Speaker me thisFollow

Wall mount a good set of speakers.

in that case, a couple of options. First, as soon as financially feasable I would invest in something along the lines of a Chief Dual monitor stand http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824997475 which will give you height adjustment and reclaim all the desk space under the monitors. that will set you back around $180ish though you may be able to find one cheaper somewhere. Then you could place your center, left and right speakers under the monitor without issue. If you happen to have dell monitors, you can purchase their soundbars and install them directly under the monitors to act as the left and right channels, then you would only have to fit the center.

You could also look into speaker floor stands and place the speakers next to the desk rather than on it.

I have a set of creative labs really narrow speakers that I use for my secondary PC right and left, they are pretty good and I would reccommend them for that purpose, but they have since been discontinued.

Another option to look at would be one of the sound bar systems that combines the front channels into one long bar shaped speaker. They tend to be kind of expensive, but you should be able to find a good shielded one that will fit under the monitors.

Creative has always had some very good, and very compact(as far as speaker size goes) 5.1 systems(as well as just sets of 2.1). The sound quality is great, and they last a while. The set I'm using now is only just starting to die, and I've been using them since 2008.

Finally got the dual monitor stand for my birthday. My current speakers can be upright again!

Asked for a nice set of 5.1 speakers for Christmas.

Naw, the very final upgrade will a new CPU. Motherboard can handle any AM3 socket processor, so I'm eying a fat Phenom II X6.

It's AM3+ :( My motherboard is only AM3.

Just get an old keyboard and yank the + key off of it and duct tape it to the motherboard!

That or they have motherboards on sale too! and yes, I'm a bad influence.

Ram's dirt cheap at the moment. They had a "free 8GB ram with motherboard purchase" deal going for AMD motherboards wednesday, but it has apperently expired. 16GB ram can be had for under $60 though for 2 8GB sticks.