Speakers small enough for desktop use

Alex, I do not own the NHTs but heard them when our local audiophile group visited the NHT factory. They demo'd this model with and without the subwoofer. I felt that I would be happy with them sans woofer, but I can't say that you would feel the same. These are part of their pro line and are designed as near-field monitors, so you can be sure of getting proper driver integration close up. They sounded remarkably "right" to me. The NHT folks are excellent engineers with good discipline, a well-equipped lab, and a lot of integrity, but they are not tweaky audiophiles. Make of that what you will. The company overall has a rock n' roll orientation (righteous amps and guitars in several people's offices).

Macrojack has three pairs of M-00's, perhaps he will chime in.

Interesting situation, Zaikesman.

It sounds as if you're going to do a combination of nearfield and across-the-room listening?

I just got the Klipsch ProMedia 2.1 sat/sub combo and am quite impressed with the naturalness of the sound relative to other computer speaker systems and the strain-free volume at which they play. I run my speakers off a Macintosh Quad-core G5 using iTunes and from the analog outs, and am surprised that I'm able to get nice sound from a cheap [the speakers only] set up like this. The iTunes equalizer allows me to adjust the sound to my liking even more.

You can get the ProMedias at Amazon.com for about $110. Build quality may be an issue with them though, as I had to get a replcement set because one of the channels didn't output sond. The second set suffers from a loose 3mm jack on the back of one of the satellites, but I got it to work.

Before the Klipsch I'd been using a Swan sat/sub combo that just recently crapped out. The Swans didn't have the exagerated treble and bass so many desk top computer speaker systems have, but they also had anemic bass and wouldn't play very loud. I didn't go with the Swan M200s because they're about 13" tall, but I should note that these are the Swans most people speak so highly of.

It's funny that people are talking about NHTs for your set up as I have an extra set of SuperZeros at home and had considered doing exactly the same thing. I've been thinking of bringing my Audio Mirror DAC, Blue Circle BC22 and NHTs to work and run them off the toslink outs of my computer. If I did that I'd probably also bring my 29" tall steel shot filled Lovan stands in and set them up traditionally, not on my desk.

I had also considered using little speakers with a small tube amp too.

Marco and Prpixel: The Era is one of the audition suggestions from the dealer nearest to me, so I will be able to hear these this week.

Eric: I'll have to check with my local pro sound shop to see what lines they carry, but I believe when I was in there last year I did see some Dynaudios on display. The Role speakers I have here will definitely work in the nearfield due to their single-driver design, and in the larger room where they're located right now I feel there are balance and detail advantages at around 1m, although they're very listenable in the farfield.

Dan: Thanks for the elaboration. The review I read seems to suggest that the M-00 satellites roll out fast below 100Hz, but the fact that NHT was willing to demo them with and without the sub may imply differently.

Ckorody: The Sampan FTL (for folded transmission line) has a front port, is 9" deep even though it's only 4" wide, and uses the same 3.5" single driver as the latest version of the sealed-box micro-mini Skiff model, but unlike that speaker is supposed to, doesn't require a subwoofer for near full-range response. I haven't heard any of the Role or NSM 2-way models.

Marco and Prpixel: The Era is one of the audition suggestions from the dealer nearest to me, so I will be able to hear these this week.

I suspect you will be mightely impressed with them. I couldn't believe the tight, low bass coming from those tiny boxes (Design 5's). I understand the 4's have similar midrange qualities, but don't quite go as low, and are a bit less pricey. If you decide on Design 4's there is a pair on the Terry Cain Memorial Fund page that are a lightly used review pair that are $460, $300 of which will go to the Terry Cain fund (helps pay for the balance of his medical expenses as well as the funeral arrangements). That page comes down on January 10 though, so you'd have to act fast. I did not hear a pair of Design 4's so cannot speak directly for them, other than saying the midrange qualities of the 5's were excellent.

Marco

Thanks for the link Marco, I was unaware of the Affordable Audio e-zine. John Atkinson's review of the 4 in the last issue of Stereophile was certainly positive as well.

In addition it turns out that Steven Stone -- who I assume is the same guy I remember as J. Gordon Holt's recording partner from Stereophile days past -- has written an ongoing series of articles on this subject at Enjoythemusic.com, with reviews of some of the models mentioned above (including the Era 4). The series is titled The Nearfield and the different installments can be accessed from the top of this index page.