Best Multimedia Speakers for under £300

[sagarich]

I spend most of my day sat at my desk in my home office listening to music whilst I work, so I think its about time I upgrade the very old Bose iPod dock that I've connected to my MBP.

Ideally I would like to keep budget under £300.

I listen to a mixture of normally guitar based music, either streamed from Spotify or on iTunes.

The Bose® Companion® 3 Series II looks like it would do the job, but open to suggestions.

Cheers.

[JimbobVFR]

Personally £300 spent in Richer Sounds on an amp and bookshelf speakers would be my choice.

For example

http://m.richersounds.com/#!/product/MORD-ALUMNI2-...

Plus

http://m.richersounds.com/#!/product/MARA-PM5004-B...

Possibly adding a cheapish USB DAC like the Behringer UCA202.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Behringer-UCA202-U-Control...

[sagarich]

I'm not sure I have space for a separates with bookshelf speakers type system.

Also I was trying to avoid anything like that... its a slippery slope.

[JimbobVFR]

Yeah it is that

I know some folks do rate Bose, TBH I don't at all, I heard a mates Bose PC system, not sure which one it was but similar to that one, and in all honestly it didn't sound better than my old crappy Logitech 2.1 speakers I used nto have. They were OK for PC speakers, just not convinced they were £250 good.

An alternative could be some Active Monitors if you have the space for the speakers but not the amp. Adam F5 active monitors would be my pick for those.

To be honest I've always been a bit of a fan of decent HiFi and as such am quite critical of stuff like Bose docks and Sonos speakers, only because I have heard better, cheaper stereo separate systems. It may very well be the Bose sounds good to you.

[sagarich]

Thanks for the replies far.

Regarding active speakers, I always thought they were best suited to music creation, apposed to consumption.

As I will be mainly using them to stream music and listen to mp3's, will they be suitable? Or will they highlight the lower quality files?

Or at this price point, will the difference be negligible?

[sagarich]

Just had a quick google and these came up: http://audioengineusa.com/Store/Powered-Speaker-Sy...

They look like they're more suited to my needs and also have a smaller footprint and therefore won't take up too much workspace.

Any one familiar with Audio Engine? Thoughts?

[marctwo]

The Q Acoustics range are pretty good, and small too.

http://www.richersounds.com/package/system-savers/...

[JimbobVFR]

sagarich said:

Just had a quick google and these came up: http://audioengineusa.com/Store/Powered-Speaker-Sy...

They look like they're more suited to my needs and also have a smaller footprint and therefore won't take up too much workspace.

Any one familiar with Audio Engine? Thoughts?

Yes they're good. I was trying to recall the 2nd make I would recommend when I suggested the Adams above but couldn't remember what they were called. Either Adams or Audio Engine would be my preference for actives monitors for your use.