Best speakers for max. $3000?

Your best value will always be a good DIY design.  It's not even close.  No commercial loudspeaker can ever come close to what you can build yourself.   There are any number of truly excellent designs out there.  And if you don't have the ability to fabricate your own enclosures, any competent cabinet maker can knock them out for you for a shockingly small amount of money.   

The Linkwitz LXmini design dramatically outperforms any commercial loudspeaker under $3k.  You can build it, WITH amplification, for about $1100.  That's what I did last year for a buddy of mine.   If you can push your budget to about $4k, you could build the flagship Linkwitz LX521 system and have sound that compares to commercial systems in the $50,000+ category.

There are any number of excellent designs at madisound.com as well.

@cd318 

The Linkwitz LX521 is showing up on the used market now that it's been around for a while, as are his earlier Orion design.   The problem for most of those is shipping.

The hardest part of building any loudspeaker is making it look good.  The LX521 may be close to SOTA, but nobody will ever call it good looking.

Any competent cabinet maker can knock together either the LX521 or Orion designs with ease and make them look as good as anyone would care.   One option for the LX521 would be to have it painted at an auto body paint shop.  Cabinet fabrication can be done by professionals for a very modest amount of money.  Both of these designs are trivial for a pro to build.

ANYONE can stuff drivers into an enclosure, and even if they're not sure about that, shouldn't have all that much difficulty finding help.   

The only real downside to DIY systems is that they have poor resale value.   Not being a commercial product, they just don't have that cache.   But because you spent so much less to begin with, you're not going to lose as much either.  That $25,000 loudspeaker you bought 5 years ago will only bring $12,500 today, which is why Audiogon is in business.

But you are correct in saying that DIY isn't for everyone.