Help with upgrade bug...

No experience with the others but the Pulsars are one of my favorites.
Used they go $3-$4k. Also very resellable down the line.

Give the stand mounted Tannoy Legacy Eatons a try. They throw a deep, wide soundstage, holographic even...and they are revealing, yet warm & non fatiguing. They are an efficient speaker and do very well with both tubed and class A gear. They excel at acoustic music. You will not need a sub with these, as they have 10 inch concentric drivers. They can also be tailored to your taste with bungs for both front facing bass ports as well as a unique high frequency level control panel. They can be biwired as well as grounded, as they have 5 binding posts. You will need relatively hard to locate low and wide stance stands for these. Atacama makes them. I’m very happy with my Tannoys and run them with a Sugden signature A21se class A single ended integrated. A perfect match for these speakers in my opinion. Listening space is a well furnished 15 x 12 area of a larger actual room of 25 x15 ft......7 foot ceiling. The room has zero room treatments, is well furnished with, what I’d describe as, equal reflective and absorbing materials. They are about 7 feet apart and about 12 to 14 inches from front wall with moderate toe in. Listening position about 7.5 feet away. The soundstage width and depth is incredible, with sounds emanating well beyond the speakers, seemingly coming from beyond the room boundaries. The inner detail is immense, due in part (in my opinion) to the both the speaker design and the class A topology of the amplifier. Using all Audioquest power enhancers, Niagara, thunder, X3, Z3, and copper outlet. Speaker cables are QED silver Anniversary xt bi wire. Marantz HD-cd1 utilized as a transport and a musical fidelity v90 dac. To me, the best set up I ever had. Future dac will be the Border patrol, but for now the v90 doing an admirable job.
On analog duty is a Pro-ject classic sb TT with Hana EL moving coil with Alnico magnets, a Tavish design classic Tubed phono stage with jensen step up transformer, a vintage Aiwa f770 3 head cassette deck, and my cambridge audio t500 tuner. Turntable sitting on an apollo wall mounted dedicated shelf. The wall is concrete, studs/drywall. Floor of listening room is carpet over concrete. Maybe too much info, but trying to give you an idea of what I’m listening to.

Check out Audio Physic...

While changing the power conditioner might indeed help the sound, I don’t believe it would improve the qualities you are asking for. It can reduce background noise, boost clarity and impact, but not so much the soundstage. I’m sure some have noticed improvements in their setups, but I’ve found the afore mentioned are where those changes help out. Improving your player is indeed a good suggestion. No experience with mod Wright myself, but have read great things for many years. I’d have to disagree with the idea that the Benchmark is a subpar DAC, for its price point, it’s very good. Everyone likes a different sound, so it might very well not be a good fit for some people for sure. Speakers of course can possibly make a big difference. One I found after looking for something more, like you are, years ago when auditioning huge numbers that left me all feeling blah, like they were just more of the same, was the Vandersteen 3a Signature. After all those years, they still hold up to just about anything out there, and can be found used well under your budget. Slightly over if new. They just sounded more open, less boxing and expanded the sound stage in a way that others did not. I had also listened to their top end at the time 5a and it just did not have that soundstage. The just updated their 2 series and those are also well within the budget, very similar design and sound, just don’t play as low. I do have Tekton Ulferberhts ready to replace the Vandersteens, but unfortunately won’t have the chance to do that until November, so no first hand knowledge of the Tekton sound. The reviews and praise for hat they do are the reason why I decided to try them without being able  to hear them, so the ones recommending them I believe are most likely correct in what they have to say about them. 

start with the free stuff like plugging straight into the wall and working with speaker placement, I think you will find significant change from both. You will find no agreement here as to whether even new high quality power conditioners harm or help sound quality...