The 2004 brings back some memories. Wished I had kept mine!
Those Radioshack cube speakers work very well with communications gear.
There is a pair of those in use here too, with one doing duty on an FT-897D and the other is plugged into an Icom IC-R7100. They seem to have well rounded sound for radio.
+1 for the setup with your 396 scanner and the solid state recorder!
Very compact system for recording.
Regards, Commscanaus.