How to Convert Wired Speakers to Wireless
Four ways to make wired speakers wireless, from a USD 25 Bluetooth receiver to a streaming amplifier. Here is which one fits your setup and budget.
You cannot make a passive speaker wireless on its own, because it still needs an amplifier and the amplifier still needs power. What you can do is move the wireless part upstream. The options run from a USD 25 Bluetooth receiver feeding your existing amp to a USD 699 streaming amplifier that replaces it entirely.
The phrase “wireless speakers” hides an important detail: the speaker cable is rarely the wire people actually want gone. It is usually the run across the room to the source, or the fact that the system cannot play from a phone. Those are different problems with different price tags, and picking the wrong one is how people end up spending USD 700 to solve a USD 30 problem.
What can and cannot go wireless
A passive speaker, the kind with two terminals on the back and no power cable, has no electronics inside. It needs an amplifier, and the short cable from that amplifier to the speaker has to stay. Every solution below either shortens that cable or moves the amplifier.
What you are really removing is the long cable between your source and your amplifier, and the need to be physically plugged in to play something. That part is genuinely solvable, cheaply.
A Bluetooth receiver into your existing amplifier
The cheapest route by a wide margin. A small Bluetooth receiver plugs into a spare RCA or 3.5 mm input on your amplifier or receiver, and your phone connects to it like a pair of headphones. USD 20 to 60 depending on whether you want aptX or a decent DAC on board.
What you get is convenience. What you give up is range, roughly 30 feet through open air and much less through walls, and some audio quality, since Bluetooth compresses the stream. For background listening and podcasts nobody notices. For critical listening on a good system, you will.
Look for a unit with a proper power supply rather than USB power from the amplifier’s service port, since cheap USB power is a common source of hum.
A Wi-Fi streamer into your existing amplifier
A step up, and the right answer for most people who care about sound. A network streamer connects to your home Wi-Fi and feeds your amplifier over RCA, coaxial or optical. Because it pulls the stream itself rather than relaying it from your phone, there is no compression penalty and no dropouts when you walk into another room.
The WiiM Pro at around USD 149 is the value pick and supports AirPlay 2, Spotify Connect and Chromecast. The Sonos Port at USD 449 does the same job inside the Sonos ecosystem, which is worth the difference only if you already own Sonos gear elsewhere in the house.
This is the option to choose if your amplifier is decent and you want to keep it.
Replacing the amplifier with a wireless one
If your amplifier is old, broken or was never good, replace it with one that has streaming built in. Your existing speakers connect to it with ordinary speaker cable, and everything else happens over the network.
The Sonos Amp at USD 699 delivers 125 watts per channel and drives any passive speaker between 4 and 16 ohms. The Yamaha WXA-50 MusicCast at around USD 349 does a similar job for half the money with less polish in the app. Both handle AirPlay 2 and the major streaming services.
This is the tidiest result and the most expensive. It only makes sense if the amplifier was going to be replaced anyway.
Wireless speaker kits
A transmitter sits at the source and a small amplified receiver sits by the speakers, so the long speaker cable disappears and a short one takes its place. These are the genuine answer for rear surround speakers, an outbuilding, or a room where running cable is not an option.
Expect USD 80 to 250 for a usable kit. The catches are that the receiver still needs a mains socket near the speakers, and cheaper kits introduce a small delay that is fine for music and noticeable on video. Check the latency figure if the speakers are part of a TV system. Our roundup of wireless speaker kits for wired speakers covers which ones keep latency low enough for film.
Which one to pick
| Your situation | Solution | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Amp is fine, just want to play from a phone | Bluetooth receiver | USD 20 to 60 |
| Amp is fine, want proper streaming and no dropouts | Wi-Fi streamer | USD 149 to 449 |
| Amp is old or dead, speakers are good | Streaming amplifier | USD 349 to 699 |
| Cannot run cable to where the speakers are | Wireless speaker kit | USD 80 to 250 |
| Rear surrounds in a home theater | Wireless kit, low latency model | USD 150 to 300 |
For most people with a working amplifier and a decent pair of speakers, a USD 149 network streamer is the sweet spot. It solves the actual problem, keeps the equipment you already paid for, and does not compress the music on the way through.
Frequently asked questions
Can you make any wired speaker wireless?
You can make almost any wired speaker part of a wireless system, but the speaker itself always needs a powered amplifier close by. Passive speakers have no electronics inside, so something has to drive them and that something needs a mains socket. What goes away is the long cable to your source and the need to plug your phone in.
Do Bluetooth receivers reduce sound quality?
Slightly, because standard Bluetooth compresses the audio stream. On background listening through average speakers it is very hard to hear. On a resolving system at moderate volume it shows up as a small loss of detail and space. Codecs like aptX and LDAC narrow the gap, but a Wi-Fi streamer avoids the compression altogether and is the better choice if quality is the priority.
Is the Sonos Amp worth it over a cheaper option?
Only if you want the Sonos app and multi-room grouping, or your existing amplifier needs replacing anyway. At USD 699 it is doing two jobs: amplification and streaming. If your current amplifier works, a USD 149 streamer feeding it gets you most of the same functionality for a fifth of the price, and you keep the sound of the amp you chose.
Will wireless speakers have a delay when watching TV?
Cheaper Bluetooth and wireless kits introduce enough latency to put lips out of sync, usually somewhere between 100 and 200 milliseconds. Music is unaffected, video is not. If the speakers are for a TV or a home theater, look for a kit that publishes a latency figure under about 40 milliseconds, or use a wired connection for the front channels and wireless only for the rears.