What would be good external speakers to buy?

[Captain Planet]

So, I've never bought any speakers before...but I think I might when my new iMac arrives. Now, I have no clue which ones are good, or which ones are bad...that is, if there is any "bad" ones. I was hoping to pay no more than around 40$. But again, I don't know what I can get for that price. Anyways, if anyone has any suggestions, please let me know. Thanks!

 

[dartzorichalcos]

These ones are good. They are $30 more than your suggestion price and there are no cheaper that I seen of.

 

[Captain Planet]

Yeah I guess I aimed a bit low for the price...but I guess those aren't bad, for the price I mean. Are there any other speakers, like maybe not from Apple but still of good quality?

 

[igucl]

They are more expensive, but I very much like my Klipsch that I got for my iMac.

I don't know what model it is because I'm not home right now, but it has two desk speakers and a powerful subwoofer.

edit: Here's the link: http://www.klipsch.com/products/details/promedia-2-1.aspx

 

[Mr. Gumby]

I have these JBL Creature II's in white which work really well and IMHO look great with Apple hardware. There are some used ones going for ~$40

 

[Captain Planet]

I have these JBL Creature II's in white which work really well and IMHO look great with Apple hardware. There are some used ones going for ~$40

Those look nice. I might get 'em. Thanks for the link.

 

[Jessy]

This will be the cheapest way to have anything sound good, sorry.

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/M1Active520/


You will of course need to use balanced cables, and this is the cheapest audio interface that offers balanced outputs:

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/closeup/LinkUSB--top.jpg


Then, get the cheapest cables you can (they come in different lengths) from this list:

http://www.sweetwater.com/c807--Balanced_Cables_TRS_to_TRS/low2high

All in all, you're looking at about $360 for good sound. There's really no point in getting anything less than that. Unfortunately, at this point, there is no reasonable way to make surround formats sound good, but we should have Macs with HDMI outputs and HDMI audio interfaces (with video passthrough) within a couple years.

 

[Captain Planet]

Right...well, no thanks.

 

[Piepz]

You can't get anything good for 40$.
These, IMO, are the best solution for a Apple style speakers and they aren't that expensive and the sound quality is very good.
http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/products/details/US/EN,CRID=2173,CONTENTID=10877

They're usually cheaper in stores than mentioned on the website..

 

[Jessy]

It doesn't matter if you get decent speakers if you are going to use the headphone out jack on the iMac. You'll get a disgusting noisy signal. Either get what I told you to, get something even nicer, or get nothing at all. The cheap garbage that comes inside the iMac shell is fine, and much less noisy than any other method you'll get without using an external audio interface.

Don't support consumer rubbish like RCA cables and using headphones jacks as "line outs".

 

[Captain Planet]

Alright, I get it now. You cannot get good speakers for 40 bucks or less. It's why I made the topic in the first place...Also, I don't care that the speakers are Apple design style or whatever. I just wanted some decent speakers at an affordable price.

 

[RojoLeo]

Alright, I get it now. You cannot get good speakers for 40 bucks or less. It's why I made the topic in the first place...Also, I don't care that the speakers are Apple design style or whatever. I just wanted some decent speakers at an affordable price.

Well in that case, how about these Logitech for $34?

I've hooked up them up to watch movies on my MBP and they were A-OK in my book.