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I'd suggest making a seperate thread and posting your budget, what kind of music you like, etc etc. The budget opens up all the options.

All I know is when my brother got his HT setup he went to http://www.avsforum.com/ I think and they helped him get some nice fluance ones that he likes.

I'm "speaker-dumb" but at the other end of the spectrum, saving $17,000 for a big pair of ATC (seriously).
And they're not even sexy looking!

Kaboom!

I agree with what Aman said. Good speakers cost a lot more than good headphones, but at a certain price point surpasses headphones in sound quality and keeps getting better too as you go up in price. Audio Circles forum is a good place to discuss speakers.

For bookshelf speakers under a reasonable price I would recommend the Ellis Audio 1801b. In fact it holds its own against any speaker and is likely the most detailed speaker out there (also neutral, accurate, and airy). For watching movies you can add a subwoofer like the tc2+ since its bass output is pretty average.

Another advice is don't rely too much on glowing reviews. I find that many reviewers have low standards and when I hear the speakers that get glowing reviews, I find them pretty average, especially compared to much cheaper DIY solutions that are more carefully designed according to speaker theory.

I've demoed hundreds of speakers out there and I am pretty positive that there are no hi-fi speakers under $400 (unless you go the DIY-route, but that's another field). At $800 you have some very nice options though.

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http://www.avsforum.com
http://www.audiocircle.com
http://www.ecoustics.com/
http://www.audioasylum.com/
http://www.audiokarma.org/

After spending time over at these places you'll REALLY be sorry about your wallet.

Cheers,
Jeremy

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I agree whole heartedly that DIY has some fantastic stuff you can do for not alot if you have the skills and access to the tools.

Here are a couple DIY sites too:

http://www.diyaudio.com
http://home1.stofanet.dk/troels.gravesen/

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Thank you sir.

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And here's a link that's easy on the wallet but still offers very high quality sound:

http://www.fluance.com/

No, they're not going to sound as good as $26,000 horn-loaded speakers with infinite baffle room-mounted subwoofers, but they're better than anything else in the pricerange in my opinion.

what can i say, my 100 buck wharfedales do right by me, i've had them for quite a while now, and am still happy with what gets put out. they are tiny enough for my apartment, and when I actually use speakers rather than cans (maybe about 10-15 a day, no joke) they drown out all the other ambient noise well.

that's the point - my place/situation is NOT ideal for speakers in the least, and anything over 100 bucks for speakers in my place would be a waste, especially with the small amt of time i actually have to listen to them (versus hours with my cans)

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Funny you should mention that... MY $100 wharfedales sound pretty good too. Although mine are "well used" and were I think closer to $750-800 when they were new. Gotta love craigslist. They don't sound as nice as the DefTech's, B&W's and Monitor Audio's I've owned in the past, but they get me by with pretty decent sound until I can save enough for the Legacy Audio's I dream of... So deals can be had, just be prepared to deal with runs in the covers and scratches in the finish and...

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no its not

In general, I agree with what Aman posted initially. However, the $100.00 Athena AS-B1 is hardly trash either. These are excellent little speakers that really can do music justice. Think of these as the speaker version of Sennheiser PX100. If you exclude every speaker under $500.00/pair, you will be excluding some very good speakers such as NHT SB1/SB2, much of the Wharfedale Diamond series, much of the B&W S600 series, many Tannoy and KEF bookshelf speakers, and many Canadian bookshelf speakers. All these speakers never proclaim to be the "ultimate speaker"; they just produce good sound quality at (very) reasonable prices. Are they full-range? Of course not. On the other hand, many megabuck speakers aren't full-range either.

While I think computer speakers should be avoided, they are many excellent sounding speakers under $500.00/pair.

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A good speaker setup will cost an order of magnitude more than a superlative headphone setup. I have a pair of Event ASP8 studio monitors. If I felt like dropping $5000 on a pair of speakers I would seldom ever use (grouchy neighbors in an apartment building), it would be a pair of B&W 803s, but even these will not match my HD650s in frequency response.

If I would build a speaker system I would get Magneplanar speakers instead of more expensive cone speakers. They look like a giant pair of K1000.

Oh btw, if you go to the speakers forum, a lot of them have no idea about headphones and use cheap ones (not generally but from what i observe) and the newbies are redirected to head-fi.