what is the best sounding speakers for under 5000.

I have owned a bunch of speakers ranging from $500 to $3500...b&w. martin logans, magnepan, dynuadio, vandersteen, psb, built my own, etc...
I picked up a pair of REGA RS5 last year and could not be happier. Really nice neutral clean sound.

the vanlspeakersworks ambient recovery system looks just like the Carver and Polk SRS systems which feed the opposite channel back into the speaker in opposite phase to cancel crosstalk between the speakers. Makes for a very spacious sound, about 3db louder than without. This system has been used in various configurations over the years. Get a cheap Carver preamp or receiver with the Sonic Holography feature and you can test to see if this is what you want before spending a bunch on a speaker.

Just today listened to the Pioneer S-2EX loudspeakers at Audio Video Logic in Iowa. For $4995 including stands these speakers IMHO are one of the BEST Value in loudspeakers today.
You owe it to yourself to give them a listen, they are wonderful.

Hey Seadogs, I am in Des Moines. I should stop in too. What electronics were they using?

Kclone, they had a Mac amp and I believe a Rotel CD player. In my opinion they would have sounded even better with different electronics but even as such you could hear the potential. Good Luck!