I've worked as an engineer in recording studios since the early 70's, and the funniest question I've ever heard is "What are the best speakers?" There is only one answer to that question, regardless of whether you have dog's ears like mine, or meet the criteria of the Active Listener as postulated by Brian Eno, or can make do on anything anywhere enjoying any quality or lack thereof in the chain. The best speakers are the ones you like, and every speaker takes some getting used to. That takes experience. Practically no two environments are ever the same either, so experimentation is absolutely necessary. Some things hold true in the process. If you have the luxury of being able to chose a sweet spot to sit, it's true that the speakers should be aimed very specifically at your head, but most engineers will aim the face of the speaker to point 1 foot above your head if they are 5' or more away. Try it if you can, and decide for yourself whether the details and spread in the sound field aren't actually smoother that way. It works for me. Separation helps expand the center. The easiest way to aim a speaker is with 2 equal lengths of string, knotted dead center and lightly taped to the middle of both opposing sides of the face frame. Don't trust your eyes. Unless you're a purist about keeping EQ curves ruler flat, it's probably wiser to simply listen to your favorite broad range music to make your choices with the EQ settings on the speakers. One thing I would try to avoid entirely would be using the headphone jack as an input source, even to the preferred external amp as a speaker driver. There are so many USB powered external sound cards available for a minimal investment, it's well worth the few dollars it takes to get a real Line Level Output that is quiet and provides a higher quality uncompromised signal source with less inherent ground noise to an amp. In recording anything to the computer you'll enjoy a much finer quality going in as well, with much less if any DC Offset in the waveforms you'll be digitizing. Without too complicated an explanation, DC Offset creeps in to most internal cards via the power supply and gets you samples that have audible clicks as artifacts between where tracks meet in the CDs you burn. The best low cost/very high quality interface for the money that I'm aware of is the Behringer U-CONTROL UCA202 USB-Audio Interface available for 30 bucks or less, Mac/PC compliant.