Bruce74,
Welcome, and I hope you enjoy your interaction with us audio loonies here. As you probably guessed, there are some very very nice speaker systems in your price range. I'm a dealer and a speaker manufacturer, but what I'm going to suggest here is not something that I build or sell.
There's a small speaker company called Sonicweld that builds unorthodox loudspeakers of incredible sound quality. They do not advertise so you are unlikely to encounter them unless you go to their room at an audio show. The two most recent audio shows I attended were the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas and the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest in Denver, and at both shows my favorite speaker was the Sonicweld "Pulserod" system (actually, the system includes amplification and preamplification, so all you'd need would be a source).
http://www.sonicweld.com/
At first glance the Sonicweld system looks like it's all about eye candy, but that wouldn't impress me much. In fact, I had to get past my prejudice against audio jewelry to appreciate how natural they sound. But on recording after recording, these darn things dropped my jaw. They aren't a reach-out-and-grab-you initially impressive speaker; they are an incredibly refined, naturalness-and-nuance speaker that is enjoyable to listen to for hours on end. They have become my wife's favorite speaker; they're what she wants once I start making some serious money from my own designs (which fortunately do not compete in the same price range as the Sonicweld system).
High-end cars aren't my thing, but presumably there's the flashy, high-profile, impress-the-inexperienced type of car. And then there's the low-profile, supremely refined, utterly enjoyable, appreciated-by-the-select-few kind of car, of which maybe less than a dozen a year are built. The Sonicweld system would be analogous to the latter, in my opinion.
Now I don't know for sure that the Sonicweld system is necessarily the right choice for you - that depends on what your requirements are. But imho Sonicweld is the undiscovered masterpiece among ultra-high-end uberspeakers in your price range.
Best of luck in your quest.
Duke
Welcome, and I hope you enjoy your interaction with us audio loonies here. As you probably guessed, there are some very very nice speaker systems in your price range. I'm a dealer and a speaker manufacturer, but what I'm going to suggest here is not something that I build or sell.
There's a small speaker company called Sonicweld that builds unorthodox loudspeakers of incredible sound quality. They do not advertise so you are unlikely to encounter them unless you go to their room at an audio show. The two most recent audio shows I attended were the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas and the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest in Denver, and at both shows my favorite speaker was the Sonicweld "Pulserod" system (actually, the system includes amplification and preamplification, so all you'd need would be a source).
http://www.sonicweld.com/
At first glance the Sonicweld system looks like it's all about eye candy, but that wouldn't impress me much. In fact, I had to get past my prejudice against audio jewelry to appreciate how natural they sound. But on recording after recording, these darn things dropped my jaw. They aren't a reach-out-and-grab-you initially impressive speaker; they are an incredibly refined, naturalness-and-nuance speaker that is enjoyable to listen to for hours on end. They have become my wife's favorite speaker; they're what she wants once I start making some serious money from my own designs (which fortunately do not compete in the same price range as the Sonicweld system).
High-end cars aren't my thing, but presumably there's the flashy, high-profile, impress-the-inexperienced type of car. And then there's the low-profile, supremely refined, utterly enjoyable, appreciated-by-the-select-few kind of car, of which maybe less than a dozen a year are built. The Sonicweld system would be analogous to the latter, in my opinion.
Now I don't know for sure that the Sonicweld system is necessarily the right choice for you - that depends on what your requirements are. But imho Sonicweld is the undiscovered masterpiece among ultra-high-end uberspeakers in your price range.
Best of luck in your quest.
Duke