The 10 Best Landscape Speakers

For a lawn or pool deck that needs music in every direction from one hidden spot, the OSD Audio Forza 850 is the place to start. A big woofer and a separate tweeter share a single housing that spreads sound all the way around, and OSD rates it down into deep bass. The antique bronze finish fades into mulch and planters. It's passive, so it needs an amplifier and buried wire, and each box holds just one.

The TIC GS3 has been a backyard staple for years, and it covers a lawn with sound for little money. A woofer and a tweeter sit under a flat lid and push music out in a full circle. You can bury it so only the top shows, or set it on a patio. The catch is the look: it's a plain green barrel, so it reads as gear until plants grow up around it.

Installers reach for the JBL Professional Control 85M on restaurant patios, hotel grounds and big estates, where one amplifier feeds a long chain of speakers. A built-in transformer lets it run on those commercial lines, and its mushroom cap spreads sound in a circle. It can play very loud for its modest woofer. Bass stays on the light side, and the commercial wiring it's built around is more than a small backyard needs.

The Bose FreeSpace 360P Series II aims its driver down into a shaped base, which bounces sound out evenly around the speaker instead of in one beam. That design suits resorts, parks and large estates that run many units from one commercial amplifier. It sits in the ground or on top of it. Bass fades early, so anything with a thump needs a subwoofer alongside.

Tucked into a flower bed, the JBL Professional GSF3GN pair hides behind leaves and points music right where people sit. Each one swivels on a ground spike or a wall bracket, and a switch underneath picks home or commercial wiring. A drain hole lets water out after the sprinklers run, and the seller lists a five-year warranty. The small drivers give light bass, so JBL suggests adding one of its buried subwoofers.

Rock speakers are the old-school way to hide music in a yard, and the Theater Solutions 2R8G set puts big woofers inside two fake granite shells. The drivers tilt slightly upward toward people sitting nearby, and the shells shrug off rain, snow and pool splash. Up close they still look like plastic rocks, and like most outdoor speakers they need a receiver and buried wire to play.

Two small stakes that pass for path lights, the OSD Audio LS3 pair costs little and blends into a garden bed. The bronze heads swivel on spikes or wall brackets, and the sealed bodies have their wires built in. They handle voices and background music well, but bass is thin without a subwoofer. Some units stop working within a year, so keep the receipt.

Everything for a full garden setup comes in one box with the Klipsch Courtyard 4.1: four aimable horn speakers on stakes, a low subwoofer you can bury or leave on top, and the posts and wire nuts to install them. Each piece is rated to survive a dunk. It's a big spend, it still needs a stereo amplifier, and few owners have reported back on it so far.

A matched set at a gentler cost, the Furrion Aurora Veranda system pairs four small stake speakers with a large subwoofer that can sit above ground, half buried or on a deck. Ground stakes and gel-filled wire nuts come in the box, and the textured brown finish resists fading. It runs from a two-channel amp, and the bracket for mounting speakers on a wall or post costs extra.

If running wire across the yard is out, the Alpine Corporation QLP542SLR plays from a phone over Bluetooth and charges from a panel on its top. A USB cable tops it off on cloudy stretches. The resin shell looks like a weathered boulder with a grille on one face. It suits quiet background music on a patio, not a party, and the connection drops once the phone wanders off across the yard.