Searching for 2.1 Speakers for College on a Budget

I've been living with mediocre speakers on my laptop for the past four years of my life. When I'm by myself, these speakers are okay for me, but when I'm with a few friends, it's hard to fill the room with music and literally impossible to hear movies. To that end, I'm searching for the best 2.1 audio system that will be able to fill a room for preferably below $80. Help?

 

I would say take a look at philips and logitech models. They have cheap models that provide decent bass.

I cant really pick out specific models as I do not live in USA (the sortiment and price is different here), but these two brands will have what you are looking for.

 

Logitech Z323 are good products. Excellent sound quality. They go on sale every now and then so finding them below 80$ won't be much of a problem.
If you wise to save some money, then the Z313 will do the job as well, just a little less powerful.

EDIT: Actually, here are the Z323 on newegg, great price.

 

Amazon.com: Logitech Speaker System Z523 with Subwoofer: Electronics

I was thinking of getting this set, actually. I don't really know too much about speakers though so I'm not certain it's the best for its price.
Edit: Is the Z323 just slightly smaller and cheaper than the Z523?

 

Indeed, if you are willing to put in investing a bit more, the Z523 will give you a better and louder sound.
Another good thing about the Z523 is that you can control the bass from the main speaker, whereas with the Z323 you would have to reach to the Subwoofer.

 

Be careful with 2.1. At my school, the residence contract specifically states that you may not bring 2.1 speakers because of the subwoofer. I don't know how much they keep track of that though.

 

^^Haha, the idea of people actually following those contracts is ridiculous. My school technically forbid using extension chords and I'm pretty sure that 90% of the rooms had one in there (hell, our little shop for our dorm area even sold them!).

 

i used to have a pair of harman kardons 2.1s in my dorm... and i'd get complained about every few days...

after a while i turned the bass down so low that it didnt even really warrant the use of a subwoofer..

maybe u could take a look at choices i thought were good replacement 2.0 systems for reasonable amount of bass:

Creative Gigaworks T40/T20
Altec Lansing FX3022


As for 2.1s I think you should go with Klipsch Promedia 2.1 or Harman Kardon Soundsticks III.

If you take a look around on forums (ie. AVForums/headfi/etc) you'd see that Logitech has pretty bad sound quality (not that most ppl could tell the difference).

But to be honest most ppl can't hear enough of a difference to justify that extra 50-100 that they're spending so if you dont think ur an audiophile or anything, Logitech Z323 is probably the way to go.

 

Logitech X-230. Cheap as dirt and they produce good quality sound.