Best Wireless Speakers for Your Office
Great-sounding models from Amazon, Apple, Bose, Edifier, and Sonos provide music to work by
By Allen St. John
Whether you’re traveling to an office or working from home, there’s much to be said for adding music to your workday. Research studies suggest that listening to tunes can brighten your mood while boosting your productivity and creativity. If all of that sounds good—or you simply want to listen to Meryl Streep’s cover of “The Winner Takes It All” while crafting your PowerPoint pitch—a good desktop speaker can be a solid investment.
The most important requirement for a work speaker is that it sound good. A grating, annoying midrange—the tones where you hear vocals and most instruments—might not be a deal breaker in a portable speaker you take to the beach, but if you’re listening for hours at a stretch every day, any sonic flaw will drive you to distraction.
On the other hand, while speakers designed for home use might need to fill a large family room or even a spacious patio, most offices are more modest in size. This means that your desktop speaker probably doesn’t need to produce a lot of volume. Instead, you want to look for a model that sounds appealing when played quietly and from close range.
And last, styling isn’t insignificant. If the speaker will be sitting on your desk, where real estate is precious, consider a model that’s small. And because you’ll be staring at it all day, every day, it should be attractive, too, or at least unobtrusive.
These days, you have plenty of good choices.
“Many of today’s best wireless and smart speakers work well in an office or home office environment because they offer impressive sound in a small and simple package,” says Nish Suvarnakar, Consumer Reports’ analyst for the home audio market.
The list below—a collection of wireless and smart speakers—includes stylish, good-sounding models that performed well in CR’s labs. Our testers evaluated each one for ease of use, versatility, and, most of all, sound quality. The ratings for wireless speakers and smart speakers are slightly different, so you shouldn’t compare the ordinal rankings between the two categories. And all of our test samples are bought at full retail—no freebies for us.
Best Amazon Speaker for an Office
Amazon Echo (4th Gen)
If you like the idea of having Alexa as your workday companion, the latest version of the Amazon Echo is a solid option. The model’s orblike styling is attractive enough and, more important, the device features improved speaker drivers and a Zigbee smart home hub that allows it to link directly to many Zigbee-compatible devices.
The latest Amazon Echo also sounds significantly better than its predecessor. Our testers reported that it has strong but slightly boomy bass and enough volume to fill a midsized room. But if you can expand your budget a bit, the Amazon Echo Studio sounds significantly better, with powerful bass and a clean midrange. When playing Dolby Atmos and 3D audio content, our testers reported that the Studio can throw a spacious sound field that can truly fill a room.
For an Apple Lover's Office
Apple HomePod Mini
If your desk looks a little like an outpost of an Apple Store, with your iPhone, iPad, and AirPods charging next to your MacBook, the HomePod Mini smart speaker might make an ideal office companion.
The Mini’s best selling point is the way it interfaces seamlessly with the rest of the Apple ecosystem. The device is a solid option for controlling Apple HomeKit smart home products and services such as Apple Music. The Mini allows voice control of other music services, including Pandora and iHeart Radio, and can even integrate with Apple CarPlay in your vehicle. For instance, you can ask for driving directions while making coffee in the morning, then send your chosen route to your car before leaving.
Soundwise, however, the HomePod Mini leaves something to be desired. Our testers found that its sound is close to that of the much cheaper Echo Dot. The bass is tubby and the midrange is a bit nasal and congested, with an unusual distortion in which the volume sometimes drops when it should increase. Like those inexpensive smart speakers, the HomePod Mini is okay for podcasts or maybe playing background music in a small room, but not so great for pausing from work to really listen to your favorite tunes. And unlike those devices, the HomePod Mini can’t be paired via Bluetooth with a better-sounding wireless speaker.
A Retro Box with a Smiling Face
Audio Pro T3+
If you want great sound in a cool and compact package, check out the Audio Pro T3+. It features attractive retro styling with a wooden enclosure, a slick leather handle, and a whimsical “face” that kind of looks like a koala bear.
It also ranks among the finest-sounding truly portable speakers we’ve tested, with a clean midrange, extended high frequencies, and a decent amount of bass impact given its relatively small size. Our testers found it to be very easy to use, with intuitive pairing and prominent physical controls.
The T3+ has the added bonus of being a portable speaker with a rechargeable battery. Audio Pro claims it can play 30 hours on a charge, which is a big plus if you want to take your work—and your music—with you. If the T3+ sounds intriguing but you’re willing to spend a little more for a larger, multiroom speaker that delivers even better sound quality, check out the model’s larger sibling, the Audio Pro C10Mk II.
Great Small Speaker for an Office
Bose Soundlink Revolve II
With its steely, cylindrical styling, the Bose SoundLink Revolve II hits an aesthetic sweet spot, especially if space is tight. This Bluetooth-powered portable is quite attractive. It comes in two colors and will look right at home in most offices. More important, the Revolve II is only 3 inches in diameter, rendering it unobtrusive enough to blend in with most workspaces, home office or otherwise.
The SoundLink Revolve II features large and intuitive controls that are easily accessible on top of the speaker. That’s important when your boss pings you for an impromptu Zoom call and you want to mute the music without taking the time to dive into a smartphone menu.
Our testers reported that performance-wise, the SoundLink Revolve II is almost identical to its predecessor, the SoundLink Revolve. The sound is easy to live with, featuring a clear midrange, sparkling highs, and well-controlled bass. The Revolve II is also very similar to its larger sibling, the Soundlink Revolve+ II, which provides a bit more volume and bass for $100 more.
Stellar-Sounding Office Speaker
Edifier S1000MKII
Few things do more to improve your quality of life at home than truly spectacular sound. That’s where the Edifier S1000MkII comes in. We haven’t tested a speaker that sounds better than this stereo model in a good long while—if ever.
It features solid bass, clean extended highs, and, most of all, a gorgeous midrange that’s free of distortion and allows you to hear the instruments and voices in all their natural glory.
When properly placed, equidistant from side and back walls and preferably on stands some distance into the room, the two speakers (sold as a pair) also do an amazing job of creating the illusion that the musicians are right there in the room with you. Of course, that assumes you have more than a cubicle or a tiny home office.
The Edifiers aren’t as versatile as some models; they don’t have the multiroom capability of, say, a Sonos system, so you can’t build a whole house system around them. But for the straightforward task of playing music in a way that lets you hear things in your favorite recordings that you never heard before, the Edifier excels.
For Merging Home and Office
Sonos One (Gen 2)
The Sonos One smart speaker is a great work-at-home option. The One’s small footprint won’t clutter your desk, and it features a clear, articulate reproduction of vocals and instruments alike. The sound can also be improved significantly by adding a second Sonos One as part of a stereo pair.
The One can play reasonably loudly, a nice bonus if you don’t have to worry about disturbing your office mates when you’re cranking Sleater-Kinney.
But best of all, the Sonos One integrates seamlessly with other Sonos models in your home, forming a flexible multiroom system for after-hours use. That means the speaker can sync the same song in different rooms and even on different floors, setting your whole house rocking to Martha and the Vandellas if you choose. Or you can create separate listening zones: Bill Evans around your workspace and Ariana Grande in a kid’s bedroom, all controlled by Sonos’s intuitive smartphone app.
If you don’t need or want the One’s smart speaker features (which are compatible with both Amazon’s Alexa and Google Assistant) check out the Sonos One SL, which is a slightly less expensive version of the One without the microphone. Our testers report that it sounds identical. If you’re on a tighter budget, try the latest generation of the Ikea Symfonik speaker, which is also Sonos-compatible. That one’s a bit larger, significantly less expensive, and sounds almost as good.
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