Best Floorstanding Speakers For Home Theater and Music 2023

SVS took the speaker world by storm with their performance versus value philosophy and that’s why we chose the SVS Prime Tower Floorstanding Speakers as The Best Home Theater Floorstanding Speakers. You will find very few manufacturers that are as passionate at creating speakers that just sound darn good for a price that doesn’t blow your budget away.

The Prime Tower speakers have a little bit of an unconventional design, which you may have noticed if you saw the “3.5-way design” they employ. What does this mean? It means that each of the 6-½” woofers employed in the speakers are housed in their own enclosure inside of the speaker, which allows them to be tuned differently to improve performance. As a matter of fact, the top woofer is tuned to blend the sound produced by the 4-½” midrange to the sound produced by the bottom woofer (whose job it is to produce the bulk of the speaker’s bass response). Pretty neat, huh? This ensures that the listener gets a full-range audio experience without any drops in the frequency response range. You can certainly hear the difference when you compare the Prime Tower speakers to others around the same price point. If you look at the rear of the speaker, you will notice two ports - one is tuned and dedicated to the top woofer while the other is for the bottom woofer.

In our listening sessions with the Prime Tower speakers, we were consistently surprised with the quality of sound versus their cost. Like, how does SVS do it and do it so well? A fair dose of passion, experience, and craftsmanship. They also benefit from being able to design all their drivers in-house. They can anticipate how well all the individual components (think drivers, crossovers, and the enclosure (or cabinet)) will get along. Each one of those components plays a crucial role in getting the best-possible sound to your ears. The one area we do have to critique is that the speakers lacked the warmth that some of the other speakers you’ll read about in this guide did not. A small thing to some, perhaps, but nevertheless should be noted.

The tonality of the sound was impressive when you compare the size of the speaker to others in its class. SVS calls this a “compact tower” speaker and they are absolutely right. It’s small when compared to most other floorstanding speakers, but they crush it when it comes to a sound experience - especially when you use them in a home theater application. Everything from the sound of gently falling rain to explosions in the latest action movie are reproduced effortlessly and with vigor. The polypropylene midrange and woofer cones belt out some impressive sound and marry to the output of the aluminum down tweeter quite well.

A simple black-cloth grille is included with each speaker and protects the drivers from damage. As much as we like to see the drivers in our speakers, it’s more important to ensure they’re protected from an inquisitive pup or roaming toddler, right?

If you opt to complete the SVS surround sound experience, there are matching speakers for the rears (satellite and elevation options are available) and center channel spots in addition to some killer subwoofers available.

Pros: Small footprint for a floorstanding speaker. Sound produced seems larger than the speaker.

Cons: Lacks the “warmth” offered by other brands. Tweeters can be a bit harsh from time-to-time

Are you piecing together a killer surround sound system that will include Dolby Atmos, but maybe you don’t have the ability (or room) to install the Atmos speakers in their normal spots? Check out the Klipsch RP-8060FA II!

Ideal for any environment but excels in rooms where traditional Dolby Atmos locations can’t be utilized (think apartments, for example), the Klipsch RP8060FA II is truly the epitome of a well-thought-out speaker. Seen from the front, the speakers don’t look like anything more than a large set of floorstanding speakers. However, if you glance at the top of the speaker, you will see a speaker grille. Under this grille is the Dolby Atmos speaker array: a 1” tweeter and a 6-½” woofer. These speakers offer that “height” to the sound that traditional speakers just can’t duplicate.

Much like its traditional speaker brother, the RP-8000F II, the front of the RP-8060FA II boasts a 1” titanium diaphragm tweeter in addition to a pair of 8” Cerametallic™ woofers. Moving around to the rear of the speaker exposes the two Tractrix ports that are paramount in creating and controlling the amount and quality of the bass response that you hear. That’s one thing we would like to mention - the bass response is just plain awesome from these speakers! The tweeters play their parts with near-perfection - the only gripe we have is that it can start to sound a little exaggerated at louder volumes.

The top-mounted speaker array does a wonderful job of pushing the sound up over the listener’s head, which brings to life scenes where birds or planes fly overhead. While it is a compromise to “real” Dolby Atmos speaker locations, we found them to work quite well.

When it comes to music, the sound was superb. We have carried Klipsch for years and while we love them, our Klipsch customers adore them even more. It doesn’t matter if you mellow out with Beethoven or rock out with Alice In Chains, you’re going to be thrilled with the results. Low-lying bass sweeps are present and kick drums sound tight and articulate - thanks in huge part to those Klipsch-designed ports, of course.

