Best Small Floorstanding Speaker under $2K

Thiel CS 1.5 , 1.6 or 1.7 -

If you can find Hales rev2 and 3's great sound 

Interesting question you pose, as an audio nut for 45 years, I happen to think $2K for a pair of speakers is kind of a "sweet spot" for the cost of a pair of speakers in a very fine system.  With a good amp and something like an Oppo 105 CD player, you can live the dream.  

I will chime in with a plug for Spatial Audio Hologram M4 Turbos or M3's, priced right at $2K.  I have had a dozen monitors and floor standers in my system in the past 10 years, many of which were mentioned above, and I am still over the top in love with my M4 Turbo open baffle speakers.  If I had to do it over, I would have gotten the M3's, which go down to 33 Hz, but with my subwoofer, I have the LF covered.   If you don't have a sub, the M3's will give you outstanding LF response.  I drive them with an 80 wpc CJ SS amp and the bass is just outstanding and also with a flea-watt SET amp from Dennis Had which allows the music to bloom, with an immense soundstage.  Zu's are interesting speakers that are easily driven with a small amp.  The whole line-up of Salk speakers are absolutely musical and very reasonably priced, with beautiful cabinetry -- I have heard several of them at audio shows and they always impressed me.  Totem's, too their whole line of speakers sound fine to my ears, and they are also reasonably priced.  There are a plethora of great speakers for $2K on the  market.  Cheers.  

You now have close to 20 speaker recommendations but you have never told us what kind of amp you have.  So how would any of us know if any of these fine speaker recommendations could be properly driven by your amp?

Per your criteria, you want a small floorstanding pair of speakers under 2k.  But what good would they be if your amp could not properly drive them?  Might be a good idea to let us know this.

Brimel,

The Maggie .7 is about 4 1/2 feet tall, 15" wide and maybe six inches deep (stand depth). The smaller MMG is about 6" shorter. The former’s bass extension gets down into the 45 hz region, the latter is more like 50hz. The .7 was $1400 and the MMG $600 last I looked. Both are excellent value IMO (particularly the MMG, which is why I own a pair.)