a pair of Audioengine A5s?

http://audioenginefiles.com/pdfs/reviews/AVRev_A5%20Review.pdf

http://audioenginefiles.com/pdfs/A2%20review%20pdfs/Stereophile_Audioengine%202.pdf

http://audioenginefiles.com/pdfs/reviews/Sound&Vision_A5%20Review.pdf

You could use your computer and its CD player with the A5s until you can afford a new CD player with a volume control.

Take a look at ikyaudio, I make them, great for the office

U Etsy.com/shop/ikymagoo

you might consider the NAD C 715 compact music system. it's a 2 channel amp, a cd player and a tuner all in one. (and its small)good luck.

Hi;

I also spend a lot of time on my computer. I have a high-end stereo system, and never thought I would want to play music from the computer, so I just went with a set of cheap powered speakers which sounded like shit for years and never tried to listen to music.

After a friend of mine convinced me that the sound capability of the mother board was actually quite good, I bought a set of Audioengine A2 speakers ($199) and was I amazed. I just ran the included 3.5 mm stereo cable from the computer to the speakers, and the sound is really very good. The built-in 15W amplifiers will play louder than you want and sound great.

See the Stereophile article on them (recent).  I got them from Audio Advisor.

I also bought a small Sony subwoofer ( SA-W2500)  to use with them for $65 on Amazon; that helps them out below 80 Hz, which is all they go down to. All you have to do to connect is go from one of the RCA jacks on the back of the left speaker to the RCA line IN jack on the sub. The speakers are actually great without the sub, but for the price the sub is nice. It fits on the floor under the table; if you want a smaller one, there is an 8-inch Yamaha sub on Amazon for the same price.

Highly recommended! Just hook them to your laptop and for $200 you will have very good sound.

acconway wrote:

Hi. This is my first post. I'm a law student.  I spend between 10-16 hours in my home office, 7 days per week, listening to music while studying.  I have a nice collection of classical music CDs.  I currently play the CDs on my laptop and listen through Koss Porta-Pro headphones.  I'm getting quite tired of wearing headphones for hours on end, so I'd like to get an actual stereo system.  My office is a small (8x8), carpeted room.  I don't have space for a full-sized stereo system, so I was considering a small system (e.g., a "bookshelf" or tabletop system).  Internet/Ipod compatibility is not important to me; though it would be nice--but certainly not necessary--to be able connect the system to my laptop for better quality sound when I stream a movie.  I can spend no more than $400.

 to decide.  What's my best option? Should I take a different route entirely, such as PC speakers?

 

-Thanks

is located in my living room about 20 fet from the video/vinyl audio systems. If someone made a wireless transmitter from the PC to the audio amp that would transmit 24/96 and did not cost as much as a used car, I would be interested. Failing that, and much closer to your price range, I bought two things...

1. A set of Moonsoon powered speakers with a sub from E-bay which sounds much better than any powered speaker I have heard new, and (2) a NuForce UDAC2 USB DAC. I plug the DAC into a USB slot on my Toshiba laptop, set it so as to accept 24/96 output, and play my J-River music files to a great deal of success...

Total Cost under $250....(includes a $30 power supply to replace the noisy one that came with the old used speakers)

Hello,

This is my first post. I am in the exact same situation and I was wondering what decission you made finally.

I want to purchase a small system, mainly to play classical music CDs, although I might listen to the radio or conect the iPod once in a while. I prefer it being as compact as possible (love Yamaha MCR-140 design) but don´t mind bigger speakers if the sound quality deserve it.

My budget is around 250 GBP ($400).

Thanks a lot.

I'll second or third or twelfth the Audioengine A5s.  For $400, you get nice-looking speakers with remarkable resolution, muscial (not boomy) bass, a surprisingly large soundstage, and speakers that are versatile enough to accommodate a laptop playing CDs all the way up to a decent CD player (when you get the money).

My father-in-law was in your same position, so I got him the A5s for Christmas last year.  He ended up liking them so much that he's since put them in as his main speakers in his main system.  They replaced some 20+ year-old Sony floorstanding speakers which weren't all that great to begin with, but, still, I think that speaks to the quality of these that they easily best huge floorstanders.

The current incarnation of the A5's, called the 5+'s now have a remote w/ controllable volume and mute, so a CD player with a level control is not needed. Any CD player with fixed output (which is most) would work fine.