Someone on another forum asked me to post this because they only have free e-mail accounts and so apparently cannot register here...

Christmas time is rolling around, and I have decided that I want a new speaker setup for my room. Basically, I've decided that I should get a cheap "studio" setup hopefully totaling somewhere between $200 - $300.

I plan to hook this up to my computer, which currently has an ordinary (Audigy) card. So I know I need the monitors, but I'm not sure whether I need an external amp, some sort of pre-amp, or what adaptors I'll need for the various input types.

I have seen some M-Audio speakers (the BX5's) that newegg has but I personally like the idea of an external amp simply for the eye-candy factor. I also don't know if they are of any real quality as I've only seen one review on them. I'm not even sure what I need, due to the already amplified output of the soundcard... If possible, I'd like to go through as much good equipment as possible, bypassing what the soundcard does for quality. If that's a bad idea, I need to know this.

Basically, can anyone recomend me a setup that will work with my box somewhere between $200-$300, including all adaptors needed, and if I have any bad ideas, please let me know the proper way to do this.

I would suggest listening to a pair of psb alphas and some kind of second hand amp to drive them.