I am very happy with my JVCs that were all the rage a little while ago and I saved some dough. The HA-RX900 is the model I have. I have had high end AudioTechnicas, Grados, AKGs, and BeyerDynamics in the past. These are definitely worth the minimal cash I spent.
These go for about $82 shipped on ZZF and NewEgg. This is NIB, never opened. I had some wild hair up my ass one day and started ordering parts for a gaming rig which I wouldn't use to any of its potential. I'm asking $70 shipped via USPS Priority with insurance. I take check or MO. If you have...
Get that Yammie mentioned earlier. Grab some of these here X series speakers and a sub. Get a pair of mtm towers for the fronts, the bookshelves for the rears, an mtm for the center and a sub, you're gonna pay a decent chunk for the receiver and the speakers and get an excellent sounding system...
I went a bit vintage. I got a pair of Baby Advent IIs off of Craigslist for about $10 and have a Yamaha R-70 receiver which I traded a headphone amp for. I just do music, not gaming but the Chaintech AV-710 has a nice 2 channel output and I picked that up for about $30.
OK folks, as I said, I bought a pair and was quite impressed.
I have Marantz TA-100 A/V receiver from the '80s, 100wpc RMS. I have a Sony SCD-CE595 as my source. These are incredible for imaging. Also, the sound isn't bad at all. However, they don't compare to the big Fisher 3-ways I have...