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When the sun’s shining, there’s nothing better than kicking back in the garden. Whether you’re on your own or you’re having the family round for a BBQ, music plays an important part in helping us unwind in our own back yards.
The best way to experience your favourite music in your garden is with dedicated outdoor speakers and this guide will show you how to plan out your own system.
Firstly, what counts as an outdoor speaker?
Outdoor speakers have been specifically designed to withstand the elements of the outdoors, with water, frost, dust and UV resistance. This is denoted from the speakers IP rating, a system used to measure environmental resistance. Monitor Audio’s All Weather, Climate, Climate Garden and Vecta speaker ranges are IP rated for use outdoors.
For a small decking or patio area - Stereo speaker system
When planning for a small decking or patio area right outside your home, great option would be a simple stereo system.
It’s quite easy to install if you are used to setting up regular indoor speakers, or you can find a local installer to do it for you.
For the best stereo effect, we recommend that the speakers be placed no more than 3 metres from each other. Because of the large placement distance between the left and right speakers, it’ll give you better music coverage than placing one single stereo speaker in the area.
Monitor Audio speaker ranges such as Climate or Vecta can be installed onto the exterior wall of your home or for one story property, under the eave of your roof soffits.
If your patio is covered by a porch, we’d recommend installing our All Weather in-ceiling speakers. They’ll deliver amazing sound quality whilst hidden discreetly in your porch ceiling!
You’ll need a suitable stereo amplifier to power your speakers, either kept inside your home or a weather protected area, so you’ll need to figure out the best solution for getting your speaker cables to it.
For a large garden - Multi-speaker system
When planning for a larger outdoor space, a stereo speaker system may not be up to the task. To get almost complete garden coverage, you’ll want to look at a multi-speaker system.
This system is made up for multiple satellite speakers. You can set up each speaker to output music in mono, so you won't need to have stereo pairs.
As this is a complicated system, we recommend finding a local installer to do it for you.
Monitor Audio’s Climate Garden satellite speakers (CLG-140 and CLG-160) can be placed around the garden discreetly in the ground using a specially designed ground spike (CLG-SPIKE R) or installed onto exterior walls using it’s mount (CLG-MOUNT). As they also have 70/100 V line level operation, you can place many satellites in your garden and at greater distances without sacrificing power output using a suitable 70/100 V line level multi-channel amplifier.
To complete your multi-speaker system, you can even add an outdoor subwoofers such as the CLG-W10 or CLG-W12, which can be buried in the ground to add discreet bass to your system. If you do not want to bury your subwoofer, the CLG-W10 can also be used on decking or a patio.
Want to learn more about garden speakers?
Explore our Weather Resistant speaker range or find a local installer.