[inicholson]

The first thing you should do is stop reading What Hi-Fi unless you're going to take what they say (and while you're at it what anyone else says, including me) with a healthy dose of salt.

Find a few local hi-fi dealers. Tell them what your budget is. If they laugh because they don't sell anything that cheap laugh back because they haven't got any friends/a life/a girlfriend.

Ask them to let you listen to some stuff.

In all probability the salesman will be a nice guy who enjoys his job and just wants you to find a hi-fi you like. So let him help you.

Make sure you repeat this in several dealers.

Now go back to What Hi-Fi and see if you liked the stuff they liked. If you do see paragraph 1 above (except the bit in italics). If not ignore their advice completely.

Now you know what kind of stuff you like you have a basis for listening to other peoples' advice (keep the salt handy).

I would NEVER buy anything costing more than £10 based solely on someones else's opinion (that's a big enough budget for me to accept my doctor's prescriptions based on the fact that his knowledge of medicine is better than mine) no matter how much I admire them or which esteemed publication their opinion is published in.

P.S. You shouldn't spend most of your budget on the speakers (see paragraph 1)