Speaker Decision Blog - Speaker, Subwoofer and Amplifier News

What is New in Speaker Decision?

What You Compared Most in September: The Old Speaker or Its Replacement

2026-09-27

Every time you open a comparison page on this site, we count it. In September you opened 17,018 different speaker pairings. The most popular one was an old DALI against the new DALI that replaced it. And that turned out to be the pattern: 17 of the top 20 were two models from the same brand. Read More...

30 Tips to Better Sound Before You Buy New Speakers

2026-09-25

Before you spend money on new speakers, spend an afternoon on the ones you have. Moving them, moving your chair, softening one wall and checking what is feeding them will usually change more than the next model up. Here are 30 things to try, in the order we would try them, with diagrams. Read More...

REL No.35 and No.36: 10,000 and 12,000 Dollar Subwoofers With the Same Watts as a 2,199 Dollar REL

2026-09-25

REL has two new flagship subwoofers. The No.35 costs 10,000 dollars and the No.36 costs 12,000. That makes the No.36 the fourth most expensive of the 279 subwoofers we hold. But its 1,000 watt amplifier is the same rating as REL's own 2,199 dollar HT/1510 Predator. So where does the money go? Read More...

Audioengine A2+ Gen 3: What Changed Since the A2+ Wireless, and What It Still Cannot Do

2026-09-24

Audioengine has a third-generation A2+. It costs 299 dollars a pair, gets aptX Adaptive Bluetooth and swaps to a Class D amplifier. The cabinet, the drivers and the inputs are the same. And one headline number does not match what Audioengine itself publishes. Read More...

Sonos Beam Ultra: Real Atmos Height Drivers in a Soundbar Under 80 cm, for 699 Dollars

2026-09-23

Sonos has a new middle soundbar. The Beam Ultra costs 699 dollars, is 75 cm wide, and has two drivers that fire at the ceiling for Dolby Atmos. That last part is rarer than it sounds. Of the 12 soundbars we hold that are 80 cm wide or less, only one other has real height drivers. Read More...

JBL's Summit Series Is Five Speakers, and the Cheapest Needs the Biggest Amplifier

2026-09-23

JBL has now priced the Summit K2 and the Summit Everest, so all five Summit speakers are on file here. The odd part is what they ask of an amplifier. Our matcher wants 399 watts a channel for the 19,995 dollar Ama and 25 watts for the 159,990 dollar Everest. In this range, the cheaper the speaker, the bigger the amplifier you need behind it. Read More...

We Built 11 Free Speaker and Amplifier Tools, and Every One Shows Its Working

2026-09-22

Speaker Decision now has 11 free tools for choosing, wiring, placing and setting up speakers and amplifiers. They all live in one place, and every one has a Show the working panel, so you can check the answer instead of trusting it. Read More...

Michi X430 vs Rotel RA-6000: 500 Dollars More Buys an HDMI Socket

2026-09-22

Rotel makes both of these amplifiers. The Michi Prestige X430 costs 4,999 dollars and the Rotel RA-6000 costs 4,499. I put Rotel's own spec sheets side by side, and on two of the three power figures Rotel rates the cheaper one higher. Here is what the extra 500 dollars actually buys. Read More...

Soundbars Are Now on Speaker Decision: 60 Models, Comparisons and a TV Size Simulator

2026-09-22

Speaker Decision has a soundbar section now. 60 soundbars from 18 brands, each with full specs, the TV size it suits, side-by-side comparisons, and a simulator that draws the bar under your TV. Setting it up, I found that 24 of the 60 are tall enough to cover the bottom of the picture on a lot of TVs. Read More...

Fosi's DISC Nano Is a 100 Dollar Pocket CD Player. The Cheapest CD Drive in Our Amplifiers Is 650.

2026-09-21

Fosi Audio has a new CD player, and it fits in a jacket pocket. The DISC Nano is 99.99 dollars, with a balanced headphone output and an optical out. For comparison, the cheapest amplifier we list with a CD drive built in costs 650 dollars. Read More...