Speaker recomendation

Hi OP, Hope you are still around. I had a similar space, 30' by 25' open kitchen and family room with a 12' ceiling. I bought a used Salk HT3 right / left / center and 15" Sub for about $6k used and run it with a couple of Crown Class D amps with tons of power (almost 700 watts at 4 ohms) and it fills the room nicely and would be at the low end of your budget. Salk makes fantastic looking and fantastic sounding speakers. If you can find some on the used market they are hard to beat. Of course for your budget, if you go the Class D route, you can probably afford to have Jim build the speakers for you and pick out your own veneers. And no, I don't have any relationship with Jim Salk other than enjoying the way my speakers look and sound. 

Good luck with your journey. 

any mid-fi to high-end 3-way speakers with 15" woofers and a bass reflex port, will suffice. I’ve tried other variations such as smaller 2-way boutique speakers with smaller 8", 10", 12" speakers and no bass port, and no midrange- they make the highs sharper and more in your face, but at a severe loss of bass or midrange response. and you get tired of listening to them. the 3-way with bass reflex just does everything well, and ends up being a smoother, fuller sound, and bigger soundstage. even going from a 15" box 3-way w/reflex, to a 12" box 3-way w/reflex, sacrificed too much sound. the bass was noticeably attenuated i.e. lossy.  the 3-way w/15" and reflex is hard to beat overall, it's a forgotten benchmark that still holds true today.

Some of these comments are really 'amateur'.  Would you buy a car sight unseen just because a bunch of people you don't even know let alone trust tell you what to buy? Find a good hi store and listen to some different options.  Even if you don't have one where you live, for that kind of investment it's worth a drive.  I got back into hifi about 4 months ago and I'm already on my second pair of speakers.  Fortunately my dealer offers a 100% credit as long as you buy something for 2 x the cost of the original purchase.  Not sure where you live but his store is in Champaign, IL...Glenn Poors

There are some really sensitive souls on here. 

Personally, I appreciate hearing all feedback/opinions. Good or bad, dealer or consumer. We all process sound differently so one person's prized audio component/speaker is another person's trash.

I have picked up the phone and spoken to audiotroy - several times. He is quite knowledgeable with system matching and has provided me valuable input/feedback on all ideas - whether he carries the product line or not. On top of that, he's never been pushy or attempted to close the deal. That's a hell of a lot better than my local dealers. If he carries my next speaker, he'll be my first call to work a deal.

Life's too short to get your undies in a bundle over this shit. Enjoy the music and the hunt for your perfect system. I love my PS Audio BHK setup - if audiotroy were to post that it's inferior or overpriced - who cares, it's my prize. Just my 2-cents. 

Keoliphant, thank you so much for the kind words really appreciate it.

As per the PS Audio stuff, we haven't heard it or tested it vs our setups so we can't really comment on how it actually performs.

The point we make is that with the Monos at $15k plus the preamp at $4-7k plus two power cables and interconnects gets you a stone's throw from the T+A HV 3100 integrated which is an absolutely amazing sounding product.  

We would love to test the Stereo amp and preamp and see how it compares to our other lines and if it is really good we would most likely sign up to sell their gear.

Our past PS experience the Perfect wave dac was okay so we haven't really formed a pro vs con experience about PS.

Akaim that is not really the point sure a set of Cerwin Vegas will play loud but the size and power of that kind of speaker will give you is not the same as  the wave launch of a much physically larger speaker in a big room, the larger the room the larger the loudspeaker needs to be, hence our recommendations. 

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