Which speakers next to a wall mounted TV, listener is 6ft away, $500-1k budget

Hey everyone, how's it going:)

Here's the situation and placement where there's no room for change:
There's a 55" screen with space for speakers on the left and right to it, I'm sitting 6ft away from it, and there's about 7ft  of space behind me before the room ends. There will be plenty of acoustic panels, so reflections aren't an issue.

I'm looking for a good pair of speakers in the $500-1k range for starters, might add a subwoofer later.

Favorite speakers that I've ever heard are Vandersteen 3A. The main music genres I listen to are rock and classical, mostly in FLAC form, but some do go down to 320kbps mp3.
A priority is for the sound to be comfortable for prolonged listening. 

I'm considering Vandersteen VSM-1. But I've been out of the audio loop for quite a while now, so please let me know what you'd recommend for this situation where the "normal" speakers don't have enough space to work well.

Thanks