Have you tried a pair of quality headphones lately?

Yes! Have a pair of Alienware models, sound great. Doesn't help tho when I wanna listen to music doing "whatnot" around the house tho.

I use bookshelf speakers with a proper little amp (t-amp/d-amp stuff like lepai2020, smsl, topping etc). line out to amp. no relying on the crappy amp on the sound card!

line out to amp as base level, if the sound card supports out, optical out to a dac to an amp.

Bookshelf speakers + a small amp is by far the best bang for the buck these days... aside from recycling an old hi-fi or home theater receiver and coupling it with better speakers. :p

The TPA3116 amp chip seems to be one of the more recent things that thrifty audiophiles rave about, so anything based on one of those is likely a good option for the money. These look like a pretty decent deal:
https://www.amazon.com/Nobsound-TPA3116-Chann … eywords=tpa3116

As for speakers, tastes vary from one person to another, but if you want to put as little as possible into this while still having a satisfying sound, these are decent speakers (unless you talk to the most diehard of audiophiles):
http://www.parts-express.com/dayton-audio-b65 … r-pair--300-652

And they're on sale today too! If you want to spend a bit more for better sound quality, I'm sure there are other options (parts express is a great place to look too).

All you'd need then would be some basic speaker wire, a stereo RCA to mini-jack cable, and a laptop power adapter to run the mini amp. There are several in the "Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought" section for the amp on Amazon. Any of those will likely work. There may even be some recommendations in the comments\reviews there.

You'll be quite impressed with the sound for how inexpensive it'll be.

I used to have an amp next to the computer connected to two big speakers overhead. Very good sound. Unfortunately space became an issue so I replaced that setup with a pair of PC speakers. They're OK. The big problem is that they're very quiet. Even with all volume settings to the max, quiet recordings are sometimes difficult to hear. I miss the old arrangement but really need the space for other things.

Definitely bookshelf speakers+amp.
Sound bars, like most systems that rely on a "sub"woofer to handle frequencies as high as 120-150Hz, kinda suck.

May I recommend:
ELAC Debut B6
Philharmonic Audio Affordable Accuracy Monitors

I own both of these, and the audio quality is absolutely top notch. In fact, they're scary good for the price! They also play low enough that you won't need a subwoofer for music.

Amp and speakers.