What speakers should I consider around $5000?

If you are thinking stats check out King Sound . Disclaimer- You may see my pair of King Sound King up for sale soon . I am moving and need to downsize to bookshelfs. They are more lifelike than Martin Logan's or magnepan's . Read the reviews on them .

The new info was helpful. I can maybe give you a few ideas on how to proceed. The first is you have to decide on if you are going to buy a new speaker based on how it looks or on how it sounds. You can't really make an exception on that one. If you want great bass and integration of all the drivers (or use panels), you are going to have to get a big speaker. If you have a lot more than $5000, you can buy your around that problem, at least to some extent.

I see you starting to fall into the cable trap. I believe that the super expensive cables make the differences you say they do. Cables can make a very big difference. On the other hand, I see 2 components that are possibly broken and some questionable decisions overall in you component choices. Do cables last. If you do a good job matching all of your components, cable choice becomes easy (and a lot less expensive). Its very common to find that very expensive cables that make a big difference in SQ, like the ones you are currently borrowing, actually sound bad in a well matched system.

Before I go any further, I'll make a suggestion and see what you think of it. Looking at your system, I don't see your speakers as your weakest component. If I had your system, and it were my choice, I would do 3 things. 1. Send your amp back to Bryston and have them fix it. Its not the last word in any one area, but its a good sounding amp that has a ton of power. It will sound good with a wide variety of components. You can get something better, but keep it for now. 2. Get rid of your current preamp and upgrade. That may sound like a strange recommendation, but the preamp is without question, the most overlooked component in an audio system and its just as important as any other piece. Without a good preamp, you will NEVER get your system sounding right. That's how important it is. Since you already have an Ayre DAC, an ideal choice would be an Ayre K-5. Making a change like that will completely transform the way your system sounds. Even if you change nothing else. 3. Here's another odd recommendation. Given your loaner cables, you probably know some people that have some pretty nice gear to lend out. See if you can't get your hands on a good CD player. I think you should compare it directly to your current PC/DAC type setup. You can get great sound going this route, but its new and there are many ways you can go wrong and probably not know it. All you need to do is see if your current source is competitive with a good CD player. If it is, that's fine. If not, you need to fool with it until you get results that are equal, and hopefully better.

Matt,
You might want to check out the Vapor Sound speakers. A whole lot of speaker for any price. They have several models and they're pretty much built to your liking. I have the Aurora's coming. I choose those because they were the closest thing in the midband to the Apogee Stages and they have a 3 person sweetscape. Most of their models are direct radiating. Actually they all are except the Aurora has waveguides on both the tweeter and the bass driver.

My choice at your (our) price point was the Revel F208. The F308 was shelved as far as I know. The look of Revel's new Performa3 line has done a lot to fix the WAF problem of some previous Revel models. If you like Revel's sound generally, the F208 or even 206 should get a listen.

As an owner of F30's, perhaps I can add something. Cables matter. I have settled on Analysis Plus Solo Crystal IC's - my reference for years and available pretty reasonably on the used market. My speaker cables are Nordost.

Originally I also used the same Bryston amp but found it less than ideal for the F30's. Then I went to Proceed HPA2. Lots of power but I always thought it better a home theater amp. I was hoping for a cheap ML, but it wasn't.

Your electronics -proceed and the bryston, are both dry. That makes me think the bloat is all about placement of the speakers.

My speakers finally blossomed with tubes. First CJ then Rogue, which I thought was better than the CJ. No problem at all with discontinuity between drivers. I think speaker placement plays a huge role here. try using the placement guide on the Cardas web site. I found it highly useful.

These days I use Pass electronics which is really great with the F30's. Bass is solid and palpable and there is zero discontinuity between the drivers. The woofer does hat its meant to do and low bass properly done is very hard to localize so thats why I get no discontinuity.

Good luck. Personally, though, if I didn't have Revel, I think I would go Vandersteen.