Bookshelf Speakers

Amplify the audio in your home by finding the best bookshelf speakers for your space. Bookshelf speakers can be the sole speakers in your living room, or you can find speakers that are easy to integrate into a larger home theater or audio system. Bookshelf speakers are unique in that most require you to first know and measure your space. Most often, bookshelf speakers will sit on — you guessed it — bookshelves, so you’ll want to measure the height, width and depth of your bookcase or shelves so you know what size bookshelf speakers to buy. Once you know your shelf measurements, you can start to narrow down your speaker options. Ideally, you’ll have a few extra inches of space. Typically, a bookshelf speaker pair or set includes one speaker and one subwoofer. You can shop subwoofers by size, like an 8" subwoofer or smaller speaker size. With today’s technology, you don’t have to sacrifice speaker performance for size. Compact bookshelf speakers have great quality audio, too.  

You’ll want to consider more than just dimensions when finding your best bookshelf speakers. Think about hertz, watts and drivers. If you like deep bass, you’ll want a bookshelf speaker with a lower hertz number. Conversely, the higher number of watts, the louder the output you can expect. Drivers is another way to refer to a speaker set that includes both a woofer and a tweeter, like we mentioned before. To recap: look for a low number of hertz, high number of watts, and make sure your speaker set — also called drivers — includes a woofer and a tweeter to get a full range of sound from your bookshelf speakers. 

There may be other bookshelf speaker features that factor into your decision. Bluetooth bookshelf speakers, for example, are super easy to connect to your smartphone, versus having to use an auxiliary cord. And just because a speaker is called a “bookshelf speaker” does not mean that’s where you need to place it. There are plenty of floorstanding speakers (sometimes referred to as tower speakers) or bookshelf speakers that easily sit on a computer desk or kitchen counter to deliver a great audio experience anywhere in the house.