A couple of speakers you can get on the used market, like here on Audiogon, that I have in two of my three two channel systems are: 1) Platinum Audio Solos (under 1 grand now) - they are small but have tremendous bass, image well, and have very good clarity. they are power hungry as they have low sensitivity but this is a kicking speaker via my Coda 250 wpc amplifier and parasound budget pre-amp (for a couple of hundred bucks the parasound pre-amp sounds much, much better than it has any right to), 2) Spica angelus (there is not much bottom end so you will need a subwoofer but voices are stunning in their clarity and imaging is excellent, 3) Triangle speakers - I have some on my two home theatre set-up and like both pairs a lot. A buddy has them on his main steroe set-up and raves about them. I have listened to them via my two channel systems and they are very good and don't cost a bunch on the used markets.
Good luck.
Good luck.