Seeking speakers under $3K for 10x12 ft room and driven by 20wpc tube amp

Appreciate all the responses so far. Having been away from this hobby for 30 years, I’ll admit I haven’t heard of half the brands listed. But there should be at least a handful of stores in the area available for demos.

@freediver, my original post title was getting cut off (apparently the “<“ character screwed things up) so I asked Tammy to delete and I reposted.

@audiotroy, the Apogees have 85 dB sensitivity and are 6 ohms nom, yet I’m cranking the volume well past noon to even start getting realistically “loud” levels. I will be getting an spl meter just to gauge myself, but my objective is to find speakers that offer more of that “palpable presence”, if you will.

A lot of great suggestions to sift through!

I’m intrigued by the Fritz with all the numerous mentions in this forum, and he’s based in my neck of the woods…

Yes those Spendor A1s are a great deal, but with their sensitivity I’m still concerned about its sense of scale or dynamics. I have a pair of vintage Aurum Cantus standmounts rated at 87dB and 8 ohms and I still can’t get a sense of a live performance at front row center, if you will, despite the small room. And the volume knob is already 80% of max. My phone app tells me I’m listening at 70-80dB spl.

@hheedah Frankly there are more recs than I can handle haha. I did chat with Fritz and he is having a BF promo on the Carbons and am considering them for demo. I also went to my local shop and demoed the ATC SCM19, Kef R3 metas, B&W 705 Sigs and an open box Quad S-5. They’ll be getting the Sonetto g2s in a few weeks.

I’m digging the S-5 perhaps due to my longterm experience with ribbons as someone mentioned. At this juncture I’d definitely want to stay well under $3k. Perhaps a bit sad, but I do want whatever I end up with to be “end game”. Yes I do have a sub if needed.

OP again, posting a followup. I looked into a lot of recs mentioned in this thread and soon realized that I wanted to focus first on speakers that I could immediately audition with my own amp. I also realized, for better or worse (and partly due to aesthetics) that I wanted smallish floorstanders. So I demoed several speakers at my local hifi shop and somewhat unexpectedly ended up getting something that did not get a lot of press - the now-discontinued Quad S5s. The bass, dynamics and sensitivity far surpassed my vintage Apogees while retaining the midrange magic of ribbon tweeters. And I got a great deal on them.

Obviously I will never know how the wide range of speakers given in this thread will measure up in my room and I’m sure some of them will outperform the Quads. But hey, I’m pleased with what I got (for now!)

If anything, this thread will provide plenty of great recs to anyone else in a similar situation. Cheers!