What does one purchase after owning horns?


I have owned Avantgarde Uno's and sold them because of the lack of bass to horn integration. I loved the dynamics, the midrange and highs. Now faced with a new speaker purchase, I demo speakers and they sound lifeless and contrived. The drama and beauty of live music and even the sound of percussion insturments like a piano are not at all convincing. I have an $8k budget for speakers give or take a thousand. My room is 13'X26' firing down the length. Any good ideas will be appreciated. My music prefrences are jazz/jazz vocalist.
renmeister
As an owner of Tannoy and Soundlab, htey are very different beasts. Both have the seemless single driver point source sort of sound that I adore. They both also have weaknesses.

Tannoy- PRaT and dynamics! Smaller imaging and less resolution (unless perchance you can go way up the chain).

Soundlab:Resoultion and imaging are first class, but I am always fighting for more macro dynamics and swing.

I am very curious about the Audiokinesis line as Duke was a Soundlab distributer.
The best speakers I ever owned for piano, in particular, were my Apogee Full Range Planars. They have the added benefit of providing a true 25Hz to 25kHz response. But they are big (over 6' tall) and require a small power generating station as a source - well, about 200W x 4 of good old-fashioned SS power at a minimum. A used pair of Duettas or Scintillas would be within your budget, are a little smaller and area little (very little) easier on the power requirements as well. Note - these speakers have about the lowest WAF rating of any speaker ever made, exceeding even the Avantegarde in this respect.

The used pair of Magnepan 20.1s will get you in the same ballpark as the Apogees, less the bass response of course. But I don't know if you can do it for $8K. Maybe a pair of 3.7s and a sub?
That's a really tough one as it's difficult to match the speed and dynamic prowess of horns. I struggled with it after having to go to a smaller listening space and knew I'd be limited to more traditional dynamic speakers because of the space limitation (you may not be faced with that). From one horn lovers perspective here are a few of my likes: Ultimately I was very happy with with Coincident speakers (I had SuperEclipse III's for a few years, but his current models are certainly worth hearing as well and have similar qualities). I'm now using AudioMachina and could not be happier, but they'd be beyond the budget you stated. I'd also second the AudioKinesis recommendation - his stuff is brilliant... definitely fast and dynamic, with seamless integration of the lows with his SWARM sub system. Of the planar stuff I've heard I've really liked Roger Sanders speakers on two different occasions hearing them. Daedalus speakers are also brilliant, especially the larger DA-RMa and Ulysses.
Soundlab A1's and up can be quite dynamic with a little effort.

First and most important is they need lots and lots of good power to really come to life.I have 600 watts of SS power per side that delivers 2400 watts into 2 ohms.This alone has my M1's really singing.

Second is I modified the backplates with far better parts and bypassed the brillance control. Huge improvement in dynamics. These M1's now have it all .

Soundlab's don't seem to get much attention these days and I am not sure why. To my ears they play natural sounding music that is effortless and almost magical. They can play at concert level volumes and offer unrestrained bass down to 20 htz without a hint of coloration or overhang etc...At least in my room:-)

Top to bottom cohesiveness is stunning and makes for a wall of sound that is often breath-taking.

If at all interested I highly suggest an amp capable of putting out what I mentioned above.

I tried OTL amps on my M1's and while they worked and sounded quite nice, these speakers need gobs of power from an amp that can handle impedence swings from 2 to 40 ohms to sound dynamic and best.

Have fun on your search!