I second Mapman's recommendation to look at the Arro. Lovely speaker for a small room... I'm still breaking mine in. And you can walk away with a used pair on Audiogon for under $800! Nice midrange, airy highs and astonishing bass for the size.
Budget reference floorstanders for a b.r. system
After 3 or 4 years in this hobby, and more rotations of gear than I care to think about, I'm convinced that my Rega Apollo cdp and NAD C320BEE are both budget references that can't be bested for the money. I'd like to find a pair of floorstanders that also fall into this category, "budget" in this case being sub-1 grand. Right now I'm using Rega R-3's, which I very much enjoy, but I don't think they're quite the pinnacle of bang-for-buck as the C320BEE and Apollo. My room may just be too large for them. Any opinions, votes for other budget reference speakers more suited to average sized living rooms?