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ELECTRONICS › AUDIO

The Best Surround-

Sound Systems Under
$2,500
By Brent Butterworth
Updated August 9, 2022

Photo: Brent Butterworth

Updated ∙ August 2022

We tested the Polk ES35 slim center-channel

speaker and added our thoughts to the write-up on
the Polk Signature Elite Series. We also added a
new speaker system from Platin Audio to What to
look forward to.

A surround-sound speaker system gives

movie lovers a home audio experience
that’s more like what they hear in the
theater. We picked the Polk Signature
Elite Series as our favorite because it
delivers the best combination of
performance, design, user-friendliness,
and affordability. The speakers sounded
as good as anything we tried in their
price range, and they look terrific.

How we picked and tested

Our price range

We focused on surround-sound systems (two
front speakers, two surrounds, and a center
channel) that are priced from $500 to
$2,500.

Living-room-friendly
We evaluated only systems that use
bookshelf speakers, which are smaller, more
affordable, and less visually intrusive than
tower speakers.

Unbiased testing
We concealed the identities of the tested
products and matched their volume levels,
so our listeners could judge purely on sound.

Measurements
We measured our top picks to make sure
they’re well engineered and will work well for
most listening environments.

Read more

Our pick

Polk Signature Elite ES15

Great performer, great value
The ES15 bookshelf speaker pair sounds great,
looks cool, and is surprisingly affordable.

$299 from Amazon

$300 from Best Buy

Polk Signature Elite ES10

A compact surround speaker
The small ES10 is easy to fit or install just about
anywhere, so it’s ideal as a surround speaker.

$249 from Amazon

$250 from Best Buy

Polk Signature Elite ES30

An easy-to-place center speaker
The ES30 is a good, affordable center-channel
match for the ES15 and ES10 speakers in a
surround-sound system.

$299 from Amazon

$300 from Best Buy

The Polk Signature Elite Series is the best deal

we’ve found in a surround-sound speaker
system. The Signature Elite line—a subtly
updated version of our previous pick, the
Signature line—includes a variety of models, but
we recommend the ES15 for the front left and
right channels, the ES10 as surround speakers,
and the ES30 center speaker. In our tests, this
combo’s performance was competitive with that
of everything else we tried in its price range—
and better than that of some more-expensive
systems we tested. The ES15 sounds clear with
music and movie dialogue, and it handles loud,
deep bass without complaint. The ES30 center
speaker produced clear dialogue in our tests,
and its sound matches that of the ES15 pretty
well. (The low-profile ES35 center speaker is
easier to fit in some places, but it doesn’t sound
as full.) The Signature Elite Series speakers are
available in a black, walnut, or white finish, and
their design is far more stylish than we expect to
see in such an affordable speaker line.

Runner-up

ELAC Debut 2.0 B6.2

Big sound for home theater
The B6.2 bookshelf speaker has a powerful sound,
and a matching Dolby Atmos add-on module is
available. But it’s bulky and not very attractive.

$400* from Amazon

(pair)

$400 from Best Buy

(pair)

*At the time of publishing, the price was $300.

ELAC Debut 2.0 B5.2

A smaller bookshelf speaker
The B5.2 is a little smaller and usually a bit less
costly than the B6.2, so it’s a good choice for the
surround channels.

$264* from Amazon

(pair)

*At the time of publishing, the price was $250.

ELAC Debut 2.0 C5.2

A matching center speaker
This fairly compact center speaker is a good match
for the B6.2 bookshelf speakers.

$200* from Amazon

*At the time of publishing, the price was $196.

The ELAC Debut 2.0 speakers are larger and

have a more robust sound than the Polk
Signature Elite Series, which might make this
system a better choice for someone who has a
large room or likes to listen at higher volume
levels. Many system configurations are possible;
we recommend two B6.2 bookshelf speakers for
the front left and right channels, the slightly
smaller B5.2 as surrounds, and the compact
C5.2 center speaker. ELAC also offers the option
to add matching A4.2 Dolby Atmos–enabled
speakers, which makes it easy for you to create
an even more immersive surround-sound
experience if you own an Atmos-equipped AV
receiver. But the Debut 2.0 speakers are bulkier
and far less attractive than those in the Polk
Signature Elite Series.

Upgrade pick

Monolith by Monoprice THX-265B

For the loudest, most immersive
experience
The Monolith by Monoprice THX-265B is bulky and
plain-looking, but it plays movies at commercial-
cinema volume and has an upward-firing Atmos
speaker built in.

