Sunbiz, I recommend you trust your ears and buy a speaker set for yourself. It's ultimately how you feel about what you are listening to that counts. ( Music is all about feeling IMO
).
I read your earlier comments about the MX-5021 and share your point of view in that the speakers are way to bassy. Probably we both have sensitive ears but even I perceived the bass as being too much even at the lowest level. I mean...I was listening to air supply and the beatles and somehow the bass just didn't fit into those slow numbers. My source is the audigy 2ZS which according to many is not the best.(Should have gone in for the M-Audio or some card that caters to music fans).
I also perceived audio quality loss when the bass was turned down too much. Had to turn it up a notch to get the feeling of good sound.
On the other hand, with the MX-5021s, you can distinguish much more in the sound i.e. the instruments, the voice etc everything seems clearer than on a normal multimedia speaker pair after all, you're spending 8-8.5K on a 2.1 system for your PC.
For gaming and movies, the 5021's give an earth shaking experience with enhanced effects of explosions, creepy sounds etc. But, it depends whether you are a fan of all that stuff or you're more interested in gameplay which is what I care about. But yeah...it does feel nice at times.
Another thing to factor in would be the space. I realized after a while that a 2.1 setup is too much for me. The large bass unit just irritates me as I feel claustrophobic given the amount of space my whole system is consuming. I've realized that a 2.0 system is what would have been the best for a guy like me. The bass coming of a 2.0 would have been adequate.
Chaos had recommended the Klipsch ProMedia 2.0 for me(don't know where you get it in Bangalore). I have not gone/searched for it yet as I my enthusiasm is a little low right now. Also, I would prefer to actuslly hear a speaker set pre-purchase this time round in case I am dropping a bomb on their purchase.
W.r.t 5.1 or 2.1, i don't even mind mono sound. Hell, I had a National TV for 25 years with a single speaker and I used to love listening to music on it.
Regarding mp3s, I would recommend that you rip your CD-DA at 320 kbps constant bit rate. I have experienced a better listening experience at this rate. If you have 128kbps music like most of us do, it would be hard to perceive good sound as the higher frequency range(I think beyond 14K) is already severly attenuated while encoding into mp3. Supposedly, it affects the way we perceive music. But there is something about CD music or even CD music recored onto tapes that just makes listening a joy. I guess it's the higher audio range...??...don't really know.