Any issues, problems or hiccups that I should watch out for??
Nothing that I know of or can think of. In fact, the second monitor attached to my Mac mini is also a TV that I found at another yard sale. It’s made by Dynex; a name I’d never heard before. It works well, though.
I bought my monitor as a monitor about 10-12 years ago, but it’s pretty much the same as any HDTV monitor. I don’t know what complications you might have if you bought a 4K Smart TV, but there might be some.
Don’t forget the HomePod Mini which might be an interesting option to have available.
Most of the folks who have given you suggestions define “inexpensive” as “several hundred dollars.” But I’m guessing that’s not what you had in mind.
There is computer speaker system that has been the gold standard for a long time when it comes to getting truly decent sound for the least money:
Logitech Z313
$35
https://www.newegg.com/logitech-z313/p/19S-001J-00087?item=9SIAAMRDP17320
The Z313 is a powered compact 2.1 system. For the price they won’t fill an entire room with sound for a party, and they won’t provide wall-shaking deep bass. But they will provide remarkably clear and accurate sound when sitting in front of them, including a credible amount of bass. Your computer will have to offer a standard 2.5mm mini-jack for these to attach to (as almost any computer speakers would require.) This system looks like little plastic toy speakers (the woofer is actually a pretty solid wooden box, like expensive systems have), but the sound that comes out is pretty amazing. The first time I heard them I was a bit stunned.
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Where? There were only two speaker suggestions in this thread (and two suggestions to use speakers built-in to a TV/monitor). The one I suggested has an MSRP of $130. The other $110. Both are available at discount for some retailers. That’s not what I would consider “several hundred dollars”.
The linked thread suggests several more expensive options, but that thread was for @ace, who (I believe) was looking for a more robust audio system. Hence several recommendations for studio monitors and 5.1 surround systems.
Yes, $35 is significantly less expensive than $130 or $110. And maybe the Logitech Z313 will be up to the OP’s task. But (as is the case for any speaker system) quality is highly subjective. If possible, see if you can find a store with a demonstration model set up. The go connect an audio source to it (I like to use the iPod I always have on my person) and try it out with the content you expect to be listening to.
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Speaking as the OP, I originally was thinking of something in the $35 range. I tried the monitor speakers, and found they were horribly inadequate for a Zoom interview of a person with a Chinese accent, I went looking for Edifier speakers (mentioned above) and found their R19U speakers (2 small ones, no low frequency third speaker) on sale for about $30 at MicroCenter. So far they sound better, but I have yet them to put them to a serious work test, which for me is a Zoom with a person with a thick accent. I’m also changing my strategy so I record Zooms and use Otter to produce a transcript as a backup.
My uses differ from many other people here because what I want is clear reproduction of the spoken word for interviews and talks where I need to understand what is said, not audio music or action in a game or movie. The spoken word can be tricky because some words are easy to misunderstand if high frequencies are cut off. (In particular, Jeff and Jess sound identical on a landline phone because it cuts off frequencies above about 3500 Hz.)
Thanks for all the comments. I haven’t paid much attention to computer voice quality in the past, and it’s helpful to learn more about it. My primary music system is still an old stereo, and I have been learning more about audio while experimenting with digitizing decades-old reel to reel tapes.
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I have (give or take) that logitech sub-woofer, that I used to replace a Creative sub (keeping the creative desktop ‘tweeters’ because they are pretty titanium :-). I can attest that it sounds great for the price.
BUT but… it puts itself to sleep after a time of not being used, whether plugged into the headphone port on my mac or not, and then it buzzes… even if I’ve turned them off at the remote. To the extent that I consider replacing the lot from time to time.
You get what you pay for?
Now there’s an interesting subject, Jeff. Maybe you should consult an audiologist. Meanwhile, I have found this online.
Thanks. I’ll take a look at that. I’m trying to pin down what are my actual hearing problems are. I wrote a feature for IEEE Spectrum on cellular voice a few years ago, and many of them come from the equipment, the way it’s used, and the interfaces between different phone systems. Using cellphones in speakerphone mode can make speech quite hard to hear, and some people don’t hold a cellphone well because they lack good tactile cues. When I listen to Zoom conferences with speakers at different locations, I often notice differences in speech quality. The video is remarkably good; the audio ranges from good to awful.
Newer phones with HD Voice generally are better because they carry frequencies up to 7000 Hz, but Speakerphone can lose much of that quality. What smartphones need is an automatic alignment system that helps the user improve the outgoing sound quality.
My ears aren’t getting any younger, but audio equipment is doing very little to help.
Not sure if it will help your particular case, but this topic, including the suggestion to use an equalizer such as eqMac https://eqmac.app, was previously discussed here:
https://talk.tidbits.com/t/14-inch-macbook-pro-speakers-sound-muffled/17189/6
David
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I think speakers that have good solid music reproduction (which means full-spectrum, not just the “thumpa-thumpa” sounds that some people consider music 
) will also work well for you, but that may cost more than you want to spend.
