Are USB studio monitors any good?

[fedepresti]

I was wondering if USB reference monitors (like Samson StudioDock 4i or Alesis M1 Active 520 USB) are better than similarly priced regular studio monitors if you are using them with a laptop without an external soundboard.

I know I can still use regular monitors with an RCA cable, but I was thinking that maybe if you didn't have a good sound output (and I only have the regular headphone out), you wouldn't be able to squeeze all the juice from better monitors anyway...

Also, which of those two do you think is better? I'm gonna go to a showroom and try them anyway, I'm just curious.

This is my first thread, thanks!

PS: I just want a good set of speakers to listen to music, watch movies and use my electric piano.

 

[Shadow_7]

If you're not going to be mixing anything, why not use regular PC speakers? Or your stereo system via RCA jacks? At 4" for the largest speaker, you might need a subwoofer to hear anything of importance. I'll probably go with yamaha HS50m's and a the 10W? one that's the sub eventually. I used to have some BX8's, but at 225W each, x2, I rarely used them. It was nice having real monitors and all, lots of little things like electrical buzz and wind noise, even faint radio stations that you could hear in your recordings on them, that you WILL NOT hear on most other speakers. But I really didn't have much need for them after listening to enough samples to choose my mics and fiddling with DIY windscreens until I found a mostly adequate protection combination. I've driven a pair of cheap and small PC speakers with a headphone preamp and they compared well with my 4' magnapans and stuff. They weren't the winners in the comparison, but they weren't completely hideous either.