When it comes to selecting the right outdoor speaker for you, there are many considerations you need to take into account.

In particular, it is important to choose purpose-designed outdoor speakers. These resist the weather and usually even a bit of water exposure (but not immersion, of course!)

Just because you plan to install the speakers up high, under the eaves of your home where they will be protected from rain, doesn’t mean that any old speakers will do. They also have to resist greater extremes of temperature and humidity than you will typically find indoors.

And they need to be better than most at coping with insects and spiders which attempt to take up residence.

Outdoor speakers achieve these requirements. They come in robust cases, normally with metal grilles to protect speaker cones from environmental attack. They generally use polypropylene materials in their speaker cones, rather than humidity-sensitive paper pulp.

Most outdoor speakers are quite compact, but can still deliver decent upper bass. I’ve ran quite a few through their paces, and the brand-name ones selling for $500 to $1,000 a pair really do sound rather nice … indoors.

But the outdoors is often a terrible environment for speakers. There are often lots of hard surfaces (pavers, brick walls) that harden the sound, while the lack of other walls or ceiling mean that there is far less reinforcement of overall sound levels than provided by an enclosed space.

So my suggestion is not to plan too far ahead precisely where you will be putting speakers. Instead, choose the best sounding (and most weather-proof) speakers you can find, bring them home, and then try them out in a number of places. Just about anywhere will do if all you want is low level background music while you’re entertaining your friends at the outdoor dining setting.

But, if you like to actually listen, then put the speakers in a number of different places and see how they sound before you bolt them into place and permanently install the wiring.

As for the speakers themselves, aside from sound quality, look for ones with high sensitivity. Ratings of above 88 decibels (measured at one metre with 2.83 volts input) will mean more impressive volume levels.

Also see:
• Multi-room audio for the backyard
• Wiring for outdoor audio
• Controlling outdoor audio