What is under $5k speaker with best bass slam?

Salk HT-3's have deep tight bass with good slam and, an all around excellent speaker.

You should just go ahead any buy that used pair of Piega P-10s on the Gon. I love mine and they have the most articulate and satisfying bass of any speakers I have owned to date.

Shakey

The thing with Legacy is my father owned them and tho you would think they slam they dont, as I mentioned earlier the Vandersteen Quatro is a speaker I would look into...my dad purchased the wood version and they make the Focus sound like a sloppy limited LF speaker. My father was happy with his Legacy speakers for years but didnt know what he was missing til he found it.

I dont know about the slam being coloration, I think most take slam to be quick fast, tight and that impact you can feel that makes you smile....thats Vandersteen's bass.

Matti:

The Salons use 4th order crossovers, which ultimately allow them to go louder than the 1st-order slope Mahlers, assuming you have massive amplification to drive them (Salons are only 86 db. efficient, while Mahlers are +/- 90 db. efficient).

The Mahlers are a very different type of speaker, being intentionally colored to sound good with large-scale symphonic (i.e., rolled off a bit in the presence region, well-damped cone materials, fabric-dome tweeter, fat in the midbass, all designed to take the bite out of what digital does to string sections and to give body to wood-body instruments -- he didn't name it "Mahler" by accident). Having a peaky midbass, they are particularly exciting with rock/pop (... the WattPuppy formula).

The Salons are more linear and more extended, lower distortion, and often times, a lot less satisfying because of the nature of many recordings (not made for high-end equipment).

The real problem with Salons is that they require high-powered amps, and given that most high-powered amps sound like shit, well, ... .

Raquel, thanks. I've been tossing around the idea of picking up one of these 2 for some time. I don't have the room right now, but one of these days....