[quinda]

I'm buying a new monitor for my nieces parents - my niece is the girl with the terrible CRT, and she will be getting her parents 'better' CRT - she doesn't look after stuff well enough to get a flat screen just yet.

The monitor we're considering getting has built in speakers. When they heard that, they were really happy, saying 'We can give her my old speakers too, she broke hers ages ago'.

I'm not convinced. The monitor isn't a bad one 8ms Update, 0.26 dot pitch - not exactly top of the range, but for what they can afford, and what they will use it for, its good enough. The thing is, I always thought built in speakers were really poor quality - or has that changed?

I've never owned a monitor with built in speakers myself - always prefering to buy a decent set separately. Would you tell them to keep their old speakers and just get the kid some cheap separates, or do you think that the built in ones will be OK?

[CG Man]

I'm an audiophile with my PC pluged into a £800 amplifier and £300 speckers, any TV with built in speakers sounds rubbish to me. To sound really good they need to be big and stand on the floor. The alternative are the surround speackers from Creative.