I'd like a sound system to play music in my room?

Let me start off by saying that I have absolutely no knowledge of stereos and all that kind of stuff. What I'm looking to do is to be able to play my iPhone through some speakers and a subwoofer. Basically, I want to be able to play music that sounds as nice as my car does, but in my room. It's nothing special but you know how car stereos always sounds pretty good? Well my computer speakers just don't cut it, and neither does my headset. The thing I'm really interested in is a subwoofer because I want that thumping bass in my room, but I know you can't just plug an iPhone into a subwoofer so I need some sort of sound system or whatever you call it.

So what do I need to buy?

I've found small 10" subwoofers on bestbuy.com for like $130~. My price range is no more than $500, I'm hoping that'd be enough for all the parts I'd need. I know sub enthusiasts are going to say that I won't get an amazing sound with a $500 price range, but to someone like me I'm sure it'll sound just fine.

Also, let me just add another small question: would it be possible to just buy a subwoofer, plug it into my computer, and play music that way? My speakers on my computer sound just fine, I just want to add thumping bass.

First of all, in case some of the subs that you're looking at are for cars, utterly forget using them in a home application. Aside from power incompatibility, there's the fact that even a small room indoors is far, far, larger than a car's interior.So, gear that can fill a car with sound usually can't fill a room.

Now, one way to do this with a $500 budget is to buy a proper home audio system. NOT an all-in-one thing like so many cheap home theater systems, but a proper home theater audio video receiver, along with a proper home audio set of 5.1 speakers.

Here's what you do: Buy a Pioneer 522K receiver from Newegg.com, they're doing them right now for $150, and they're iPhone compatible. That's a fantastic deal right there. Add a set of speakers, such as the MartinLogan MLT-2 speakers, which normally list price for $1, 000, and include a sub with a 10 inch driver with 120 watts of power to drive it. That set is selling, until Wednesday, for a mere $170. Add in a few bucks for a roll of 16 gauge speaker wire, and a subwoofer cable.

You could get something like the NAD Viso 1 it has pretty good bass, volume, extension etc. And is an all in one unit… Another idea may be the Cambridge sound-works i755… Which also has a built in sub woofer… If you want to go separates you could look into something like the Sherwood RX 4503 2.1 stereo receiver possibly speakers by Pioneer or Fluance and a sub by Velodyne Dayton or BIC…

For a $500 for a room I can think of no better sound than the Audioengine A2 and A8 subwoofer. See if you can get them refurbished or off of Amazon.com Be sure to read up on Audioengine it would be everything you want. Very clever product designs.