The speaker’s cabinet is quite sturdy and is wrapped in Klipsch’s high-quality ebony vinyl for a clean look. The grilles attach to the front of the speaker via magnets, which makes removal and installation a breeze. Cast aluminum feet at the bottom of the speaker complete the look. Check out our review of the full Reference Premiere II line up here.

Pros: Superb value versus performance. Built-in Dolby Atmos drivers are amazing.

Cons: A bit on the bulky side - especially if your room is small. Not quite good enough as standalone music-only setups.

KLH’s Model Five floorstanding speakers were a slam-dunk for The Best Floorstanding Speakers for Vinyl. Why? They carry that signature KLH sound quality coupled with that sweet old-school look. It’s a match made in audio heaven, for sure.

The Model Five’s may look like a speaker that once sat in your grandparents’ home, but we assure you that’s not the case. Sure, the Model Five has been around since 1968, but this is a different flavor. The technologies employed are new, with the new drivers being placed into a retro-style speaker cabinet with a light-colored linen grille. If the grille is removed, you can see the 1” aluminum dome tweeter, 4” midrange, and 10” woofer designed in-house by KLH to deliver full-range sound to you.

Speaking of the cabinet for a moment, this is one of the few floorstanding speakers in the “Best” list that uses a fully sealed cabinet. This may mitigate some bass response but lends better tonality overall. KLH’s acoustic suspension cabinet design is still one of the best-sounding designs on the market today. If it ain’t broken, why fix it, right?

These speakers are just plain fun to listen to. We used both records and high-resolution music streaming services to demo these things and while the music streaming was awesome (and saved us from having to get up to change records or tracks on albums), there was a noticeable difference in warmth and intimacy with the vinyls. Vocalists were front and center in every track we listened to, but the instruments and backup vocalists were still very much present. For the record, we had the speakers on the “Mid” setting on the rear of the speaker where you can adjust the midrange and high-frequency response. There are “Low” and “High” settings, too, but these would be set to the end-listener’s preferences. There were demonstrable differences in output when we turned the knob between the different settings.

Like other KLH models, the Model Five wasn’t grating on the ears when it came to the treble and the midrange/bass response was full and enjoyable. There were moments that we wished we had a subwoofer employed, too, but that could have been a byproduct of our listening room.

One aspect that was enjoyed about the speakers from a looks perspective was the metal angled riser each speaker sat upon. It gave the impression that the speakers were floating against a dark background. It also lends to that retro-style we mentioned earlier.

So do you have a small (or large) collection of vinyl you’re looking to unleash and in-need of a solid pair of speakers that you will no doubt thoroughly enjoy them on? The Model Five floorstanding speakers are awaiting your arrival.

Pros: Old-school aesthetics. Great sound quality. Rear adjustment knob permits slight sound adjustments.

Cons: Bass response can be a little thin depending on room size. Lower impedance.

Whew, does Bowers and Wilkins know how to make a speaker. They have been doing it for decades and like a fine wine, they just get better with age. Smooth sound, perfect imaging, and solid bass extension are just a few things that netted B&W’s 702 S3 speakers the “Best Floorstanding Speakers for Music” title.

In this writeup, the 702s we checked out had the “mocha” finish and it’s just plain gorgeous. The dark decoupled tweeter housing contrasts beautifully and if you opt to keep the protective grilles off the speaker, the dark-colored woofers contrast just as well. We suggest that you keep the black protective grilles attached (they connect via magnets) so that the speaker’s delicate drivers aren’t exposed to an inquisitive pet or child.

Upon our initial listen, we were amazed with the sound quality we heard. The speakers faithfully reproduced tracks as well as any high-end speaker we have heard to-date. Vocalists were pushed forward and the accompanying instruments each had their stage to perform on and didn’t get lost in the mix. We listened to everything from jazz to heavy metal to hip hop and with each genre, the sound was just plain perfect.

The Decoupled Carbon Dome™ 1” tweeter produces clear high-frequency response without that bright “tinny” sound that accompanies so many other speaker brands - especially at higher listening levels. You may look at the speaker and go “now, why the heck did B&W take the tweeter out of the cabinet and place it on top?” Good question and one we will gladly answer. B&W’s sound engineers found that placing the tweeter in that location and housing it in a solid piece of aluminum improved the tweeter’s output by not allowing it to be interfered with by the woofers’ output that ever-so-slightly causes the cabinet to resonate. Remove this distraction and the tweeter will perform perfectly.

