Opinions on small active speaker sets

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Its about the music

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Hi All.

As the heading suggests, I would appreciate some opinions on what to consider in terms of small active speaker sets.

Note these are not intended for critical listening i.e. utilization in a main system. The purpose would be to use said speakers in distributed audio systems throughout the house mainly used for background listening (there is currently another thread on distributed home audio, but my thread aims more towards audio only, and focusses on the speakers).

We currently utilize several Apple Airport Expresses throughout the house, sources are either Apple TV, computer, or one of four iPhones, all via an Airport Extreme controlled wireless network.

The bedroom AE's currently play into some old amps and speaker combo's, sure it sounds OK but this stuff is taking up a lot of space and is perhaps a bit of an eyesore.

So...I was thinking along the lines of small active speakers. They only need analogue input, the AE's analogue output, whilst not brilliant, is absolutely adequate for background music in the bedrooms.

What options are out there and what experience do you have. My only experience is with B&W's MM-1. Its fantastic, and portable to boot, so they also travel with us on holidays. They sound nice, in fact tick all the marks except for price: They are quite dear little buggers. So whilst I love owning my one set for reasons stated, I'm thinking buying another 3 sets are gonna hurt pennywise.

I further see the Samson speakers as well as others, but all of them are unknown to me in terms of sounds, use, practicality etc. So, some recommendations will be much appreciated.

Looking forward!
 
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