New Budget Speakers

I'd been using some 90's Wharfedale Valdus 200 bookshelf speaker for a long time with my PCs. but recently noticed some distortion when playing music and discovered the woofer foam surrounds had degradation (foam rot). This is apparently common with these speakers. It causes the foam to become brittle, cracking, or crumbling, so the speakers are no good.

I looked for some replacement speakers. Many, even second-hand were way too expensive. Then I came across this British budget make called Roxel. I hadn't heard of them before. Their RBS 300 Shelf speakers have really good reviews on sites and from customers so I thought I would give them a try. They have a RRP of ?79.99 so are budget speakers, but they are only ?49 on Amazon at the moment which is nothing. I was a bit dubious that they would be any good, but at the price it was worth the risk.

The Roxel RBS 300 Bookshelf speakers are fairly small. They come in a range of wood effect colours including oak, cherry and beech, I decided to get the beech ones as my desk and other speakers in the room are the same colour.

The speakers have a 4 inch carbon fibre driver with rubber surround and a 1 inch silk dome tweeter. With proper banana bind posts and can handle both 4 and 8 ohms.

They arrived yesterday and I gave them a test today. I've got them connected to an old high end Sony AV Amp. And I must say I'm really impressed. I'm by no means an audiophile that must have precision (I listen to a lot of metal after all!) but I have been into home cinema setups since the late 90s so have some knowledge. And these little speakers sound really nice. They are smaller than I was expecting but ideal for a desk setup as they don't take up much room. The cases/cabinets are nice a heavy, which you want from a speaker as it helps dampen and reduce vibration. The speaker cones themselves look very nicely made and the cases and speaker covers look nice.

The sound is far more full with decent base than you might expect from such small speakers. They produce a more flat, neutral and accurate sound signature more like studio monitors than normal hifi speakers, which is exactly what I wanted. This also gives great vocal clarity and they deliver good extended bass response with no distortion. And being 75W have enough power to be load enough in any room.

So I would definitely recommend them if you need some budget bookshelf speakers for a desk. They would also be ideal as surround rears.