We recommend the best desktop speakers on the market in 2025...
The best desktop speakers 2025... transform your home office listening
The average UK employee will spend roughly 3,515 full days at work – that’s 90,000 hours or one third of their time awake. What’s more, around 63 per cent of us now work some of those long hours from home, which, by my loose calculations, means you owe it to yourself to upgrade the terrible speakers built into your laptop. In short, it’s time to transform your home office listening with a pair of dedicated desktop speakers.
Transforming laptop audio
It’s no surprise that ultra-thin laptops – just like the latest televisions – have poor audio. There’s simply not enough space for proper speakers, and your enjoyment of audio, video, gaming and even Zoom calls suffers. A pair of stereo speakers, plugged into your laptop via USB, USB-C or 3.5mm headphone jack, or wirelessly using Bluetooth, will do wonderful things to the audio trapped in your computer. Even the cheapest design, such as the £30 Logitech Z150 and Creative Pebble V3, will be a serious improvement on the built-in speakers, but spend a little more and choose features that benefit how you work and listen to music, and you’ll transform your home office into a personal listening room.
My focus here is with audio, specifically listening to music, so I’m ignoring surround sound-style speakers – often with subwoofers – aimed towards gaming and video. Instead, I’m focussing on the latest active stereo speakers that have amplification built-in. These are ideal to plug straight into your computer, stream wirelessly using Bluetooth and even play in high-resolution over Wi-Fi.
Precision, not power
Unlike traditional bookshelf or standmount speakers, power is not as crucial, partly because home offices tend to be smaller rooms, but also because the speakers are designed to be positioned close to the listener. Rarely will you need more than 100 watts of power. The excellent Q Acoustics M20 HD (£400; qacoustics.co.uk) has 65 watts, while the award-winning Ruark MR1 Mk2 (£349; ruarkaudio.com) has just 20 watts.
Positioning is key
Positioning stereo desktop speakers is also key. Keep them at least 10cm away from the wall and around 60cm apart, and ideally angled slightly toward your seat position in an equilateral triangle. Lifting the tweeters up to ear level – either using dedicated stands or a couple of books – will help audio quality too. If you are planning on watching movies or gaming, it’s best to stick to a wired rather than Bluetooth connection, as there will be some latency between the action on the screen and the sound reaching your ears.
Bluetooth vs a wired connection
The most basic desktop speaker will simply plug into the headphone socket on your computer. But in the streaming age, the convenience of Bluetooth and Wi-Fi streaming is hard to overlook – and in truth, by using a smartphone and app, you may not need to plug into your laptop at all. But do remember that a wired connection using USB and USB-C can play the highest resolution recordings pulled from your hard drive or from services such as Tidal and Qobuz.
And it’s also worth remembering that unless you’ve got a big budget – for something like the excellent JBL 4305P Studio Monitor (£1,999; jbl.com) – avoid paying for extra features you won’t need, as it usually means less money being spent on the drivers and overall sound quality.
Best desktop speakers 2025... What to look out for?
Connectivity
Modern active speakers come with a range of inputs. Ideally choose the latest version (5.2 and above) of Bluetooth for the best audio and reliability, but for the best resolution look for Wi-Fi and a wired connection using USB. Some also come with RCA connections enabling you to plug in existing hi-fi components including CD player and turntable, but if it’s the latter, remember that you might need a phono stage to boost output.
Studio monitors or hi-fi speakers?
Many desktop-sized speakers are designed for use in professional and home recording studios. These studio monitors are ideal for detailed, nearfield listening, but be aware that they are tuned to have a neutral, balanced sound profile to help mix with accuracy. With no emphasis on low or high frequencies, they can lack the warmth and richness of more hi-fi-orientated speakers.
- Would you spend a million pounds on a hi-fi? What if it sounds like nothing you've ever experienced?
Desktop speakers 2025... We recommend...
Kanto Audio ORA4 £399
At just 21cm tall, these are deceptively small for studio-style reference monitors, but they’ve still managed to impress me with their accuracy, power and balance, not to mention impressive connectivity. These DSP- (digital signal processing) tuned, 70W bi-amped monitors have Bluetooth, USB-C input supporting 24-bit/96kHz for hi-res playback and the bonus of an RCA line-in that enables you to plug in any analog hi-fi gear – I enjoyed being able to swap quickly between my office turntable and desktop streaming. Being reference monitors, designed for audio engineers and mixing, they have a very neutral sound, but don’t mistake that for being boring. If anything, especially when listening to a live concert, it’s great at recreating the detail, complexity and scale of the orchestra.
kantoaudio.com / Buy Kanto Audio ORA4
Audio Technica AT-SP3X £169
These 20cm-tall retro-style speakers from Audio Technica can be connected to your computer or hi-fi via dual RCA jacks or wirelessly using Bluetooth 5.3 technology. They feature 30 watts of power, a 3" woofer and 1.1" tweeter with a small, but effective bass reflex port at the rear. They’re simple to use, easy to set up and will give your offices an instant audio upgrade. The main ‘master’ speaker has the control buttons and connects to the ‘slave’ speaker using 2m of basic speaker cable. It feels a little rudimentary for 2025, but works fine here and the Bluetooth connection from my laptop and my Bluetooth-enabled turntable was strong and consistent.
audio-technica.com / Buy Audio Technica AT-SP3X
Kef LSX II LT £899
It’s a lot to pay, but these active wireless speakers will bring joy to the nine-to-five routine. With 100 watts of Class D amplification, the 24cm-tall design is powerful enough for most home offices and the Uni-Q coaxial driver array (where the tweeter is mounted in the center of the driver) does wonderful things to music. With dual Wi-Fi, USB-C, optical, ethernet and even a HDMI ARC port for TV connectivity, they’re impressively connected and can play hi-res quality (up to 24bit/384kHz) from almost any source. There’s no analogue input, though, so you can’t connect a turntable. Connected via USB-C and using Qobuz Hi-Res recordings, the speakers provide a remarkable level of detail even at low volumes, while the presentation and scale of any performance is as thrilling as it is, admittedly, distracting while I work.
