Speakers under $50k that rival $200k+ speakers?

Classic Audio Loudspeakers makes a couple of models that easily deserve this sort of comment: I've not heard any speaker more expensive that actually sounded better.

The CARs also have the benefit of being easy to drive- 16 ohms and 98dB 1 watt/1 meter, with bandwidth down to 20Hz. I've been running them for years. With field coil operation they are as fast as ESLs.

Speaking ESLs, the Sound Lab Majestic is a truly full range ESL that can deliver dynamic range as well as the transparency that usually only ESLs are known for. If you want to know the top 5 best speakers in the world, the two I've mentioned here are on the list.

Sorry what are CARs speakers ?
The majestic looks nice, sucks they don't have a local dealer but I may try to listen to them if I take a trip.

The NS5000's are very nice. Very extended sweet treble and easy on the ear. Also, excellent transparency and micro dynamics. In one word, "refined". 

However, to my ears they slightly lack the macro dynamics of some of the competition at that price point, so there's not quite as much excitement factor.   

@smodtactical  Classic Audio Loudspeakers (CARs) are made in Brighton, MI.  The models T3 and T1 are three-way speakers employing two bass drivers, a midrange horn and compression driver tweeter.
http://classicaudioloudspeakers.com/cgi-bin/index.pl?fs=1&init=1


You can have them field-coil powered, which endows the drivers with the speed to which I referred earlier. The midrange horns employ CAD-optimized throat curves that eliminate common old-school horn artifacts;  the drivers are beryllium domes with Kapton surrounds. This means that the first breakup is at about 35KHz and an extra octave of low frequency bandwidth, so very smooth and detailed across their entire range. They are also 16 ohms so whatever amp is driving them will be lower distortion than it will on lower impedance speakers. This also makes them smoother, since the kind of distortion I'm talking about makes amps sound harsher otherwise. So they are full range (down to 20Hz) and very smooth and detailed; they also image quite well. On top of that they are easy to drive; they pretty well tick all the boxes except they aren't small.

@smodtactical, sorry I just took one of the speakers off your short list under consideration :)  We were probably looking at the same used pair of Nola CGRG.  Good luck on your journey!