Best small speakers?

I have personally not found that small speakers necessarily outperform larger speakers in the same price range. Much depends on the room and the type of music you listen to.
Smaller room and/or listening to primarily small ensemble acoustic music or classic rock and minimonitor is probably the way to go.
I have heard B&W 805 diamonds and think highly of them. Would also consider Joseph audio pulsar, Totems and dynaudio in that price range.

Hands down the Harbeth Super 5's. Go audition them if you can. Google reviews. The reviews will amaze you. I'm not sure why mapman mentioned Rogue, but at the 2010 'The Show' in Montreal, the most well regarded room was the room with a Rogue Cronus Magnum, Rega Apollo, and Harbeth Compact 7's. Look it up on Google. I've read reviews of the Rogue / Harbeth combo several time and my local dealer also recommends this combo. Remember, specs do not matter when auditioning audio gear so if someone tells you such and such will not work with such and such, it's not true.

I just spent the last two hours listening to Billie Holliday on the speakers that replaced my wonderful Magnepan 1.6 QR pair. The Maggies were on Mye stands and fed by Rogue and Odyssey gear...terrific sound and image and amazingly transparent with a lot of watts. Good lord this Verve CD of Holliday is also amazing!
Now those big Maggie panels are replaced with fairly small Merlin TSM-MXrs and fed by 18 watts from a Manley Stingray. It's been a very nice upgrade for me. And it's a lot easier to move the Merlins when needed.
No doubt a lot of people will chime in and some very good speakers will be mentioned. Sadly....it's not easy to audition Merlins, but if you can you may find the magic you need.

Rob

If 5K is your budget the Wilson Benesch ARC. I had them with the Rogue gear. Terrific speaker, extrememly well made with fine fit and finish, coherent but detailed

Why settle for small speakers that have higher distortion
mid Bass thump and bright highs when driven to their limit...
Take a listen to Full Range like a Vandy Quatro still a smaller profile or Five A both offer room compensation will never overload your room and deliver more seamless enjoyable music.
Best JohnnyR