Thanks for all the great replies. I found a previously undiscovered dealer Sunday that set up shop in one of Tweeter's abandoned locations. They're called IQ Home Entertainment and you can google them if you're interested in the brands they carried.
I listed to a gargantuan pair of Focal's (Utopia, I think) that seriously had me considering taking out a second mortgage to afford their $20K-$30K price tag. Not really,but they sounded awesome.
But back to bookshelves. I really liked the $800-$1000 offerings from Monitor Audio and Dali. I initially favored the stronger bass response of the MA's but ended up preferring the improved detail and imaging I was hearing with the Dali Ikon 1s.
I bought the floor models for $700 (a good deal?) and set them up in a much larger room than the office they will go in next week.
Everything I liked about them is still there, but the bass is a little too dispersed in their present (temporary) location: a 26'x16' room with the speakers about 10 feet in from the corners.
The office is 13'x10' and the speaker will be installed within a foot or two of the corners, which should reinforce the bass.
I have 30 days to change my mind, so if I still feel I need a little more low end , I will probably give the Monitor Audio's a whirl.
The cool thing about the Dali Icons is they have this dual tweeter thing going for them -- a dome tweeter plus an electrostat tweeter. Very sweet highs.
