  • Lacks a full control app

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4. Bose Portable Smart Speaker

Bose Portable Smart Speaker
Bose Portable Smart Speaker

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Bose is an American manufacturer that specializes in home electronics. While they’re best known for making high-end noise-canceling headphones, they also make speakers and sound systems. They have different speaker lineups geared toward different audiences. Their ‘SoundLink’ speakers, like the Bose SoundLink Flex, are smaller, more portable, well-built, and compatible with the Bose Connect app. Their ‘Home Speaker’ speakers, like the Bose Home Speaker 500 and the Bose Portable Smart Speaker, have Alexa and Google Assistant built-in and are compatible with the Bose Music app, which has bass and treble adjustments to tweak the speaker’s sound to your liking. Overall, Bose speakers tend to have somewhat balanced sound profiles suitable for listening to a wide variety of audio content, from music to podcasts.

The Bose Portable Smart Speaker comes with Alexa and Google Assistant built-in. While it doesn’t get as loud as the Bose Home Speaker 500, it’s battery-powered and has a built-in carrying handle, making it incredibly portable. It has an IPX4 rating for water resistance, which certifies it to withstand small splashes of water, so you can bring it outside without worrying about it getting a bit wet. It has a slightly boomy default sound profile with a balanced mid-range that ensures vocals and lead instruments reproduce clearly and accurately in the mix. You can also adjust its sound to your liking thanks to the bass and treble adjustments in the Bose Music app.

Pros

  • Alexa and Google Assistant built-in.

Cons

  • Short battery life.

5. Google Nest Audio

Google Nest Audio
Google Nest Audio

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Google is an American technology company that produces a wide range of internet-related products. They sell phones, smart speakers, tablets, earbuds, and more. They currently have two speakers on the market: the Google Nest Audio and the smaller Google Nest mini, which offer excellent voice assistant support with Google Assistant built-in. You can activate the assistant with your voice, and they feature mute mic buttons when you no longer want the assistant to listen to you for more privacy. They’re designed for use at home, so they aren’t very portable since they need to stay wired to a power outlet to work.

The Google Nest Audio can easily blend in with your home decor. It does a decent job registering your voice in noisy rooms and is excellent at hearing you from far away. It has a balanced mid-range out-of-the-box that ensures vocals and lead instruments reproduce accurately and with detail in the mix, though higher-pitched voices and instruments sound dull and veiled at times. You can tweak its sound profile to your liking, thanks to the bass and treble adjustments featured in its Google Home companion app. On the other hand, the Google Nest Mini is smaller and cheaper. That said, it doesn’t produce as deep a bass as the Nest Audio and doesn’t get quite as loud.

Pros

  • Excellent far-field performance.
  • Microphone mute feature.

Cons

  • Doesn’t get very loud.

6. JBL PartyBox 310

JBL PartyBox 310
JBL PartyBox 310

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JBL is an American company that manufactures a variety of audio equipment, including loudspeakers and headphones. They have a wide variety of speakers, though they’re generally for outdoor use and casual listening. Many of their speakers have balanced sound profiles out-of-the-box and are designed for use on the go. For example, the JBL GO 3, JBL Flip 6, and the JBL Clip 4 have small, portable designs. JBL speakers from the ‘PartyBox’ lineup, on the other hand, are designed with party lovers in mind. They can get incredibly loud, come with RGB lights, and have mic and guitar inputs. Overall, JBL speakers are well built and have a range of designs and uses, making JBL one of the best brands we’ve tested.

The JBL PartyBox 310 is a large stereo party speaker that features the PartyBox lineup’s iconic RGB lights. There are mic and guitar inputs for karaoke-lovers and even a 12V DC In port to charge the speaker from your car’s lighter port. With its Bass Boost feature set to ‘Deep’, it has a slightly boomy sound profile that can produce quite an extended low-bass, meaning you can feel the deep thump and rumble typically present in bass-heavy music like EDM or hip-hop. There’s a graphic EQ in its PartyBox app to tweak its sound to your liking.

Pros

  • Can get very loud.
  • Bass Boost feature.

Cons

  • Narrow-sounding soundstage.

7. Sonos Move

Sonos Move
Sonos Move

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Sonos is an American company that manufactures high-end audio products like smart speakers and soundbars. Many of their speakers have built-in support for Alexa and Google Assistant, which is helpful if you like issuing voice commands, and they’re mainly for use at home. The Sonos One Gen 2 and Sonos One SL can even be used as satellite speakers in some Sonos soundbar setups, like the Sonos Arc. Sonos speakers often have well-balanced sound profiles that are well-suited to playing a wide variety of music genres. They also tend to come with a room correction feature Sonos calls Trueplay, which optimizes the speaker’s sound according to the acoustics of the room it’s placed in, though the feature is currently only available with iOS devices. The companion app, Sonos S2, has bass and treble sliders to adjust its sound to your liking.

