Are wireless surround speakers and subwoofers any good?

Wireless surrounds and subs are good where wiring is truly impossible, and wired remains the reliable choice where wiring is merely inconvenient. That is our rule, and it has not needed revising.

First, a definition, because it saves disappointment. "Wireless" means the audio signal travels wirelessly. Every speaker still needs power, so you are planning sockets, not freedom. A wireless surround behind the sofa with a cable running to the nearest plug is not obviously tidier than a thin speaker cable run under the skirting.

Within that, the picture is better than it used to be. Wireless subwoofers in soundbar ecosystems work well and solve a real problem: the best sub position in a room is rarely next to the television, and a wireless link lets you put it where the bass is even rather than where the cable reaches. Wireless surrounds in packaged systems have also matured; the pairing dramas of a few years ago are mostly gone in the current generation.

For component home theatre, wired still wins on the things that matter over ten years. No interference from a neighbour's router or the microwave, no latency management between channels, no firmware update that changes how the rear left behaves, and no batteries or dongles. A surround cable run during interiors is invisible anyway, which removes the main argument for going wireless in the first place. Physics has not made a wireless link more reliable than a length of copper, only more convenient.

Where it changes: rented flats, finished rooms with tile floors you cannot cut, and rooms where the surrounds are on a wall the cable cannot reach without a trip hazard. There, wireless is the right compromise and we will happily specify it.

At the construction stage? Wire everything now, including a spare pair for heights and a second sub position, and thank yourself for a decade. Conduit is cheap before plaster and expensive after.

Send us a plan or a photo of the room and where the sofa sits, and we will say which channels really need to be wireless and which just look like they do.