Quote Originally Posted by RGA
If you buy used you can spend your $300 on 5-10 year old speakers that went for $700-$1200. You will likely get a much much better speaker than anything on the market new for $300.

Also if you are a little bit handy you could buy a speaker kit and put it together yourself - and in all likely-hood you will get better sound as a result. http://www.parts-express.com/wizards...AT&srchCat=769

As the Parts express guys noted - some of their kits that sell for $300 are pretty much the same as many of the standmounts sold as name brands going for $2,000. So if you can use a screwdriver it might be worth a shot.
It's nice to see that Parts Express has expanded its speakers kit selection -- some nice looking options there, especially among their higher end kits.

I like this MTM format kit with Usher drivers for US$455 ought to give strong competitions to $2000-3000 MSRP speakers from major manufacturers.