best sounding small speakers

LS3/5a

The Wilson Benesch ARC's. Made in England and made not from MDF but rather carbon fiber, just like the steath bombers. Avoiding radar is similar to sheading sonic waves. Perfect sound with plenty of base when it is real base and not boom boom base.

I have to give the nod as well to the ProAc 1SC's - I have heard them with some Audio Research tube amps doing the heavy lifting, and I could not believe the music that these little buggers put out. And mind you, it was on a very demanding classical recording - no where to hide.
Under $ 2,000 they can not be touched.

Others - like the Rogers Ls3/5A's, for example, do some things really well - like image. But for a coherent and detailed sound with enough guts to makes you think there is a sub hiding somewhere, it's the ProAcs.

I have heard the Pro Ac 1sc's once in my life at Pro Musica in Chicago. An awesome small speaker, with what I felt was absolutely superb mids, and highs. Naturally, small speakers like this will lack the lowest bottom end. This pair I heard were complemented with a sub, and these speakers then really lacked nothing at all. I actually liked these better in some ways versus a stand alone pair of Dunlavy IV's auditioned only moments earlier at the same business I mention above. (though there's sure nothing at all wrong with the Dunlavy's IMO!)

The beauty I then recognized with these, is due to their smaller size, good speaker placement becomes a much easier thing to accomplish. mark

Define a small speaker.
My definition of a small speaker includes the stands. Which leads to the question;
"How much realestate do the speakers (with stands) actually take up?"
Either use cubic feet.
Or the projected square feet when viewed head on.
My point, don't limit your thinking to just monitors if room size is an issue.