Small room Speaker suggestions

Some good suggestions here already...I would add the following:

Aerial Acoustics Model 5 - excellent focus and punch, and will not cheat you on quality low end response.

Martin Logan CLS IIz - can be magical in a small room with the right amps.

Wilson Benesch ARC - very intriguing stand mount monitor at the top of your price range, used.

Energy Veritas 2.1 or 2.2 - excellent value and a very good sounding speaker, drivers integrate very well.

I am getting a pair of Green Mountain Audio Callistos next week, and would be happy to share thoughts with you on those, though it will take a while to break them in.

Happy hunting!

I was in a similar situation to you recently. I had been using a pair of Monitor Audio MA700 Gold monitors......very nice sound, but wanted to updgrade after about 9 years and wanted a little more low end extension. I ended up going with a pair of North Creek Music Borealis speakers. They are floor standing 7" two-way speakers. They are a kit....and are somewhat similar to Proac 2.5's. Someone earlier said that a smallish floorstander doees not take up any more space than a stand mounted monitor, which is true. You ought to check out www.northcreekmusic.com. you can buy completed cabinets and the full component kit for a total of something like $1600 and end up with a $3k speaker. North Creek uses very high quality componenet that you will not be able to match in your price range. The only issue I am dealing with is that these speakers like to be several feet away from the rear wall, which is a challenge in rooms like ours. Any way, enjoy the search. Sometimes I can get so darn wrapped up in an intense search that I start to not enjoy the process.....which is just crazy. I also think you can hardly go wrong with teh Vandersteen 1C's. They are great speakers for teh money.

I see some great suggestions here for me to follow.
The Green Mountains and vandy's keep popping up here and in the forums and have struck my curiosity. Although I thought the 6db slope crossover was not a very good idea for nearfield position. In my small room speakers are 3' from front wall and chair is 2' from back wall leaving about 5-6' from speakers. I have no preference to stand or floorstanding speakers as far as space restraints go since I currently am using Maggie 1.6s.(worlds largest headphones in my room).
Esoxhntr-
do you plan on using those in a nearfield setup? I would be very interested in hearing your results if so.
Thank you all for your Ideas.

My room is larger than yours, but I don't have the space to pull the speakers way out into the room for imaging, so I built a pair of North Creek Eska towers. Right now I have the rears 6" away from the wall, and I've been playing around with positioning. These are designed to be close wall speakers and there is huge difference in sound compared to regular speakers. The midrange is perfect on male voices, and I've not heard a better dome tweeter at any price. This is an amazing sounding unit so far, and I'm not done tuning. Check out their Okara series also for the ability to go close to the walls.

In my small room the listening postion is between 7 and 8 feet depending on recline angle. This is the minimum distance Meadowlark recommended in the owner's manual. It sounds fine o me as did the Vandersteens. The 1Cs regularly sell for less the $500 used on Audiogon. At that price you could give them a try and sell at minimal loss if not happy.