[ousooner15]

I don't have a ton of experience, but I have heard the Ascend Acoustics cmb-170se, HTM 200SE and 340se I prefer the 340's but for the money the 170's sound fantastic with a decent receiver/amp. The 200's are just under 300 bucks with the same awesome signature. You simply cannot go wrong with this company.

 

[HiCZoK]

I am just using mackie cr3 and love them.
bookshelf, active, volume knob.
 
You could get cr4 for even better bass

 

[cel4145]

I don't have a ton of experience, but I have heard the Ascend Acoustics cmb-170se, HTM 200SE and 340se I prefer the 340's but for the money the 170's sound fantastic with a decent receiver/amp. The 200's are just under 300 bucks with the same awesome signature. You simply cannot go wrong with this company.

+1

I have the CBM-170 SEs on my desktop setup. Good speakers!

 

[Lord Raven]

   
this, if your not careful you could spend triple for less performance, if you want something better then 305's best to build your own.  http://www.diysoundgroup.com/featured-for-mg04a00409/speedster-kit.html
 
But doing this means you now need a decent amp too ~200$ more. The JBL's have integrated amp, they are actually biamped, with an amp for the low's and and an amp for the high's. You could use a cheap t-amp, but for something like a Speedster, that's almost criminal. Need a good, entry level A/B amp. The cheapest i'd recomend is a parts express  75 watt per channel amp(Dayton APA150, 160$) . But the Emotiva A100 (229$) is probably worth the extra cash for an excellent budget choice. Either way, now we are talking about a pair of speakers and a relativly large, hot A/B amp. Alot less "Clean" then a headphone amp/dac/pre combo with a pair of JBL's. (or other powered monitor)

Have you built it? I am also looking for desktop speakers, I might give it a try. International shipping is not available for this kit.

 

[MikeW]

never built those, I use the LSR305's, but I was tempted, i've built other speakers before, so it's not a big deal for me, the ease and simplicity of powered monitor's won me over. The speedster's have been around  since 2013, they are a well known good design. There are other vendors that sells kits as well.
 
https://meniscusaudio.com/shop/kits/speedster-pair/