Best Small Floorstanding Speaker under $2K

Used B&W Nautilus or S 803's.  

I have new KEF Q500 that are now broekn in and they have a lovely balance sound. They are in a somewhat small room being run with an Accuphase E307 Integrated Amp, Kimber 8TC speaker cables and Kimber interconnects, Linn Basik turntable with an Akito tone arm and Rega Exacta 2 Cartridge, PS Power Cords (2), Marantz CD5004, airport Express with an optical cable, Using a Gdrive to store and stream  2000 CDs. In this system the speakers have a surprising good sound and the speakers are under $2000.

IF you are open to dipole/planar speakers, and IF you have at least 3’ (5’ is better) to move them out from the wall behind them, there is a mint pair of Eminent Technology LFT-8b’s on U.S. Audiomart right now at an asking price of $1800 (retail $2500). Somewhat similar to the Maggie MG1.7 (both being 5’ tall magnetic-planar dipoles), but with an 8" cone woofer for 180Hz down. Some listeners prefer the LFT-8b to not only the MG1.7, but also the MG3.7! THE best value in a dipole/planar loudspeaker at the present time, imo. Including the bass enclosure, the speaker's footprint is about one square foot.

Do think about that available space vehind the speakers.  If you dont have room or S.O. cooperation to let you pull them 3+ feet out from the wall behind then, then forget about Maggies, Lxminis, LFTs or other dipoles.  Or ominis either for that matter.  If you have to have speakers next to side walls then wide dispersion models are out (dipoles should be ok, assuming again the space needed behind is available).  Location requirements should be considered during your selection process.  Too often there are speakers designed to have space all around them, installed shoved up against a wall!  I once saw/heard a set of fine Martin Logans no more than 10 inches from a back wall and in a corner.... Sounded awful, but just the wrong (but very costly) speaker for the room.

Recently, I too was looking for sub $2K speakers. Fortunately, I saw  Emerald Physics AG adv for their KC IIs with a free BOM. If not for their super special, they would have been off my radar.

I sprang for adding WireWorlds fairly new internal speaker wire. I don't know the KCIIs sound with standard wire, but was told by Mark S who assembled them that he was impressed.

Assuming your system is capable of sending them quality music, you would be hard pressed to approach their magic.

hth