Whether you want to spend a few hundred dollars or a few thousand, the best floor-standing speakers can level up your hi-fi system and deliver awesome, room-filling sound. In this article, we’ll break down the top five floor-standing speakers on the market this year based on performance and situations they’ll be used in. So whether you’re looking for the best floor-standing speakers for a home theater, for music, or anything in between, stay tuned; we’ll have the perfect option for you. The products mentioned in this article are in no exact order, so be sure to stay tuned till the end so you don’t miss anything.
First up is the SVS Ultra, our pick for the best floor-standing speakers for music. The SVS Ultra floor-standing speakers are built for discerning audiophiles. Their dual opposing 8-inch woofers command a room with deep, articulate bass, while the innovative driver design, premium materials, and optimized cabinet geometry combine to convey incredible resolution, absolute transparency, and crisp, powerful dynamics. These floor-standing speakers feature a proprietary SVS ForceFactor woofer array for room-filling, low-frequency output. Working in concert with the woofers are dual 6.5-inch midrange drivers that feature composite glass fiber cones that offer the necessary stiffness for enhanced voicing that doesn’t color the sound. The Ultra’s aluminum dome tweeter is highly accurate, and the FEA-optimized diffuser aids in broad dispersion for a wide and convincing soundstage. To manage all the frequencies, the Ultra features SVS’s SoundMatch 3.5-way crossover that intelligently routes the frequencies to the correct driver while crossing over the top midrange driver over to the tweeter and the bottom midrange over to the woofers to minimize the potential for sound beaming. This creates an expansive, focused, and precise soundstage with accurate frequency response and imaging at all listening positions in the room and ensures pinpoint accuracy from sparkling highs down to subterranean lows. Every feature on these speakers has been designed with sound in mind. Chamfered edges on the cabinet’s front baffle minimize edge diffraction for clear and precise sound staging, while the sweeping side panels are non-parallel, so each of the 8-inch woofers fires in different directions to fill your room with deep, accurate bass. The interior of the cabinets features two separate enclosures for each of the mid-range drivers to optimize performance and minimize interaction between the drivers. If you’re looking for a set of floor-standing speakers that will reproduce your favorite music accurately and without a lot of unnecessary coloration, the SVS Ultra is exactly what you’re looking for. Everything that goes into the construction of these floor-standing speakers is meant to convey music the way it was intended to be heard.
Next up is the QAcoustics 3050i, our pick for the best floor-standing speakers for small spaces. If you want a set of speakers that will deliver the bass you crave but have a limited amount of space, you might think that a set of floor-standing speakers is totally out of the question. However, Q Acoustics 3050i floor-standing speakers have a small footprint, taking up only 1 square foot of space. Like the SVS Ultra floor-standing speakers, a great deal of attention has gone into the design and construction of the cabinets of the Q Acoustics 3050i. Improvements in material rigidity translate into tighter or more controlled sound, while thicker baffles on the driver supports incorporate a hollow tube packed with damping material, known as a Helmholtz pressure equalizer. It reduces overall resonance, making the sound cleaner and clearer. The drivers include a 165mm mid-bass driver, along with a passive radiator that sandwiches a 22mm high-frequency driver. The mid-bass driver cone is precision-formed from coated paper, giving it balanced stiffness and damping so it can flex with little resonance. The high-frequency driver uses a baffle and suspension system to isolate itself from vibrations from the mid-bass driver, reducing interference and allowing better performance. When it comes to sound quality, the 3050i speakers offer excellent dynamics and good detail in the highs and the mids without any harshness or distortion. Instruments like violins and female vocals really shine with these speakers. Low frequencies are delivered with high energy, but don’t go so far as to swamp the soundstage, letting the mid-range and highs cut through so that all the frequencies are represented accurately. If you crave the big sound of floor-standing speakers but don’t have a lot of room to spare, the Q Acoustics 3050i is an excellent choice. The small, one-foot-square footprint is more conducive to smaller spaces, and the sound quality is powerful and detailed.
