Surprisingly good speakers

I work all day on my computer and I was looking for a small speaker pair without a subwoofer (too distracting during work); most importantly, one that doesn't cause listening fatigue. I found that in the Bose Companion 2.

I listened to the speaker twice in the store using my own music CD's before I bought it. The sound is smooth, even badly recorded tracks that would hiss on other speakers sound nice. You can hear more details and room information than on most of the cheap PC speakers made by the popular brands. I listened to some rock, and noticed that AC/DC tracks sound softer than on my previous Altec Lansing vs2220's. So rock music is not banging in your face as you might desire once in a while. Techno sounds great though, since they go pretty low in bass. All the other music like acoustic, pop, Enya and classic sounds well too.

The sound is much more transparent than on many other PC speakers, but it doesn't sound harsh, that's hard to find. Many cheap speakers are either muddy or harsh, but not these. It's a refined audiophile sound. They don't go very loud though, and sound best if you sit right in front of them, so they're best used as PC speakers next to your monitor.

I have to admit that I never liked Bose home audio speakers (woofer/satellite combinations) or PA speakers in clubs. They sound poor compared to other brand name products. However, these little ones deliver for sure.

Also keep in mind that with a full range driver (no tweeters), you eliminate all the phase problems and crossover distortion between tweeter and woofer (usually in the all important 2-3KHz range where the vocals are) of a passive crossover design, and not to mention the time-alignment problems between woofer and tweeter. Unfortunately, not many speakers on the market take the latter problem into account and as such you're better of with quality full-range drivers if you're on a budget IMO. Also, a single driver acts as a point source, while a tweeter/woofer combo needs some distance to merge the sound from the 2 drivers into one whole, so the bigger the drivers, the further you have to sit away.

For a small desktop speaker with full-range drivers, this is the best I've ever heard. I will add a ESI Juli@ audio card soon and some Monster Cable interconnects to further improve the sound, I have no doubt they will respond well to the upgrade.