Best PC Speakers

for that kind of budget.. you do NOT want pc speakers. hifi speakers will blow away any pc speaker setup.

you want hifi audio speakers with an amplifier, or high end powered speakers.

there is no best, as many products cater to different audiences. for instance studio monitors will be fairly flat eq while ones meant for theater may have more bass. some are very bright and detailed while others are more mellow. depends on your taste and needs.

since they must fit on a desk, it sounds like you want a 2.0 or 2.1 setup. you might want to clarify. also, if you need headphones on the same budget you may want to clarify your thoughts on this.

i'm using a $1500 setup myself with klipsch satelites and a klipsch subwoofer with pioneer receiver. pics in signature link if you care. i've been nothing but pleased with them. klipsch's tractrix horn is nice for vibrant bright treble details (as opposed with the more mellow sound of dome tweeters). if i had the budget at the time i would have went with bookshelves and if you want a nice 2.1 going with klipsch bookshelves and subwoofer with an amp would do it if you're into that.

i'm sure one of the other audio experts will be along to recommend a few more brand options.

honestly hard to give recommendations until you flesh out what you're looking for in terms of size, power output, 2.0, 2.1 or 5.1 and if you need headphones as well or if an amp or receiver fit on your desk. future upgrade options also need to be addressed.

as for headphones, its quite possible to do well with a $200 pair plus decent amp for $100 or so. up around $500 you get into planar magnetics which are quite nice.

for $1000 you could quite easily have good sounding headphones plus good sounding speakers.

you contradict yourself:

you state in your first post that they need to be self powered so that you can use a DAC later (digital to analog converter) yet in this post above you say that you want to get an AMP (amplifier) as you want to get a good one. you can NOT use an AMP with powered speakers, only passives. a DAC you can use with either, but would need an AMP also in the case of passives but not with actives/powered.

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monitors ARE speakers. just because they are meant for studio monitoring does not mean that they are bad or boring. they just generally have a flatter eq and tend to not be as "colored" sounding as some hifi/theater speakers can be.

you seem to think that you can only use speakers for the target market they are designed for. home theater, hifi audio and studio monitors can be used for any purpose. what you like depends on your taste.

also, quite a few active speakers are targeted towards studio use so may be more flat than you're looking for.

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the original monitors you picked would work if you liked the sound signature. i know the mackie cr3/ cr4, av40, lsr305 are highly regarded as well.

i've seem some good notes about the adam audio a5x/a7x. i've heard decent things about krk as well. the audioengine a5 is not bad as well though i know at least on the a2 placement was key between them sounding like crud and stellar.

keep in mind without a subwoofer your low bass tones will be more anemic. if you want low bass get a subwoofer.

left out any passive speakers... but i would personally be all over klipsch bookshelves since they fit my personal tastes (i'm using klipsch satellites now). if you're looking for more brand options i'll leave that to some of the other speaker gurus.

You can use the set you have now in 2.1 mode, you don't need to have all the speakers setup. I'm using a Logitech 4.1 set as 2.1, sounds fine.

If, as you say, you are not an audiophile, why are you bothering spending money to get better speakers when the ones you have are pretty good to begin with?

Sure you can get a better sound, but that depends on what you like to hear, and if you don't know the differences between speakers or what an amplifier or power rating would do for the sound, you may as well just keep what you have, or head to an audio shop and listen to some other speakers and amps to compare things rather than going by 3rd hand info, which is very hard to pick speakers from. Many people love Bose products (if only for the fact that they market the hell out of them), yet I think that they sound too muddy and unclear. If I just went by reviews without actually listening to them, I'd be wasting my money.

First off, if you have crappy onboard sound get yourself a good soundcard if your a gamer. That'll give you all the effects and virtual surround sound.

Or you can get an external USB DAC like the M-Audio super dac or Emotiva big ego and use software like Razer Surround if you want to get the virtual surround for headphones. Both of those DACs allow headphones as well as speakers to be hooked up simultaneously. I use the super dac myself and it's dead silent and sounds every bit as good as any $300 soundcard for half the price. For gaming I use razer surround software with headphones which is free. There is also TB Isone and Out of Your Head software which can improve headphone use with a DAC. I tried both but didn't like them.

Now for speakers. I'd start with a 2.0 setup and if you want you can always add a subwoofer later. All home theatre subs support line level inputs and have a built in crossover, so just split the output from the dac or computer and have 1 set go to the speakers and another set go to the sub. Start with the 2.0 and add a sub in the future if you like.

As for 2.0 speakers I'd probably get powered speakers. Emotiva makes the Airmotive 6S which are really nice for $500. Even the cheaper models are beautiful as the 6s might be too powerful for a bedroom. M-Audio BX series are nice. Emotive sells direct so you would have to order online from them. They also sell one of the best DACs for the money. The Big Ego for computer use. If you want to step it up a notch then there is the Stealth DC-1 which has balanced outputs for the speakers, and has many inputs such as USB plus all the digital S/PDIF inputs. This would allow you to hook a PS4, XBOX, TV Receiver, etc... to it. It also has dual headphone outs in case a wife, girlfriend wants to listen at night or watch a movie with headphones. Ordering from Emotiva would allow you to get the speakers + DAC at the same time.

Personally I'd be looking at Emotive Big Ego + Airmotive 5s Speakers. That's $600 for the bundle and install razer surround for gaming with headphones if you use a microphone. You can't use a mic with speakers. If you're not keen on ordering from Emotiva, then the M-Audio Super DAC for $150 + a set of their BX Carbon speakers would do the trick. Then in the future you can just add any home theatre sub if desired.

Also just to note, yes you are correct in that powered monitors are designed to be neutral and not color the sound. That is the amplifier and why they are integrated. You don't want to use an external amplifier because it'll color or change the sound. Much how a tube amp makes a guitar sound warm and fuzzy. This gives you accurate quality sound. Then just use an EQ on the computer to tune the sound to your particular preference or a virtual surround software with headphones for gaming. You'll have one hell of a nice system with DAC included.

Just wanted to add. You could use a 2 channel amplifier and get a pair of bookshelf speakers. But it'll be more expensive then a pair of powered speakers, won't sound as good unless you buy good, and they'll take up more space on the desktop since you need room for the seperate amp. Powered monitors just make sense for a computer or bedroom.

You can also get some nice cables from Emotiva to hook everything up while you're ordering. They are nice quality and not super expensive. That's if you don't have a local source for cheap cables already. You need to get from 3.5mm on the dac to RCAs for the speakers. Or with the M-Audio super DAC it has RCA outs on the back so just a a couple of those cables.