Speakers for a small room


I am looking to build a list. What would you say are the best speakers for a small room? Why? Price is up to 6.5k new or used. Room is 11ft x 16ft with 7ft10 ceilings. Thanks! 

Related info: amp is pass labs xa30.8. 
ostrey93

Showing 10 responses by ostrey93

Thanks all for the comments so far. @williewonka it does not need to be a small speaker, it just has to work in a small room. If I can get a tower speaker that others have had success within a smaller room I would prefer that over bookshelves with a sub. But if that is the way it must be than so be it.
@gdnrbob i have never heard vandy speakers. I will need to hear their sound at some point. People seem to love them. We will see if their sound agrees with me. 
@yogiboy good to know. I would much rather some floor standers for the added extension. 
Currently I am running some small Tannoy towers and the dual concentric is amazing. I suspect the LS50s would have similar benefits. Ideally I would like something a bit more capable than the LS50s but if that does not exist in my budget then I am happy to pocket the change. Also looking at a focal speaker with the BE tweeter as I heard those can match well with pass gear. 
@audiotroy as for my musical tastes its easier to say what I do not listen to. Those genres are rap, hip hop and country. Everything else is good. 
Thanks for all the input everyone. This definitely means I have got some homework to do. 
@dcevans my space is a dedicated listening room. Only things in there are my components, acoustic panels and my chair. Its my little get away. 
@bigddesign3 My current speakers are actually small towers (Tannoy Precision 6.2 LE) so I am sure towers work in my space but I know for a fact that not all towers will. EG. the Focal Aria 936's did not work in my space, they needed more room. I will look into those Martin Logans, they look interesting, they have nice high sensitivity as well, the same with the Spendors that were mentioned earlier on. As for the suggestions about subs I completely agree, REL or nothing. 
I am digging up this old thread of mine to post an update. I have come to the conclusion that my room nodes are severely affecting my enjoyment and resulting in some compromises. When my speakers are brought out into the room (approx 4 ft or so) I get a great wide soundstage and on most tracks, the speakers do that disappearing thing. However, I lose impact, not necessarily bass but impact. This is a bit hard to explain but it goes something like this... strings don't have weight and now just sound like a string instead of being a string. So to add a bit more weight I can push the speakers further back and closer to the wall. There seems to be this magic zone in my room where if the speakers are put the bass becomes VERY boomy and muddy and drowns out the detail on the top end. This annoyance happens anywhere less than 4ft to 2ft from the wall. Needless to say, I can not place the speakers in this location so my other option is approx 1-2ft away from the wall. In this zone, there is weight to guitar strings (thanks to the rear firing port) but the soundstage collapses and it is very obvious that I am listening to two speakers. After months of playing with a quarter inch here and a quarter inch there I have come to the conclusion that my room nodes will not allow me to enjoy tower speakers. There is an obvious place in my room where bass and weight works best and an obvious place in my room where details shine. Unfortunately, I can not pull my speakers into two pieces and put one half in one part of the room and one half in the other. I do have room treatments, some acoustic panels, diffusion behind my equipment and corner bass traps as well as a rug on top of my vinyl floor. It doesn't help that my rear and side wall are basement walls which have a foundation behind them. Regardless of the arrangement of the panels and the arrangement of my speakers I can not get the sound to be "right" (good weight and good detail). After all of this I believe the direction that I need to head in is stand-mounts (such as a dynaudio special 40) and a rel sub such as the t5i or t7i. The advantage to this approach would be I can put the speakers in the location where details will sound the best and I can put the rel sub in the location where bass and weight performs the best. If need be I can even turn the sub down a fair bit to not aggravate the room nodes too much. What are your thoughts on this? Is there something else I should try before I up and sell my speakers and move to stand mounts + sub? 
@daveyf I thought it was decent sized as well but there is something about it that doesn't agree with me. I a currently looking at some special 40's and a pair of t5i's. Time will tell what I settle on.
@mktmkt: I will give the digital EQ readings a go before I make any final decisions. I am located in Canada so GIK isn't an option. I have Primacoustics London 12 room kit plus some extra panels that I ordered individually. My dealer has given me some advice on how to best position them and I have done a fair bit of research into where my reflections points are in my room. 

Thanks for the insight you two.