Next up on the driver list is the 6” silver-colored Continuum™ cone FST midrange driver whose duty is it to marry the output of the tweeter to the three bass drivers. The 700-series speakers benefit from a lot of trickle-down technologies from their bigger brothers, the 800-series, and this midrange driver is one of those borrowed technologies. This driver performs its job perfectly for clear, full-range response from the speaker without a vocal or instrument being missed in reproduction.

Lastly, there are three Aerofoil Profile woofers directly below the midrange. These three 6-½” drivers are in-place to deliver strong, but musical bass response. Well, not only deliver it, but deliver it well: there is no trace of anemic or tubby bass response - and it doesn’t matter what genre of music you might be enjoying. Kick drums are tight and low-lying bass sweeps begin to rattle paintings on the walls.

When we turn to the cabinet design, B&W continues to use a bass-reflex design with their Flowport™ technology to maximize bass output while mitigating distortion potential. The 702 S3 speakers certainly benefit from this cabinet configuration. B&W included a foam plug for each Flowport™ if you would like to adjust the bass response that you are receiving from them.

The 702 S3 speakers are worth every penny and the price tag does contain a lot of pennies. While the not the most modestly-priced speakers, the sound that they can produce is without peer for that pile of pennies. One really nice thing about them is that they don’t need a tremendously powerful amplifier to get the very best from them: they handle power as little as 30 watts, believe it or not. Don’t get us wrong, if you have an amplifier that’s going to output 200-300 watts, the B&Ws will take that, too!

If you decide to complement the 702 S3s with matching rear speakers, a center channel, and a subwoofer, all of that is available. It should be mentioned that while these speakers excel in music reproduction, they are NOT slouches for movies and TV.

Pros: Superior sound quality. Beautiful in the Mocha finish. Extremely musical.

Cons: On the pricier side.

The No.2 is Focal’s 3-way floorstanding speaker in the Vestia line and is sized at 10 1/8” x 14 5/8" x 39 7/8." This speaker has two 6 1/2" woofers to accompany the 6 1/2" midbass driver and the 1” TAM tweeter. The two woofers will make a significant difference in low end output, so much so that you might feel like you don't need to add a subwoofer (for 2-channel listening at least).

That is also helped by the No.2 being the first speaker in the Vestia line that will have the Focal PowerFlow multi-port technology. This feature allows for better bass response by using a front and rear port, where both ports are tuned to different frequencies allowing better distribution.

When positioning these speakers, Focal is recommending that the No.2 floorstanding speakers be at least 10 feet away from the listening position and will play nicely in rooms starting at 215 square feet (about twice the area of an apartment bedroom) and above.

Pros: Cambered back to act as a passive time alignment. Tonality and timbre will match throughout the Vestia series.

Cons: Need to give these speakers room to shine and breathe.

We chose the KLH Kendall floorstanding speakers as The Best Floorstanding Speakers Under $1500 because they sound simply stunning for their price point. If you’re not familiar with the KLH name, they have been in the business since 1957 and have been making best-selling speakers since then.

Upon first look, the Kendall speakers looks smart and tidy in their Black Oak finish. There are protective grilles available for each speaker (they are wrapped in a black cloth). When the grille is removed from a speaker, you will see the 1” anodized aluminum dome tweeter, 5-¼” Kevlar® midrange, and a pair of 6-½” Kevlar® woofers. Turning the speaker around, you are presented with a pair of ports near the bottom of the cabinet to help improve bass response as well as two pairs of speaker terminals (bridged together from the KLH). A plinth is attached to the bottom of the speaker, as well.

In listening to the Kendall speakers, the tweeters are detailed without harshness, which is a big deal since metal tweeters can notoriously be labeled as “tinny” or harsh sounding. We love the fact that KLH opted to use woven Kevlar® in both the midrange drivers as well as the woofers. This material is well-known for almost effortlessly being able to faithfully reproduce even small nuances in all bits of music genres. As a bonus, the material looks cool, too, if you’re one to keep the speakers exposed in your home.

The bass response is full without sounding “boomy.” Tracks with lots of fast-paced kick drum areas sound tight and articulate. The midrange is present, and we could distinctly hear different vocalists, backup guitars, etc. with ease. When we listened to some tracks with deeper bass response, we did pick up that these speakers didn’t quite deliver the impact that some of their counterparts did.

The speaker grille we mentioned earlier attaches to the front of the speaker via magnets, so if you decide to expose the drivers, there are no unsightly holes for grille attachment. It’s the little things like this that made us even happier about the Kendalls. We believe that the Kendalls will make just about any music lover happy with what they are hearing. Give them a shot, we know you’ll love the results!

Pros: Well-built. Runs well off low power.

Cons: Not quite as much bass response as rivals.

