My speaker setup (a Logitech z-540 5.1) has died (well the control unit has so it's unusable). Now I don't particularly need or use 5.1 and I rarely watch movies and if I game it's late at night using stereo headphones. Actually it's mostly to play music or when I happen to want sound on something I'm doing in the day. So I have some decent, if old headphones (Sennheiser HD-380pro) and I have an old hifi amp lying around (Cambridge A1? something probably <£100 from Richer Sounds a couple of decades ago). So what would work well in terms of lower priced small speakers that I can hand on the wall, or am I better getting some standard 2.0 PC setup?
I used to have these Wharfedale Diamond 9's https://www.richersounds.com/wharfedale-9-0-black.html paired up with an A1, setup sounded nicer than the price of components would suggest, and probably a lot nicer then PC setups of similar price.
Look on facebook marketplace for a set of speakers and an old technics/teac/sony/yamaha amp - will come in around that price and sound much better than smaller dedicated pc speakers - you may want to also pick up a soundcard with rca outputs if you can as well. Dependent upon where exactly you live it shouldn't be too much of a challenge if you don't mind travelling to collect said items.
I thought it was quite tricky to find small speakers that didn’t just feel a bit obnoxiously large to be at a desk, when venturing outside the realms of “PC speaker”. Went for PSB imagine mini and was very pleased with them (attached to a NAD D3045 in this case). Which whilst isn’t exactly in budget if you were to find a second hand pair, in gloss black, say. From a forum member for instance, they might come close and you could use them with your A1. *Cough* There are threads on the bottom to attach to a stand, so could work with a wall mount, but I found these petite enough to not get in the way. Though in the end I still wanted something entirely self contained and went for active speakers.
I was going to suggest those ridiculously small Bose Lifestyle cube jobs second hand. They're very old, but I do remember being wowed by them once many years ago in John Lewis.
They look very similar to the Cambridge Audio Min22s I have. Tiny, really clear and very musical. No bass whatsoever though, you need a sub to go with the Min's.
I was going to post and say "Never buy speakers new, it's madness" and then you posted that. Used Hifi is so much cheaper, and you can do so much better going used.
https://2ndhandhifi.co.uk/product/dynaudio-audience-42-speakers-with-brackets/ Quite probably the best small speakers you will ever get for the money. Those bass drivers deliver bass far beyond their size, too. The minor damage is a bummer, but nothing a pot of paint could not hide better.
