Opposite of Thiel

Sonus faber, Vandersteen

FWIW, my Ohm Walsh 2000s seem to fit your list of desirable attributes. Check the Ohm web site: Their Walsh lilne offers essentially the same sonics, scaled for rooms of different cubic footage. The top two models are beyond your budget, but the rest will fit. You can see my review on this site, as well as follow-up comments at this thread:

http://learn.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?cspkr&1223044851&&&/Ohm-Walsh-Micro-Talls:-who-s-actually-he

They come with a generous in-home trial period, although you lose the shipping if you return them.

I actually find my Ohms to be very revealing, but in a pleasant way, even with less than perfect recordings.

High quality tube preamp would be the 1st suggestion.

What does 'eminently musical' mean to you. I know it when I hear it, and I can kind of describe it, but how would you describe it.

I can say that I had the Paradigm S6 3 years ago. I did not find them particularly musical or fun.

Now I make no secret that I have finally found a speaker that is fun, musical and does things 'all together' that I hadn't even conceptualized from having listened to typical 'hi fi' speakers. That is Zu Audio. I purchased a pair of the current iteration of the Essence 2 months ago on Audiogon.

They are just as the reviews state they are. They are not boring, the music comes into the room and the music comes across to me simply 'totally wonderfully'.

They are the least expensive loudspeaker I have purchased in the last 3 years of 'hi end' purchases. Just goes to show you that you had better do your research prior to making a decision on your next purchase. As we all know, most of the time you are flying kind of blind when you do purchase your next speaker, but it is fantastic when you finally find them. I wish you well on your journey....and Happy New Year:)

Theil's mate nail everything to my ears - with one exception - a bit analytical and clinical - not what I would call musical. But they are oh so transparent and you can correct those problems to some extent - but only to some extent - with tube upsteam gear.

I am not sure if I have heard anything in the $5K range (with one exception I will mention later) I would put ahead of the Theil actually. I can tell you speakers like Rockport, ProAc Carbons, and Lenehan Audio Reference blow it away, but at a significant increase in cost - damn I wish I could tell you of a few in your price range that would do it - they are that good. The only thing I can think of is the Lenehan ML1 Reference at $5K:
http://www.lenehanaudio.com.au/index.php/products/ml1-loudspeakers/ml1-specifications/ml1-reference-specifications.html

They are clearly better than the Thiels - but only go to 50hz or so.

Disclaimer:
I live close to the Lenehan factory, go down to hear their gear all the time and own a lot of it, so am almost certainly biased.

Thanks
Bill