$350 from Monoprice

Monolith by Monoprice THX-365C

For clear, full-sounding dialogue
The THX-365C adds a midrange driver that lower-
priced center channels usually lack, so dialogue
sounds clear in every seat of a home theater.

$450 from Monoprice

May be out of stock

The Monolith by Monoprice THX speakers are

designed for serious home theater enthusiasts
who like to play movies at or near the volume
they would hear in a well-calibrated commercial
cinema. The THX-265B bookshelf speakers
produce a notably smooth, natural sound, and
they also incorporate upward-firing, Dolby
Atmos–enabled speakers that bounce sound
effects off the ceiling to deliver more immersive
sound from Dolby Atmos and DTS:X
soundtracks. The THX-365C center speaker is a
three-way design, with a separate midrange
driver that lets it deliver consistently natural-
sounding dialogue across a wide area. The
system’s rather plain design and finish might
make it unwelcome in many living rooms, but for
a serious basement or den home theater, it’s
tough to beat.

Everything we recommend

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The research

Why you should trust us

As senior editor of Video magazine in the early

1990s, I was one of the first two or three people
ever to review home theater speaker systems; my
work includes the first reviews of a horizontal
center speaker and a home THX speaker system. I
learned more about the category while writing and
editing speaker reviews and performing speaker
measurements for Home Theater magazine,
HomeTheaterReview.com, Sound & Vision
magazine, and SoundStage. I also served as
marketing director for Dolby Laboratories, the
company most responsible for developing
surround-sound technologies and standards.

I had help in this evaluation from Wirecutter

editor-at-large Geoffrey Morrison, who has written
countless reviews of surround-sound gear while
working as a writer and editor for Home Theater,
Sound & Vision, CNET, and Wirecutter, and from
Wirecutter senior staff writer and headphone
reviewer Lauren Dragan, who has served as a
listening panelist in numerous audio tests for
Wirecutter and Sound & Vision.

Who this is for

A surround-sound speaker system, combined with

a suitable AV receiver, is a fantastic investment for
any dedicated movie lover because it delivers an
experience more like that of a commercial cinema
—and more like what the filmmakers intended
when they mixed the movie’s sound.

The speakers built into TVs are too tiny to play

loud or to reproduce bass, and at best they can
create a poor simulation of surround sound.
Soundbars can offer a substantial sonic upgrade
over TV speakers, but a good surround-sound
speaker system plays louder, sounds clearer and
more natural, produces more realistic surround-
sound effects, and delivers the kind of seat-
shaking bass you can hear in a good movie theater.
Separate speakers take a bit more work to plan
and set up than a soundbar, but the work is worth
it if you want to experience movie-theater-quality
sound.

Essential home theater gear

The Best 4K Blu-ray

Player

The Best AV Receivers

for Most People

How we picked

A basic surround-sound speaker system usually

employs a “5.1” arrangement: front left and right
speakers, a center speaker (mostly for dialogue),
left and right rear speakers (for surround-sound
effects), and a subwoofer (that’s the “.1”). For
most people, a 5.1 setup will provide an adequately
realistic surround experience. However, you can
add more speakers as long as your AV receiver
has enough amp channels to power them. Some
people add extra surround speakers to the sides or
rear for more-enveloping sound, as well as
additional subwoofers. You can also add speakers
in the ceiling or use upward-firing speaker
modules that sit atop your front and rear speakers
and bounce sound effects off the ceiling to produce
the overhead surround effects that Dolby Atmos
and DTS:X movie soundtracks provide (you also
need an AV receiver that supports those formats,
and a flat ceiling for it to work correctly).

This guide focuses on the “5” part of 5.1: front

left/right and surround speakers matched with a
center speaker. Instead of including subwoofers in
these systems, we decided to break our subwoofer
recommendations out into separate articles. Other
than the aesthetic appeal of having your entire
system come from a single brand, there’s no
reason your subwoofer needs to be of the same
brand as your speakers. Manufacturers may claim
that their speakers work best with their
subwoofers, but they rarely design their speakers
to work specifically with their subwoofers or vice
versa. You’ll get optimum results by choosing the
best possible speakers and the best possible
subwoofer.

