If I get normal floor standers, how would I get the signal from teh laptop. Do I need an amp ?

Cable from the computers earphone socket, amp, cable and then speakers.

Depending on what you want out of the system you could just use a pair of 2.1 speakers with their own inbuilt amp, would save a good bit of money but the quality and power might not be there.

a decent set of 5.1 speakers is abuout £40 ?.... and probably cheaper in the us anyway.... use those

can run them from the laptop or from the ipod ?

just get some ones that don;t look like cheap ass pc speakers

An Ipod would only have outlets for stereo, and would need a converter of some kind AFAIK

yeah... but a spliter thing for £1 would do it

Your best bet is going to be one of the docking stations that are on the market, the Apples own brand audiophile one is actually supposed to be pretty good, even What HiFi? liked it IIRC, or if it wasnt that one, there is a Logitech one on the market i might be thinking of. It will be the best compromise between crappy PC speakers and a full blown amp/speaker setup.

I still maintain that Bose is overpriced but well marketed junk.

I think the docking station would be good, but I would prefer to run the music from itunes if I can, since its easier to chop and change songs so that mean using my laptop.

However I dont want to have to unplug 200 cables each time I move my laptop, which is every day. One cable from lappy to amp I could leave with tho.

Also bear in mind my laptop doesnt have any fancy audio outs, just a standard jack (Inspirion 9400).

So further options please hi fi experts.

I bought my parents an Apple Airport Express a year or so ago.

Its not the most exciting piece of kit in the world, but it works well for itunes based users.

Basically, you plug it in to your hifi, connect it to your wireless network... then it appears in itunes as a new output device.

Its relatively basic (and cheapish at £65), and only works with iTunes, but means you can stream your music over the network and control it all from your PC in another room.

Then you can spend whatever money you want on a proper stereo system!

That sounds smart !

Ok after reading about it it sounds perfect. Now if someone comes around my house and they want to play their music over the system, how can I accomodate that ?

Slightly more awkward

If you plug someone elses iPod into your computer, Im pretty sure you can play from their library through iTunes (and hence through the airport express). However if they have any tracks downloaded from iTunes I presume youd probably need to authorise their account in your copy of iTunes to get those tracks to play. I cant test these presumptions though, so cant say for sure.

If someone has a non-iPod MP3 player that you want to play music from... then youre up a rather smelly creek without a paddle. Short of copying their music from the device to your computer first and adding to your itunes library, I cant think of a way around that one.

If that happened, Id unplug the airport express and plug in their MP3 player  :?

Right if itunes can play their ipod (sans downloaded tracks) without me having to import all their crap then I am happy. If they have a non ipod mp3 player then I dont care.

I ordered the apple thing. $85 it cost me so about £45.

http://www.engadget.com/2006/01/05/adimos-wireless-video-ipod-dock/
http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/08/creative-gets-in-on-the-wireless-ipod-dock-craze-with-xdock/ <-- looks better imo
http://www.coolest-gadgets.com/20070208/ipod-dock-wireless-speakers/ <-- even better