11 of the best outdoor speakers for your backyard or patio

Stop using your smartphone as a speaker. It sounds like crap.

The best way to listen to music outside is through a sound system with great speakers. Speakers that won't muffle the sound, or make it feel strange with a series of hisses and pops. 

Finding a good pair of speakers is easy when you're trying to build a sound system inside of your home, but finding the same kind of high audio quality for the outdoors can be tricky.

If you have a great backyard, patio, deck, or swimming pool, you need a really good pair of speakers to fully enjoy and get the most out of lounging around on lawn chairs or floating on an inner tube. But you can't use the same speakers for your living room as you do in your backyard. For one thing, indoor speakers aren't built to carry audio in wide open spaces. A good set of outdoor speakers can spread audio equally, while also being waterproof and weather-resistant to the nasty elements when not in use.  Read more...