That's actually a pretty good idea . I'll look into it .

Sacrifice the old and buy new.

I feel sorry for your brother...

That's what I meant, when I said 'if you don't know what you are doing'. Unplugging alone is not enough. If there is a switching mode power supply inside the speakers, there are capacitors that can hold a charge with a couple of hundreds of volts long after unplugging the speakers. Such voltages can be deadly.

The best speakers I ever owned were a pair of homemade ones some enthusiast had cobbled together and later thrown away (which is how I acquired them). The cabinets were raw, unpainted particle board, so my hypothesis is that he was single when he built them, and no longer single when he found himself forced to get rid of them ;-) They were great though. Fantastic sound.
Certainly, but (in my experience at least) an internal power supply is usually shielded, precisely so you don't touch the capacitors by accident. Of course, if you pry open the power supply, well... Don't do that. And the power button itself will be wired to low-voltage points, which should be completely safe to touch.

Still, if they are cheap, glued-together speakers, the power supply may actually not be isolated in any way (because the speaker was never meant to be re-opened after assembly), so you may have a point after all.

If it's some cheap active desktop speakers and the glue trick doesn't work, I would chuck them.

Personally I would chuck them anyway. I've tried a couple of sets of these, even brands like creative and they are just awful, but then i'm into hi-fi.

Have you considered headphones as a replacement? Not sure if that would be suitable for what you need but you will get better value/results from a decent set of headphones than you will with speakers for a PC at the same price point, until you want to start spending. Personally, I don't see the point of spending that kind of cash when your source is in the middle of PC.

Yeah, there are power supplies that are shielded, but unfortunately not all of them are, so I thought, better assume the worst instead of risking your life. Also, the way Licurg described the power switch failure, it doesn't sound like a soft power button, so it could be a switch carrying mains voltage. Who knows..
Anyway, I just wanted to mention it, because there might be dangerous stuff inside, which people might not be aware of. :-)

You're right. Better safe than sorry. Or at least, better aware than unaware of potential dangers.

Then tape and a nut wins!

I say grab a hammer, bust them open, and find out! HAHAHHAAHAHHAAAA!! Hulk SMASH!

Hrrm, now Hulk buy new speakers. Hulk fix it!

I expected a query for games that can be played with one hand.