The Best Powered Speakers for a TV

A powered speaker pair is the stereo alternative to a soundbar, and the only spec that decides between candidates is the connection. A television has, in practice, two audio outputs: HDMI ARC or eARC, and optical. A speaker with the first can be controlled by the TV remote through CEC. A speaker with only the second cannot, and you will live with two remotes. A speaker with neither needs a headphone-jack cable and a television that still has one.

The three connections, and what each one gives up

HDMI ARC / eARC.One cable, and the television’s remote controls the speaker volume over CEC. eARC carries more bandwidth than ARC. It is the connection a soundbar uses, and it is the reason a soundbar is easy to live with. Our eARC guide explains the difference between the two.

Optical (TOSLINK).Nearly every television still has one. It carries stereo PCM and compressed surround formats but not the lossless ones, and it carries no control signal, so the TV remote does nothing. Some sets can be told to output PCM over optical, which every speaker here can decode; left on “auto” or “bitstream”, a set may send Dolby Digital, which a two-channel speaker may not decode.

Analog.A 3.5 mm or RCA line input, fed from a television headphone jack if it has one. It works, and it is the connection every cheap powered pair has, but televisions are dropping the jack, and the level is set by the TV’s own headphone circuit.

How we ranked this

On connection first: eARC with CEC beats ARC, ARC beats two optical inputs, two optical inputs beat one. Then on whether a subwoofer output is published, because a 4 or 5 in woofer is doing the work a television’s film soundtrack was mixed for a larger driver to do. Then on whether a turntable can also plug in, because “speakers for a turntable and TV” is the question a lot of people are really asking. Wattage is not a ranking criterion: Klipsch does not publish one for its top pick at all, and the figures the others publish are not measured the same way.

One entry is not a powered speaker. The WiiM Amp is a streaming amplifier with an HDMI ARC input and speaker terminals, and it ranks second because for anyone who already owns a passive pair it is the cheapest route to a TV-remote-controlled stereo system in the registry. We have included it because leaving it out would hide the better answer for that reader.

The pair with HDMI eARC and CEC

Klipsch’s spec sheet for The Fives II lists “HDMI-ARC/eARC with CEC” first among its inputs, followed by Bluetooth 5.4, an RCA phono input, an RCA line input, USB-C audio, USB-A and optical. The outputs are a single RCA subwoofer output and an HDMI output that passes 8K video through. It publishes a 50 Hz to 25 kHz ± 3 dB response and, instead of a wattage, a maximum output of 103 dB at one meter for the pair. The product page states plainly that the HDMI connection lets the TV remote control volume.

That list is the reason it ranks first by a distance. It is the only powered speaker in our registry with HDMI, the only one with eARC, the only one where the TV remote controls the volume, and it also has the phono stage that makes it the turntable-and-TV answer. Its cons are the price, which is several times the next pick, and that its Atmos support is virtual height from two cabinets rather than discrete channels.

HDMI ARC for passive speakers you already own

The WiiM Amp publishes an HDMI ARC input, an optical input, an RCA line input, a subwoofer output with a user-adjustable 30 to 250 Hz crossover, and 60 W per channel into 8 ohms (120 W into 4 ohms, with no measurement condition attached). Its spec page states that home theater formats are stereo PCM only — Dolby Digital and DTS are not supported — so the television must be set to output PCM over ARC. It has no phono input.

Add the ELAC Debut 2.0 B6.2 pair from our under-$500 roundup and the total is a stereo TV system with ARC volume control, a subwoofer output and a room-EQ app, for less than the Klipsch pair. That is why it ranks above the Kanto and the Edifier despite not being a speaker: for a reader who owns or wants passive speakers, it is the right answer, and our passive-versus-powered comparison covers the trade.

Two optical inputs and a phono stage

The Kanto YU6 publishes two optical inputs, an RCA input with a phono switch, a 3.5 mm aux input, Bluetooth 4.0 with aptX, a subwoofer output and 100 W total RMS. Kanto’s own product page describes connecting it to a television via one of the two optical inputs. There is no HDMI, so the TV remote cannot control it; the Kanto remote does that, and switches sources.

It ranks third because two optical inputs is genuinely useful — a television and a games console or disc player can both be connected digitally — and because the phono switch means it is the other turntable-and-TV answer, the one our turntable-speaker roundupranks first. Its live price is not always available from the price layer; when the tile says “check price”, that is why.

One optical input, for the least money

The Edifier R1280DB publishes optical, coaxial, Bluetooth and two RCA inputs, 21 W + 21 W RMS, and a 4 in woofer with a 55 Hz lower limit on the US spec table. It is the cheapest way in the registry to connect a television digitally to a stereo pair. It has no subwoofer output, no HDMI, and Edifier does not state either way whether there is a phono stage, so assume not. For a bedroom or kitchen television, that is a complete answer; for the main room, the missing subwoofer output is the limit.

What we would not buy for a television

The Audioengine A5+ and A2+, the Kanto ORA and the Edifier R1280T are all in our registry and none is here, for the same reason: no optical and no HDMI. The A2+ and ORA have USB inputs, which are for a computer, not a television. Each is a good desktop or turntable speaker — the ORA leads our desk-listener guide— and each would connect to a television only by a headphone jack that your next television may not have.

Speakers or a soundbar?

A soundbar decodes surround formats and, on the better ones, places sound with more drivers than two. A stereo pair separates left from right by the width of the television rather than the width of a bar, and it plays music as a stereo system should. Neither is a five-speaker system, and our soundbar comparison is honest about which rooms want which. If you are choosing between two of these and a receiver-based system, that pagelays out what the receiver’s extra money buys.