I know - [MBL 101] compltely different speaker and pricepoint, but I liked the midrange and treble on them
If you like midrange and treble on MBL's then you like wide dispersion speakers. Dr Floyd Toole in the 70's found this was pretty much the number one consistent thing about peoples tastes in speakers. The research lead to companies like Energy, Mirage, PSB - often designed with wide midrange dispersion in mind.
The MBL's are limited dynamically. I have also heard the Beolab 5 and they started to get congested at realistic levels.
I am sure you can find some good used speakers in your price range that have wide dispersion.
A used pair of Energy Veritas 2.8's are the ticket ...it will leave you money for a sub (which you may need for HT but probably won't need for music).