Best used floorstanding / full range around $1000

In all honesty, and I humbly state that I have owned speakers up to the $ 16,000 Verity Audio Parsifal Encore (my review is here on the 'Gon about those), there are three speakers that stood out in my experiences over the years in this price range.

In third place, the QUAD 22L or 21L floor standing speakers, very nice for the money.

In second place, the Opera Mezza monitors that you could probably find for a grand. Small monitors with a big, full sound.

In first place, an INCREDIBLY good speaker : The Polk Audio LS 15. You will find many comments and excellent reviews on them, most of them glowing. It has the same radiator tweeter as on some mega-buck speakers. Really, they are an absolute steal for the money, and compare favorably with speakers up to $ 3K maybe more. Don't snob the Polk logo on them. They are serious, well made, good-sounding and good-looking speakers.

Small boutique snob-shops won't dare carry them, as it would make selling a twice-the-price Totem speaker (or the like) quite a challenge. This is one speaker where the money is spent on sound, not the name. I once owned them and regret selling them to this day.

Good luck !

Thanks for all the responses. Keep them coming! I will look into the models mentioned. I actually enjoy the Monitor Audio GR10's; I found them to have deeper soundstage and superior imaging to a pair of Monitor Audio S10's, which I also have. However, I was unsure whether to write that off as monitors vs floorstanders, or just the Gold line at work over the Silvers.

To Dan, who recommended the Proceed AMP2, have you tried the newer Proceed amps, namely the BPA/HPA2? I had the opportunity to pick up AMP2/3's for a nice price on Ebay, but decided to let them go due to reviews saying the later models were 'better'. Right now, I have a multichannel Rotel 1075 and Odyssey Monoblocks. Despite the glowing reviews and appreciation for the Odyssey amps here and everywhere else, I actually prefer the Rotels. Go figure. I find the Odysseys to be 'bright', accentuating higher end frequencies, compressed lows, although a bit wider soundstage compared to Rotels. I also found unacceptable hiss and hum cable interference over the Odysseys, which can be reduced by organizing the cables a bit, but I never had that problem with the Rotel. I'm still a learning newbie though, so take my observations with a grain of salt.

Back to speakers, my main concern is being able to find a floorstanding model of equal or better quality than the GR10's for around $1000 used. Then, it would eliminate having to invest in stands. I would hope not to have to sacrifice imaging.

One more thing. Is the Energy Veritas 2.8/1.8 significantly different from the newer Veritas lines? I can't seem to find any info on the older models.

I did a lot of research on Energy speakers old and new and listened to the current top of the line Veritas (2.4i) at a dealer in a very good room and carefully set up connected to all Ayre gear. No go.... Not too impressive at all. I have not heard the 2.8's but they were strongly recommended to me by another Agoner just as they are being recommended to you, and over the current line.

I was going to mention two of Sonicbeauty's choices, the two Quads and the Polk LS 15. Love all three of these.

I will contrast their faint praise of Totems by suggesting a used pair of Staffs as another brilliant budget tower and available used in your price range. Totem Arros come in at even less used, and while a bit light in the bottom end, they image better than most monitors, or pretty much any other speaker I have ever heard, period. And their slim profile takes up less floor space than most speaker stands.

I really like the B&W CM7's too, but I am not sure any of them are old enough yet to be showing up on the market in the $1000 range.

Finally, I have heard Dynaudio Audience 72's make beautiful music with relatively modest NAD separates. Not sure but you might be able to find a pair of these online for around a grand.