what speakers to buy

revels aren't very directional and work very well in open configurations

dragonbutx

If you really have to buy without listening I’d be inclined to point you toward Revel speakers. The reason is that they are very well engineered, having been guided by many decades of research using true scientific studies on what type of speaker parameters seem to matter most to our subjective evaluation of sound. (They have used Harmon’s blind testing methods). And the designs have been very competently created to reproduce those results, to produce smooth, neutral sound dispersion in real rooms. And it really works. I recently had been on a big speaker auditioning binge and was surprised to hear even the lower priced Revel speakers - e.g. the $2,000/pair Revel F36’s sounded distinctly more full, more neutral, more refined and controlled top to bottom than some significantly more expensive other brands I had listened to.

Revel Performa3 F208 is around $5,000 and you may find it punches above it’s weight for the reasons above. Here are the Stereophile measurements:

https://www.stereophile.com/content/revel-performa3-f208-loudspeaker-measurements

Now, measurements aren’t going to tell you definitively that you like a speaker. However, if you are really going in blind, speakers by a company that is known to be very technically competent and advanced, and whose speakers measure reliably extremely well, at least helps predict you end up with a well designed speaker that has a great chance at sounding neutral, smooth and well balanced.

Of course, the best bang for the buck will likely be used speakers. But even then, you may get an expensive speaker at 1/2 price used, that wasn’t particularly well designed and even a cheaper well designed speaker (e.g Revel or others) will beat it.

One final note, if you are in fact sort of new to putting together a higher end system: I would caution you about taking advice to spend a significant portion of your budget on audiophile cables. I’d suggest buying cables known to be well engineered (and for which measurements are supplied vs "wow" sounding subjective descriptions), for instance some Belden Cable from Blue Jeans cable or similar outlet.
Those will feed your speakers all the signal they require, you can start there, put your budget into things that will make the biggest difference - e.g. speakers - and later on when you suddenly become flush with cash and get the itch, you can experiment with the expensive cables.
(Most audiophiles, unfortunately, use protocols for determining sonic differences that are little different from those used to "show" that every alternative medicine, new age therapy, astrology etc are all effective. Which should give you a clue as to how much stock to put in to many of the claims you’ll encounter for high priced cables. My pal has a system with $50,000 in high end cables. My system with simple, relatively low priced Belden cables sounds much better - he would agree - because I put the money where it would matter - speakers, room treatment).

If you have an open area, you need largish speakers to fill it sound.  I recently purchased Legacy Signature SEs from Dave actually, and definitely love these. However, I also have a soft sport for Focals, and those Utopias are pretty high end. You can't go wrong with either brand IMO. They sound different however, Legacies are warm and engaginng, very high res mind you.  And Focals I always find to be very exciting to listen to, which is also a great thing.

Look at ProAc.  Some good deals used.  Most models are two-ways, yet lack nothing in bass.

you cannot listen easily at a dealers but you can 1. take road trips (or add a listening afternoon to a trip to a city), or 2. buy mailorder with a return privilege

for $5k I'd get Maggies - used 3.7i's can be had for $4k 

the question of what speaker to get is first of all what will work in your listening room

all speakers will benefit from being set up away from a corner or back wall (Roy Allison notwithstanding), but it is more important with Magneplanars and electrostatics

1st, you buy speakers (& then use positioning and room treatments to make them sound the best)
2nd, you buy amps to drive the speakers

you will then work to find the best source material for whatever way you are feeding the amps, LP or digital

I usually buy used CDs and rip them onto iTunes - if I really like the album I look to see if there are better recordings or masterings (and even for things recorded in the 1960s there can be better masterings or treatments to remove say wow & flutter on the aged Ampex used to make the original)