Black Macbook sound card

I recently purchased a new Macbook, and was wondering about the quality of the sound card. I'm in the market for some fairly decent speakers, and all the reviews of the speakers I'm interested in claim the sound quality also depends on the sound card. As I've never dealt with this before, and am definately a newbie, I was hoping to get some feedback. Should I look into upgrading my sound card, or is the standard one good enough? Thanks!

Define "fairly decent." What speakers are you looking at? Maybe we can also advise you there.

Anyway, as far as the sound card goes; its actually not bad. You might hear a slight hiss or the harddrive controller when nothing is playing sometimes, but it should be fine.

Im going to assume you are just a casual listener, so Im going to guess fairly decent is in the $180 or so range. At that level, I wouldnt bother with a external sound card.

Give it a go with the internal sound card. You can always upgrade later. Hope this helps.

that does help, thank you. i was looking at bose, but know it's just name recognition. there seems to be a huge difference in opinion about whether bose are actually as good as most think. any recommendations? for now i don't really want to pay more than 100-120. i am a casual listner; however, i have sensitive ears and really need the sound to be clear/crisp, and dislike the base being too loud or nonexistant. i know thats a lot to ask from inexpensive speakers though.