Alternatives to Klipsch for efficient/very efficient sub-$300 listening speakers?

There are probably thousands of <$300 speakers that are very efficient. Big Lots, Kmart, Walmart and others are chock full of these. The pickings get much thinner if one also expects them to handle power, go loud without breakup and/or have anything resembling extended bass (or treble in most cases).

A good powered sub added in will fix the latter.


Its a good question though. What others can compete with Klipsch which actually do quite well overall in that price range? Probably few or none that are also as efficient.

Floor standing / bookshelf ? Room / speaker / listener setup ? Musical tastes ? Loudness level ? Used Heresys or Fortes as suggestions.

I still have my Wharfdales from Audio Advisor. Fabulous speakers for the price. 

Thank you guys. Yeah, looking for small-ish (like 8" wide) bookshelves to play basically everything at a medium volume for a small area (so close by). I will probably go used Klipsch but thought there might be some other interesting suggestions. Sorting speakers by ’efficiency’ isn’t easy, like with price, etc. Thanks for your guys’ suggestions! I'm going to check out Wharfdales, plus the Klipsch suggested at used prices.