Next up is the Klipsch R625FA, our pick for the best floor-standing speakers under $1000. The Klipsch R625FA works like a regular floor-standing speaker, but its set of upward firing drivers built into the top of the cabinet reflects sound off your ceiling and expands your home theater soundstage vertically using dedicated height channels for an enhanced surround sound experience. These high-quality speakers have a sleek black finish covered with a magnetic grille. Integrated into the enclosure are both conventional forward-facing speakers, as we’ve seen with speakers like the SVS Ultra and Q Acoustics 3050i, but it builds on that premise and innovates with the addition of upward-facing speakers for Dolby Atmos effects that fire toward the ceiling and provide a sense of height and a 360-degree surround sound environment. The front-facing speakers feature two 6.5-inch spun copper-injection-molded graphite woofer cones, while the upward-facing speaker uses a single 5.25-inch woofer. Using spun copper and IMG gives them excellent low-frequency response with little to no distortion. Both the forward and upward speakers are then paired with a horn-loaded LTS tweeter. Traxtrix horn technology reduces any artificial reverb or filtering, resulting in sound aimed at the listener with greater detail and dynamics. Even when used on their own without a center, rear, or sub, these speakers sound incredible. Music sounds crisp, natural, and precise. Everything from the deep, driving bass notes to the crystal clarity of the drummer’s cymbals is accurately reproduced, with the entire spectrum covered from low to high frequencies. But when it comes to watching movies, the R625FA really shines, especially with Dolby Atmos-encoded sources. Having audio surround you is almost surreal, knowing that there are only two speakers connected. But when combined with a complete 7.2-channel surround sound package, they create a remarkable and immersive experience that you’re sure to enjoy. If you’re looking for a great set of floor-standing speakers that will keep you under the $1,000 mark, the Klipsch R625FA will keep you on budget while delivering fantastic performance. They create an immersive 360-degree experience on their own, with deep, clear bass without the need for a subwoofer.
Next up is the SVS Prime Pinnacle, our pick for the best overall floor-standing speakers. The SVS Prime Pinnacle floor-standing speakers really do live up to their name, providing warm and engaging sound quality in a top-notch, high-quality build. These three-way, floor-standing speakers feature a 5-driver array that consists of three 6.5-inch high-performance woofers, a 5.25-inch composite glass fiber cone midrange driver, similar to the SVS Ultra but just a bit smaller, and a 1-inch aluminum dome tweeter that renders crystal-clear highs with revealing clarity and lifelike realism. Also like the SVS Ultra, the Prime Pinnacle features SVS’s Sound Matte Crossover to create an expansive sound stage with accurate frequency response and precise imaging. Picking out different instruments or elements in a movie comes naturally, with the different audio elements occupying clear positions in space, so you can easily tell where specific sounds originate from. To connect these speakers up, a single pair of binding posts on the rear of each speaker can accommodate both banana plugs and bare wire, but it doesn’t support bi-amping or bi-wiring. So if having that ability is a must, the Kliefsch RP-8000F is coming up later in the video and offers four binding posts on the rear of each speaker to support these configurations. Also on the back panel, you’ll find three open bass ports, one for each woofer, that help boost the low frequencies. Because of the nature and placement of these ports, it’s important to position the speakers at least a foot away from any wall; otherwise, there may be a noticeable decrease in power from the low end. If you’re looking for the best overall floor-standing speakers you can get right now, the SVS Prime Pinnacles are an obvious choice. They’re well-designed, solid, and deliver an expansive soundstage that makes your favorite music and movies more exciting, engaging, and entertaining.
Last but not least, the Klipsch RP-8000F. The Klipsch RP-8000F features spun copper woofers for deep, powerful bass and mid-range and a horn-loaded tweeter for smooth, detailed highs. These floor-standing speakers deliver dynamic, high-impact sound that brings movies and music to life. The speaker cabinets feature a scratch-resistant finish and sit on cast aluminum feet that minimize contact with the floor and reduce overall resonance. Like the Klipsch R625FA, the Copperspond Cerametallic woofers add a lot of visual pop to their appearance, and in the case of the RP-8000F, they are configured with two 8-inch woofers along with a 1-inch tweeter. Bass and midrange frequencies are handled by the dual woofer set, aided by a tuned rear port that is similar to what we saw on the SVS Prime Pinnacle, while they are channeled through the titanium LTS vented tweeter housed in a hybrid Tratrix horn waveguide. If you’re a fan of bass, you’ll definitely appreciate the 32 Hz to 25 kilohertz frequency response that delivers a punchy low-end that doesn’t require a lot of power to drive. Even at lower volumes, music comes across with a live presence and a more natural overall feel. If you’re a vinyl aficionado or have high-quality digital downloads, the RP-8000Fs are ideal for serious music listening, and if you add a dedicated subwoofer, these floor standers take your favorite music and movies to a new level. And unlike the SVS Prime Pinnacle, the RP-8000F’s dual binding posts allow by-wiring and by-amping if you prefer to use multiple audio amplifiers for each audio frequency range. If you’re discriminating when it comes to audio quality, the Klipsch RP-8000F is an excellent choice and will definitely satisfy your need for refined, accurate audio. These floor-standing speakers won’t add a lot of coloration or over-the-top emphasis and offer the ability to buy wire or buy amps.