The Sonos Move is a battery-powered, portable smart speaker that’s rated IP56 for dust and water resistance, so you don’t have to worry about it getting a bit wet when bringing it outside with you. Alexa and Google Assistant are built-in and can hear you from far away and in noisy rooms. With Trueplay enabled, it has a well-balanced sound profile which you can tweak to your liking using the bass and treble sliders in the Sonos S2 app. While it gets pretty loud, there’s compression that degrades the quality of your audio as you bump up the volume. However, this well-built smart speaker’s versatility makes it one of the best Bluetooth speakers we’ve tested.

Pros

  • Solid build quality.
  • Great wireless connectivity options.
  • One-hand carry.
  • Good directivity.

Cons

  • Bass compression at max volume.
  • No real EQ, only bass and treble adjustment sliders.

8. Sony XP700

Sony XP700
Sony XP700

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Sony is one of the largest electronics manufacturers in the world, and they produce products like headphones and a wide range of speaker models that can appeal to many different users. If you love listening to music, you may prefer one of their more premium models, like the Sony SRS-RA3000, which is compatible with the Sony Music Center app and gives you access to a graphic EQ and other sound settings. However, if you want a speaker you can bring on the go, their smaller, cheaper speakers, like the Sony SRS-XB13, still offer a pretty good value for their price. While their speakers don’t tend to be voice-enabled, some of them are compatible with the voice assistant on your paired smartphone.

The Sony XP700 is one of Sony’s party speakers. Though it isn’t as easily portable as the much smaller Sony SRS-XG500, this large party speaker features an extra mic input, meaning you can wire a microphone and an instrument like a guitar to the speaker at the same time. With its ‘MEGA BASS’ preset enabled, it has a boomy sound profile, and you can customize its sound to better suit your preferences using the graphic EQ and presets featured in its Sony Music Center app. You can also access and customize this speaker’s extra party features like DJ and light show effects via the Fiestable app.

Pros

  • Seriously powerful bass depth and bright highs
  • Karaoke-ready, with mic and guitar inputs
  • LED light show
  • Water-resistant

Cons

  • Impractically large
  • App (and EQ) are not as useful as they could be

9. Ultimate Ears HYPERBOOM

Ultimate Ears HYPERBOOM
Ultimate Ears HYPERBOOM

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Ultimate Ears is an American manufacturer that’s a subsidiary of Logitech. They produce a variety of audio products, including headphones, in-ear monitors, and wireless Bluetooth speakers. They generally produce well-built portable speakers with IP ratings for water resistance like the Ultimate Ears WONDERBOOM 3, which is certified to be immersible in up to a meter of water for 30 minutes. The manufacturer even advertises their speakers to float in water, except for the Ultimate Ears HYPERBOOM. While most Ultimate Ears speakers don’t support voice assistants like the Ultimate Ears MEGABLAST, most are compatible with the Ultimate Ears app, which features a graphic EQ and presets to customize the speaker’s sound. Their speakers’ versatility and customizability make Ultimate Ears one of the best speaker brands we’ve tested.

The Ultimate Ears HYPERBOOM has a balanced sound profile suitable for listening to different music genres. You can customize it to your liking using the graphic EQ and presets in its app. It’s also great if you like to blast your favorite music at loud volumes since it gets loud with little compression at max volume, so the quality of your favorite songs remains clean and clear when the volume is maxed out. It also has a built-in handle to help transport it and is well-built with an IPX4 rating for water resistance that certifies it to withstand small splashes of water. It also has a long-lasting battery life of almost 24 hours, making it great for long listening sessions.

Pros

  • Graphic EQ + presets.
  • Gets pretty loud.
  • Good soundstage.

Cons

  • Lacks low-bass.

Michael Diasz Kirindage

Welcome to Oasthar, an enthusiastic Amazon Product Review Blogger dedicated to helping you make informed buying decisions. Through our blog, We provide unbiased and thorough reviews of a wide range of Amazon products, including gadgets, tech, home appliances, beauty essentials, and fashion trends. With our meticulous testing and evaluation process, we uncover hidden gems and steer you away from potential disappointments. Join us on this exciting journey as we explore the vast Amazon marketplace together, revolutionizing the way we shop, one review at a time.