Okay - if you are looking for something cheap (<$150)
If you like a fairly dark, but otherwise reasonably balanced sound they the Altec Lansing ACS48s. They have been around a while, and can be had for under $100 if you can find em. aos: The speakers you are talking about is the ADA 880, they sound decent, if a bit dull, and put out very deep bass for computer speakers. I would prefer the 48s for music and the 880s for games and movies myself. The ATP3s, through a quick listen, sounded like they were the ACS48s with a lot more treble, which can always be turned down a bit, so I can highly reccomend them too.
CSW speakers aren't bad, but they are far from great. The cheapest speakers, the PCworks, havea very tinny sound, and no midrange. By audiophile standards they sound like crap, but for some reason I enjoy them quite a bit. The subwoofer is also highly lacking (4" in a plastic enclosure). The Soundworks speakers sound a lot better, but the sub is overdriven, and sounds like it is trying too hard. The sattelites are much better, and they can actually handle some mids. They are similar to the charecteristic Bose sound. In <$80 speakers, this isn't really much of a bad thing. The Microworks are around $150 and sound very good. They don't have much high treble, and the bass isn't incredibly deep, but they have a good full sound. The sub is much better then the other CSW offerings.
When buying CSW speakers, look at the size of the sattelites. I believe the three different types they use are from these exact speaker setups, and they use them throught the entire model line. If they have the smallest speakers, avoid the setup like the plauge. The medium ones (Soundworks) are decent, but don't fare too well in the lower mids, and the large onces are quite nice but sacrifice a bit on the high end.
Boston Acoustics and Yamaha make some of the best sounding cheap computer speakers IMO. The BA line goes kind of like the CSW one, but they sound better- better subs, more balanced natural sound. Avoid the "flat" ones though. Yamaha's cheapo speakers remind me a lot of the BA ones.
Labtec makes some decent speakers too. On the cheap end the Pulse (424 I think) is excellent. It has an 8" sub where most speakers have 4" and 5" drivers. The sattelites have a slightly bigger sound then the CSW PCworks.
If you care about midrange performance, avoid Klipsch, I would reccomend BA the most, personally, or perhaps the CSW Microworks.
If you want to go really high end there is always the Videologic stuff, but I am reccomending the stuff on the cheaper end.
If you want to spend................................You should get
<$35.............................................. ...........CSW PCworks
$35-50................................................ ......Labtec Pulse 242
$50-70................................................ ......Cheapest BA speakers
$70-100............................................... .....Altec ATP3 or ACS48
$100-150............................................... ...CSW Microworks
