Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler Computer speakers

I need a decent 2.1 speaker system for my son's computer. Since I can't even justify the Axiom Audiobytes for myself yet, I'm looking for something sub-$100 that won't make my ears cry. I'm not opposed to used (like from Ebay). Any suggestions would be appreciated by both of us.

How about some headphones?

Not a bad idea, except he has pretty good taste in music so I don't mind listening.

It's not that, you will get much better sound from a $100 set of headphones than you will a hundred dollar set of of computer speakers imo.

$100 headphones will be rocktastic. Hook him up with some Grado SR80's if you want the best in sound quality.

If you're going with sub $100 speakers, I don't think there's really any option that could be considered anywhere close to hi-fi.

I would say go for a satellite/subwoofer setup from klipsch or logitech if you really want to go to the speaker route.

The Grados will completely trounce any speaker/sub setup in terms of sound quality though.

I've read good things about the Hercules as a cheaper computer speaker.

Anyone try them? Was thinking of getting them myself at some point, as I don't think I can justify the Axioms for what is mostly gaming audio. Don't listen to a lot of music on the computer.

If you can stretch the budget to $129 or so... you should be able to get a pair of Edirol MA-10Ds - I've used them as micro monitors, and use their big brothers the 20Ds as desktop monitors on all but one computer.

They're clearer than you'll get out of "multimedia" speakers... you won't get the crappy rattly plastic bass you'd get out of $100 Altec-Lansings, but really, who wants that anyway?

Bren R.

You can't always find them, but you may want to try to find some older monsoon planar speakers. They're pretty decent little computer speakers. I picked up a pair with a small sub for under 100 about 4-5 years ago. Still work great.

I have a Monsoon speaker system for my old Dell PC. They are a great setup (subwoofer and planar speakers). I don't use them much anymore with having a new Apple iMac. I was thinking about trying them with my Roland drums just for fun.

I booted my "desktop" speakers and got an Onkyo desktop audio system. Plug the usb in and you get real speakers and nice looking stainless steel and black control unit with CD, etc, the plays nicely with Windows. Way better than the similarly priced PC speakers - of plastic and paper.