Klipsch has been a household name for speakers and subwoofers for decades now. Because of their passion and experience in speaker craftsmanship, it was an easy choice for us to make the RP-8000F II Reference Premiere our Best Floorstanding Speakers for Under $2000. Klipsch was founded by Paul W. Klipsch and has been crafting award-winning speakers for over 70 years. Read on to learn more about one of their most popular speakers.

At first glance, the RP-8000F II speakers look very similar to their other lines -notably the RP-6000F II speakers, but once you pop that grille off, you notice one thing immediately: the Cerametallic™ 8” woofers are larger than the ones offered in RP-6000F II speakers, which offer 6-½” woofers. This pays dividends in bass response and extension. Your favorite tunes will have more impact. In fact, you may have to firmly affix the pictures on your walls before letting these bad boys do their thing. To learn more about the differences in the Reference Premiere II speakers, check out our full review here.

In terms of sound impressions, we are always thrilled with the sound reproduction from Klipsch. They are extremely efficient (handling low power with ease but can handle up to 150 watts of continuous power each). What we heard was impressive: the speakers played our tracks with great fidelity. Every nuance was heard with clarity and the bass response in our listening room was nothing short of incredible thanks to the 1” titanium diaphragm tweeter found in each speaker. The one thing we did notice was that at louder volumes, the tweeters could begin to sound a little harsh and exaggerated. Overall, it wasn’t too bad, but we wanted to point that out to the folks that may have some sensitivity with high-frequency response.

The ebony cabinet finish on these Reference Premiere speakers is up to normal Klipsch expectations: simple, but tasteful. The protective grilles affix via magnets, so if you opt to not have them in-place, you’re not subjected to speaker grille mounting holes. Spinning the speaker around (easier said than done!), you’ll see two vertical slot ports, which Klipsch calls Tractrix ports, that play a huge part in the clean and deep bass response you receive from the RP-8000 II speakers. Below those ports reside the input terminals that can be bi-amplified or bi-wired (or you can hook them up in the traditional sense by keeping the included speaker wire jumpers in-place).

If you’re in the market for speakers that will rock your world, but not your wallet, the RP-8000F II would be the best bang for your buck. If you aren’t a fan of the ebony finish, please know that there is also a walnut finish available (we like this finish a lot, too!).

Pros: Superb dynamic range. Runs well off low power.

Cons: High frequencies can run a bit hot at louder volumes. A bit plain looking.

We chose the Bowers & Wilkins 603 S3 floorstanding speakers as The Best Floorstanding Speakers Under $2500 because of B&W’s commitment to superb sound quality with every speaker that they make - from their 600-series floorstanding speakers all the way up to their vaunted Nautilus flagship speakers. B&W has been crafting some of the best-sounding speakers for decades and they don’t show any signs of slowing down.

The 603 S3 speakers are a celebration of the 25 years that the 600-series line has existed. Just think about that for a moment… This speaker lineup has been around for almost three decades! If that doesn’t speak volumes of the quality of these speakers, we don’t know what does. This Anniversary Edition offers some cosmetic differences from the non-Anniversary models, such as a different ring that surrounds the tweeter and an oak cabinet finish. Inside the speaker saw a little bit of an upgrade, too, in the form of a better-optimized crossover network.

While the 603 S3 speakers are certainly easy on the eyes, the sound is what mattered the most to us during our listening trials. The results were kind of what we expected from a manufacturer such as B&W: incredible! The highs were detailed without sounding harsh, the large Continuum™ midrange properly pushed the singer’s voice to the forefront of the music while accurately reproducing the other instruments or backup vocalists in the music selections, and the bass response was really good. Circling back around to that midrange driver for a moment, it did a wonderful job of bridging the gap between the tweeter and two midbass drivers. We’d still recommend a subwoofer for better bass extension, but if space is at a premium in your listening room, the 603 S3 speakers might have just enough bass response for you.

From a looks perspective, the matte black finish is nice, but seems a little underwhelming, if truth be told. A simple, black cloth grille snaps onto the front of the speaker via magnets to protect the delicate drivers from accidental damage. When the grilles are installed, the 603 S3 speakers look simple, but elegant. We believe they will fit just about any decor.

At the end of our listening experience, we were left satisfied with what we heard. Our favorite tracks were faithfully reproduced without much coloration at all. Given what we heard, we believe that you would be just as thrilled with B&W’s 603 S3 Floorstanding speakers!

Pros: Great sound quality for the price. Well-made. Runs well off lower power environments.

Cons: A tad on the larger side. The finish of the cabinet leaves a little to be desired.