Standmount speakers 4k-8k

Wilson Benesch Arc - at original retail they were in your price range ($6500 new, I think) but pre-owned they can be easily had for $2500-3000.  They're the small monitors that cured my upgrade-itis.  They replaced a pair of Proac D2 which frankly aren't in the same ballpark, but they also cost $3K more than the Proac so not that surprising.   Alternatively, Wilson Benesch replaced the Arcs with the Vertex, which are a tiny bit warmer, less airy, but also harder to find used and when you do they're about $4K-5K. 

The funny part is that even if you CAN hear them, you often won't be hearing them in your own space.  I've written previously about when I bought my WB Arcs...I got them pre-owned from someone in my area, and in his space they sounded awful.  If that was my only reference point I never would have bought them, but I'd heard them before at a dealer so I knew what they could do.  Moral of the story - it's best to not only hear them, but hear them in your own space.  If that's not possible, then yes there's a bit of faith involved, no way around it. 

But as has been said so many times, you often do get what you pay for.  In my case with the awful-sounding Arcs, I had to stop during that session and remind myself that I was listening to $6500 speakers that had been on the market for more than a decade with happy listeners all over the world, and that what I was hearing was not what I should hang my hat on.  And I was right - got them home, and they're superb.  But there was some faith involved...not just wishful thinking, but faith that the many who'd gone before me and spent $6500 weren't all crazy.   It was like in "Lost Boys" when Kiefer Sutherland said about the rice "how could a billion Chinese people be wrong"!

So yes, many of us have purchased based on reviews, knowledge, word-of-mouth, etc. and had it work out just great though we all know that in a perfect world we would prefer to test everything in our own room with our own equipment.