I have a bunch of different systems. We can't afford to heat our house a lot during winter, so we often times don't use the living room. I have a portable CD player with Bose noise cancelling headphones. That gives me very clean and accurate sound. In the kitchen, we have a small boom box that's hooked up to a small subwoofer on the floor; which, in turn, powers two small cube speakers sitting on top of the kitchen cabinets. This actually sounds better than you might think. In the bedroom, the stereo is even smaller. I have a little Maxell set, that comes with a pair of small flat speakers (electrostatic, I guess), and a very small subwoofer. You just hook a portable CD player up to this unit. It's not audiophile sound, but it doesn't take up any room either. Obviously, we don't play music really loud in the bedroom.
When it's not freezing in the living room, that stereo has a DVD player that plays CD's and DVD-A's. I got that off a bargain table at Circuit City. It's a Panasonic, and I've had very good luck with Panasonic electrical devices. The speakers are small Boston Acoustics, mounted on stands about four feet off of the ground. I have a Yamaha subwoofer on the floor. All this is powered by a plain, old Yamaha receiver. Again, it ain't audiophile, but it's plenty good enough for the size of the room. The small speakers image really well; and Boston Acoustics have a nice, dark sound that I like. I'm not into bright and shrill highs. I simply don't have the money to spend on expensive amplifiers, etc. When that's the case, I feel that smaller speakers are the way to go.
Barry