Micca MB42x & SMSL SA-50

Buy Micca MB42x

As Herbert has been cleaning and refining his humble "battlestation" (workstation), a set of decent quality speakers have been on the "want" list for some time. Previous experience with some of the relatively expensive options at Best Buy and other "big box" electronic stores have never felt like a great value.

Recently research led Herbert to envy the Audio Engine A2/A5 active speakers as a nice "desktop" size combined with relatively positive reviews over more popular consumer brands. But at $300-$500 for a set, this didn't scratch Herbert's value itch.

Further reading led Herbert to the belief that a good set of passive speakers and a sufficiently powered T-Amp would provide the same (if not better) quality at a fraction of the cost. A faithful reader astutely observed that one should not "second guess being at a really good point on the value curve." Rather than find the best at the $500 price point, can you achieve a desirable result at the $150 mark?

Enter ZeosPantera, and his series of reviews, opinions, rants, and gushing of headphones, amps, and av equipment of all types. His review style and relative advice (in comments on his reddit guides) style totally resonated with me. For a good laugh, check out his youtube reviews.

I decided to start slowly with discrete components that I could upgrade as my desires evolved/changed with a better than bottom-of-the-barrell 2.0 setup to begin. The Micca MB42x passive bookshelf speakers and SMSL SA50 T-Amp came were repeatedly cited as recommendation for this type of starting point.

WOW! Its been so long since I've had decent audio on my desk, that I forgot speakers could create sound like this. Apparently music shouldn't come from a box, it should fill the space around you. Apparently stereo means that different instruments should be producing sound from different locations in that space. Amazing! Who knew?

Herbert loves a good deal. Readers, you don't need to spend hundreds of dollars to improve on your laptop speakers, integrated monitor speakers or shitty soundbar. In fact, you can also do better than the "plug in" speakers you can plug your iPhone into.

You can have a superior experience for under $200!