The best home subwoofers

The Best High-

Performance Subwoofer

The Best Budget

Subwoofer

To begin our search, we compiled a spreadsheet of

every 5.1 speaker system that fit our target price
range of roughly $500 to $2,500. The difficulty in
putting together a test of this sort is that many
companies offer several different sizes of
bookshelf and center speakers at varying prices.
So after eliminating systems that had limited
distribution and availability, I contacted the
manufacturers whose models we were considering
and asked for their advice about what they
thought would be their most competitive system.
In a couple of cases, the companies sent me an
extra model to check out.

We used the following criteria to help us decide

which speaker systems to test:

Type: We requested bookshelf speakers

instead of tower speakers for the front
left/right and surround channels. We think
most people will prefer this configuration
because it’s more affordable, it detracts less
from the look of a room, and in most cases it
has no real sonic disadvantages compared
with a system that employs tower speakers,
as long as you use the speakers with a
subwoofer.

Price: For our main picks, we focused on

systems priced between $1,000 and $1,500
because that was the price range of most of
the systems that manufacturers chose to
send—and in our experience, it’s where
speakers generally deliver the best bang for
the buck. However, we wanted to hear how
much of an improvement we might get from
a pricier system, so we also brought in
several in the $1,501 to $2,500 range.

How we tested

To power the speakers, I used a Sony STR-

ZA5000ES AV receiver. Although it’s a relatively
high-end model that’s more expensive than the
receivers that people would likely use with these
speaker systems, I wanted to make sure that any
flaws we heard during testing were the fault of the
speakers, not the receiver. Given the STR-
ZA5000ES’s 130 watts per channel of rated power
(into two channels at 8 ohms), I knew it would
have enough power to get the best performance
from these systems. The STR-ZA5000ES has
many features intended to optimize the sound of
the speaker system it’s connected to, but I turned
all of those off because we wanted to hear what the
speakers could do on their own.

I set up all of the speakers in my listening room

(here are the dimensions and layout), which I’ve
used since 2002 to test hundreds of audio systems.
Countless manufacturers have set up their
speaker systems in this room, and I’ve performed
many measurements in it over the years, so I
know its properties well. I designed the room’s
acoustic treatments with the help of Floyd Toole,
the scientist whose research at the Canadian
National Research Council and Harman
International has practically defined the generally
accepted rules of good speaker design. (Read
more about Toole’s work in his book, Sound
Reproduction: The Acoustics and Psychoacoustics of
Loudspeakers and Rooms.)

Before we did any formal testing, I ran each

system in my home for several days to familiarize
myself with it and make sure all the speakers were
well broken-in. For the systems in the $1,000 to
$1,500 price range, I set up brand-concealed
evaluations for our listening panelists.

For the systems in the $1,501 to $2,500 price range,

I had to do all the testing myself because it took
place during the pandemic, but I made the testing
as rigorous and unbiased as possible. After
evaluating each system as a whole, I did separate
brand-concealed tests comparing the bookshelf
and center speakers. I included the speakers from
our runner-up pick, the ELAC Debut 2.0 system, in
this comparison to see how much of an
improvement (if any) I’d get with a more costly
system.

In every brand-concealed test, I placed all of the

speakers behind thin black fabric to hide their
identities. For all the systems, I used an RSL
Speedwoofer 10S subwoofer.

I used a selection of movie and music clips that

I’ve found to be revealing of speaker sound quality
—most notably, the opening chapters of Star Wars,
Episode II: Attack of the Clones, the opera scene
from The Fifth Element, and Tracy Chapman’s
“Fast Car” (video). I started with the smaller
systems and moved up gradually to the larger
ones, telling the panelists nothing about the
models’ identities. For the panelists, I played the
movies at a volume 6 decibels down from Dolby
reference level, which means each channel could
hit a maximum of 99 decibels. This is as loud as
most home theater enthusiasts would want to play
their systems, and louder than most families
would be likely to listen. For music, I turned the
level down an additional 3 decibels. For my longer
listening sessions, I played the systems both
louder and softer to see how they’d sound at a
range of levels.

Each time I changed systems, I used the Sony

receiver’s internal test tones to calibrate the
channel balance and listening level so that we
would experience every speaker system under the
same conditions. For smaller systems, I set the
receiver’s crossover frequency (the frequency at
which the receiver sends the sounds to the
subwoofer instead of to the speakers) to 120 Hz to
ensure that the smaller speakers weren’t unduly
stressed. For larger systems (those with at least
5.25-inch woofers in the satellite speakers), I set
the crossover frequency to 80 Hz.