Standmount speakers. I have $5000.

Man, so many good options already listed.  I saw some Salks yesterday at RMAF and I really like Salk now.  They are finished beautifully.  The designer seemed first rate as well.

I looove Joseph Audio Speakers.  They Are gorgeous and Seas drivers may be my personal favorite sounding drivers.  The Pulsars may be the best sounding (to me) stand mounts that I’ve heard.  I love Nola Boxers as well so our tastes might be similar.  

Dynaudio Special 40’s would be a great choice too.  They are beautiful, made extremely well and to a very high standard.  The drivers are  made in house and are special in my opinion.   These Dyn’s are non-fatiguing and have great tone / musicality in my oppinion, and they play loud without strain.

Fritz Carrera Be would be one to look at too!

Any 1 of these 4 should satisfy you for a long time!!  I’m jealous :(

drhelzer - thank you, Focal wasn't on my radar. Sopra #1 stretches my budget but will look into.

b_limo - yes my head is spinning. Joseph Audio Pulsars are on my short list. Your Nola affinity persuades - I'll add Dynaudio Special 40. I guess I should add Fritz Carrera Be too. From your listening does any one of those deliver a more complete Universe-experience than the others?

Usery, you have provided a lot of useful information. Nice job.

A couple of thoughts, si je peux...

You already have a pair of quite capable subs, so your stand-mount speakers don’t need to have major low-end capabilities, and indeed the blend might be better if they don’t. This means you can forego unneeded low-end extension for higher efficiency and therefore (typically) better dynamic impact, which is something that electronica/IDM calls for. In other words, imo your subs make it more likely that you will end up with a very capable system using complementary stand-mounts as your main speakers.

Considering that electronica/IDM is on the menu, your room is arguably a rather large space for most stand-mount speakers to adequately fill. Especially if natural timbre is a very high priority, as is implied by classical music being first on your list. You see, a large room implies a bit greater listening distance, which in turn implies the relative loudness of the direct and reverberant sounds will be tipped somewhat towards the reverberant-dominant end of the scale. Thus what’s happening off-axis will arguably matter a bit more than normal, given that most of the energy reaching your ears will have started out as off-axis sound.

How important is a large "sweet spot" to you? Is this system just for you and you tend to stay in your seat, or is it for others and/or do you sometimes jump up and dance around when nobody is watching (you don’t necessarily have to answer that last part!).

Duke
(yup, I make stand-mount speakers)

duke - thanks for the thoughtful reply. Just me in my seat, mostly on-axis, with ears about 7-8 feet from front plane of standmounts. On occasion I do jump up and dance/throw-body-about regardless of anyone watching ; )

I personally would go with the Dynaudio Special 40’s or the Joseph Audio Pulsars...

The Pulsars sound so so good.  Really sweet and refined to my ears.  I just always love them.  I don’t think that you can go wrong with those Dyn’s though.  I’ve seen them used for $2000.  At that price you could easily resell them if you didn’t like them but I really think you’d like them.

I think counting me, you got 3 recommendations for the Dyn’s and 2 for the Pulsars :-)