There is always lots of good advice out there and if you can listen to them all you are likely to be better prepared, but unless the dealer will let you listen in your environment with you equipment it may or not be a good way to select.
I will second that you look into the Spatial Hologram line, probably the M3 in your case. Clayton will give you 60 days in your house to audition, tweak and play with them and it will cost you return shipping for that privilege. My guess is you wouldn't send them back. They are dynamic, room friendly (make sure you give them the proper 24-100 hr break in period), easily driven, open as are open baffle speakers and throw a beautiful image with great accuracy and most of all very melodic. You will not suffer any fatigue after hours of listening and I find that I play them much louder than I used to as they immerse you so well. GIve Clayton a call.
You may not hear much about these speakers as Clayton eliminates the middle man to keep costs down ... yet that may be a negative factor because the cost is so reasonable that many mid-high end listeners would consider them probably unsatisfactory. With your budget you can't lose on giving them a try.
I started long ago by building my own LS3/5a speakers and loved their near field sweetness and gave them to my son and built another British plan 3 way monitor. I have tried many other speakers since those early days and never found anything I like better than these until after loving the sound of Maggies but not willing to put up with their negatives and reading about open baffle speakers, played a bit with that and then Clayton made Emerald Physics which had a complexity problem and then started Spatial Audio and I figured his return policy was too good to pass up. I purchased the M4's because I tend to listen near field and never thought about returning them even before the break in.
I will second that you look into the Spatial Hologram line, probably the M3 in your case. Clayton will give you 60 days in your house to audition, tweak and play with them and it will cost you return shipping for that privilege. My guess is you wouldn't send them back. They are dynamic, room friendly (make sure you give them the proper 24-100 hr break in period), easily driven, open as are open baffle speakers and throw a beautiful image with great accuracy and most of all very melodic. You will not suffer any fatigue after hours of listening and I find that I play them much louder than I used to as they immerse you so well. GIve Clayton a call.
You may not hear much about these speakers as Clayton eliminates the middle man to keep costs down ... yet that may be a negative factor because the cost is so reasonable that many mid-high end listeners would consider them probably unsatisfactory. With your budget you can't lose on giving them a try.
I started long ago by building my own LS3/5a speakers and loved their near field sweetness and gave them to my son and built another British plan 3 way monitor. I have tried many other speakers since those early days and never found anything I like better than these until after loving the sound of Maggies but not willing to put up with their negatives and reading about open baffle speakers, played a bit with that and then Clayton made Emerald Physics which had a complexity problem and then started Spatial Audio and I figured his return policy was too good to pass up. I purchased the M4's because I tend to listen near field and never thought about returning them even before the break in.