Looking to upgrade from headphones to speakers

Time to go fishing on Gumtree UK me thinks

Yammy active sub 40 quid
http://www.gumtree.com/p/for-sale/yamaha-yst-sw60-subwoofer/112492403

Mission 707 speakers 39 quid
http://www.gumtree.com/p/for-sale/mission-707-loudspeakers/1002092932

Marantz SR 5200 49 quid
http://www.gumtree.com/p/for-sale/marantz-sr-5200-av-receiver-home-cinema/1001913218

1. Being passives, you need an amp/receiver to drive those Missions but yes you can choose to omit a sub by which

2.Wanting nice bass and expecting small pitiful/badly built subs to deliver, you are going to get terribly dissapointed It doesn't *have* to be under your desk

I would really recommend you save up that extra 100£. IMO you really do need to go +250£ to get anything decent. Spend around ~200£ to get an entry level receiver. Some of the good ones are Onkyo, harmankardon, Sony, Pioner or Yamaha. Personally I think yamaha has good entry level stuff. Something like this --> http://www.amazon.co.uk/RXV373-BLACK-Channel-Receiver-Outputs-Black/dp/B007W1Z9RE/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1351069786&sr=8-4 (Warning this one does not have analog inputs for all channels in the back)

Then spend what you have left on speakers. I would recommend getting a pair of full range Towers (floor sanding). Some things you want is a minimum of 2-way, and some +5" main drivers. My own Yamaha NS-50B cost 130€ (105£). They are hardly the best around but do sound pretty good even when compared to some 300€ Jamos.

Now you might be thinking that's only Stereo with no subwoofer. Trust me a good pair of full range speakers are much better then a bunch of cheap surround crap. Really a lot of the sub 100£ subs are totally useless and don't even reach the low HZ that subs are supposed to reproduce and you can add the surround speakers later if you really fell you need them. Thous Yamaha NS-50B I mentioned earlier actually have some matching surround speakers NS-P60 (Center +back speakers = 105£). I'm not saying you should necessarily get the same speakers I have I'm just giving you a reference of what some half decent entry-level stuff costs.

PS: Almost forgot. If you want surround from PC --> AV receiver is a good to have analog inputs for all channels in the back (like my HTR-6130 has) -->


Those aren't on all AV receivers so always check the connectivity before you buy.
Edited by Bit_reaper - 10/24/12 at 3:07am

That looks like what I know as mini stereos. I have had similar ones but they aren't very good in my experience so I would recommend not using them. As for having a AV receiver standing on its side? I don't see why this could not be done as long as the ventilation holes are not covered up. If you don't have room for floor standing speakers I guess you have to go for some shelf speakers instead. Thy tend to have slightly weaker bottom end then floor standing and cost more to get the same sound quality over all. When it comes to speakers size really does matter. Just keep in mind you want full range speakers not satellites.

why don't you just make life easy on yourself and buy some KRK Rokit. don't try and build a HiFi system it will turn out janky. you don't need a 5.1 receiver and you don't want Yamaha monitors they are very neutral.