For myself (I also use computer conferencing a lot for work, on a Windows laptop), I don’t use the computer’s main audio output for this. I have much much better results using a Jabra conference speaker or headset.
These days, I’m using a Speak 410 USB speakerphone for my calls. It’s not too expensive (MSRP is $130). It provides very clear audio for voice, and has good noise/echo cancellation.
I’ve also had great experience with their Pro 930 wireless headset. But that’s more expensive (MSRP is $315, but I found Amazon listings for $240 new or refurbished for $120.)
Both integrate with Jabra Direct software, allowing on-device buttons to interface with conference/softphone apps (e.g. to accept/disconnect/hold calls, mute/adjust volume, etc.) According to the datasheet, the Mac version integrates with softphones from Avaya, CounterPath and Skype for Business. Other apps will see it as a generic USB speaker/mic device.
[Jeff, sorry, didn’t mean to imply your hearing was defective, just that audiologists understand these things and could maybe explain them to us. 
]
Compounding the difficulty in the particular case you mention is that, as the link I provided notes, not all foreign accents are created equal. Languages that rely heavily on tonal differences (six in Cantonese, for instance) to convey meaning don’t care as much about consonants as we do: native speakers may not have learned to “hear” some of them at all (the difference between “r” and “l” are the classic examples) and have a great deal of difficulty learning to reproduce them so they’re intelligible to speakers of western languages. This would be true even if they were sitting next to you in a quiet room.
And that (not to mention all of the other distortion introduced by the transmission chain ahead of the speakers) is out of your control. As a practical matter, the best you can do is probably to find speakers or headphones that measure flat in the range of human speech and hope that you can understand what you hear.
This must be something that professionals run into all the time these days when producing interviews for news broadcasts, don’t you think? I would love to hear from someone who really knows what they’re talking about.
Thanks for the suggestions. I have found that being on the receiving end of some office speakerphones can be problematic. Being on the receiving end of a smartphone used as a speakerphone can be awful, at least partly because of how they are positioned. I would hesitate to use a speakerphone on my end because my workspace is an echo chamber, facing a wall behind a speaker, with cabinets in a file cabinet. How do you avoid those problems?
Maybe when I have time, I can try to get someone to pay me to write an article about how to best communicate orally.;-) I have been interviewed for radio in studios, and the audio setups are very carefully designed to minimize noise and echoes. What I found with cell phones is that the biggest problems are weak connections, which reduce the bit rate transmitted, and conversions between different parts of the network and different carriers. I suspect most people don’t really think about sound quality on the phone or on the computer, and from my experience a good headset is the best for general audio.
I haven’t had any problems with the Jabra devices. A good quality device should have built-in echo cancellation.
You are right, however, that cheap speakerphones (like those built-in to desk phones or software using your laptop’s built-in mic and speaker) can create horrible echo effects. Sometimes your conferencing software can compensate, but often it can’t.
Back before I got the Jabra devices, I would frequently get echo when using my laptop’s speaker and mic. I solved it by wearing headphones, and only using the laptop’s mic. Since the levels in headphones are much lower, they don’t feed back into the mic.
I’ve seen things like the Jabra devices in corporate conference rooms, but have only used them a couple of times. Trying to collect audio from several people sitting around a table seems like it would be difficult to manage.
I use a Plantronics headset on my office phone, a Webcam with microphone and an old Logmein headset on my computer. The Plantronics is around $100, and well worth it for the phone. I sometimes get echoes or noise on the computer webcam, but it’s not at all consistent. I started using headphones on the phone to keep my hands free for typing notes, and I now use them all the time.
It is. Which is why the ones designed for use around a large conference table can be very expensive. (e.g. the Speak 810 costs $700.)
In the past, I’ve had very good experiences using Polycom Soundstation conference phones. Some even support extension mics in order to pick up audio from across a large conference table. But they aren’t cheap and they are not suitable for your application - they’re designed to connect to phone systems (either analog or VoIP), not to computers.
But if you only need one for yourself at your desk, then you don’t need a speaker designed for a large conference room. The Speak-410 I’m using is designed for 3-4 people seated near it (e.g. around a desk).
My wife has the Logitech speaker system and it never buzzes. It may be that you are experiencing a problem because you aren’t using the amplifier (which is integrated into the woofer) with the speakers that it was intended for. Or maybe you introduced noise into the system by splicing the wires.
The Logitech Z313’s get excellent reviews. I doubt that they would get great reviews if they buzzed.
https://www.amazon.com/Logitech-980-000382-Z313-Speaker-System/dp/B002HWRZ2K/?th=1#customerReviews
Thank you for the recommendation… I bought the Edifiers you recommended, with bluetooth, and they are great for desktop use.
As I wrote below, they have replaced the buzzing-when-asleep setup I had… which @randy2 I didn’t splice the wires; the connectors and impedance matched so I’m not sure what would be wrong. No matter, they are gone now.
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