I like to listen to music on my PC, and when we have parties, the speakers sometimes get turned up pretty high. My 10yr old Altec’s (ACS90) that came with a Dell have finally started to sound blown out, so I’m looking for a 2.1 system to replace them. I do play some games, including FPS, but I’m not interested in 5.1, or anything else more than 2.1. So, I’d like speakers that sound good relatively loud, but I don’t want to spend any more than…say…$50. I’m no crazy audiophile and don’t expect tunes to sound as great as on my component system, but I’d like my CDs/MP3s to sound good.
Anyone got any recommendations?
Or perhaps relative brand quality? Which are generally better nowadays, Creative, Logitech, Altec, Cyber Acoustics…?
For $50? Hmmm, I don’t think you’re going to find anything very robust at that price.
These will knock your socks off. But they’re $150.
These, and others in the price range, will probably not rock your socks off. They’re $60 and probably rattle badly when cranked up. That said, I’ve had a Yamaha 2.1 system I really liked, although it was probably priced closer to $100 at the time. It sounded good, but definitely didn’t sound great cranked above 60% volume.
I guess it comes up to how easily your socks come off.
OK, if you were satisfied for 10 years with these, your socks are pretty removable. Get that 2.1 Yamaha I cited above, you’ll probably be fine with it. Or just buy these from e-bay, $9.99.
The problem with the $50 sets is that they sound great at low volumes, but you crank them even just one-third of the way and the sound quality really falls to pieces, especially the bass. I would advise you to suffer a while longer and save $150 for the Klipsch’s, they are the most-powerful 2.1’s available (200 watts total) and are always among the highest-rated sets for sound quality.
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I have a different suggestion. Go down to your local circuit city (or an equivalent), and bring a cd player. Go to the display of computer speakers. It is likely, judging from the ones near me, that there will be perfectly good ones returned to the store, marked may down. They might have sold for far over fifty dollars, but many are now below. Plug in your cd player, turn up the speakers real high, and ignore the dirty looks you get. Vola! I was able to get some good speakers for ten bucks this way.
I have the Klipsch 2.1’s and they are indeed very good speakers. I bought them directly from Klipsch in what they call refurbs but they were spotless and I have had no problems. They offer the new GMX models not for $99.00. They are heavy so it costs $15-$20 or to ship.
After doing some online and offline shopping around, I bought the Klipsch 2.1 system at Best Buy for $155+tax.
As mentioned, they sound great even all the way up, though I have tweaked my Winamp equalizer to lower the 60Hz band about 1.5dB. With a flat eq on the low end I found the sub a tad strong for music, even when fiddling with the sub gain knob. I guess what I’m saying is that I find the way WAY low end to booming. I’ve got the sub under my desk in the corner with about 4 inches of clearance on the sides with the horn and speaker (to nicely reflect the sound, as I’ve been taught previously), and the satellites on a bookshelf about 6 inches above head height.
You may want to play more with the subwoofer placement. Placing it near a vertical surface can cause undesirable reinforcement in some frequencies. I don’t have really any expertise with this, here’s a starting reference. I’d say experiment a bit.
Personally, I needed 5.1 speakers for my work. I bought a nice Panasonic 5.1 reciever, and added these crappy Onkyo spealers. then ditched the mains and replaced them with these. The center, rear and subwoofer are still onkyo, but the mains (LR) sounds sweet. Best $200 I ever spent.
BTW, your next step is something like the Alesis ProActive 5.1. 69-watts x 5 + 188watts rms at the woofer. I haven’t heard this system, but Alesis makes great stuff at the low end of Pro Audio, so I’d bet it kicks butt. $399.
Or, just get a home theater receiver and a “real” HT speaker setup.
