1:If your unwilling to be a guinea pig,& absolutely don’t want traditional looking speakers, look at Orb Audio,Gallo Acoustics,or maybe the Focal Dome,all of which are highly reviewed & well liked in audiophile circles...
2:If you go the route of unpowered speakers then you’ll need to add a desktop amplifier/control center...Most of the available choices are going to be Class D based like maybe the new Creek 4040 or PS Audio Sprout 100...
3:Seems to me a pair of audiophile level,wireless,noise cancelling headphones would be an excellent choice here..Look at Mark Levinson,Focal or Dali...
4:A SUPERB,wired headphone system should also be a viable option in this instance...
Elipson Planet M: quality; power requirements for desktop use?
Realistically, l probably listen to 90% of my music at my desk, so it's important that my computer speakers sound good. I currently use the (powered) Genelec G Ones, through a Schiit Modi DAC, with an unmatched old subwoofer. I think this sounds fantastic; unfortunately, my desk is also in a public area and it's also important that I have a high WAF system, and the Genelecs fail at this pretty miserably.
I came across the Elipson Planet M's, which I think are the perfect size, and look terrific. But I'm having trouble finding any good reviews; everything I see is from ten years ago and largely talks about surround-sound systems, which is not my interest. (I would want to pair this with the Elipson Planet Sub.) I'm wondering first if anyone has a sense at how these sound esp. for my purpose. And second, I'm not sure how to drive these. Elipson's Planet M page suggests 30–80 watts, at a sensitivity of 88dB into 6 ohms. This seems pretty high to me, for a pair of small speakers that will be less than 3' away from my head; I was hoping to find something that I could drive with, say, a Schiit Gjallarhorn (10W) or something like that—I can't have a gigantic power amp sitting on my desk. (I do, obviously, happen to like Schiit products, for their combination of sound, price, and looks, for the environment I need right now, but I'm not wedded to the company.)
If this is all a terrible idea, I guess I'd want to re-ask in the PC Audio subforum; but overall, I'm not looking for a separate streamer or anything elaborate; this has to be controlled from my desktop, and has to work for anything ranging from playing high-def audio files from an NFS server, to whatever background sounds any random website might want to play. Thanks.