Speakers under $50k that rival $200k+ speakers?

If I were trying to beat 200k speakers with 50k I would spend 30k on speakers and the rest building a proper well treated listening room. To paraphrase Jesus: Why are you worried about the splinter in your speakers eyes and ignoring the beam in your rooms.

If you can spare the time (you obviously have the funds) I suggest attending an audio show to calibrate your expectations. I went to the 2018 AXPONA and the Tampa show this spring. My favorite speakers at both shows were the MBL 101 E's Yes, they are $70K but they sounded better than all of the more expensive speakers except for the $300K Von Schweikerts. But there were two other speakers that really stood out. The Rockport Atria II's ($27K) and the Dynaudio Contour 60's ($10K). On the other hand I did not like the sound of the big Wilsons ($200K+) even though I listened several times. I thought I must be crazy until I met a guy who, unprompted, told me how bad the Wilson speakers sounded.  He described exactly the same problems that I heard. We couldn't blame it on the room because next door there was a system featuring the big Sonus Fabers ($100K) and they sounded gorgeous.There were two major takeaways for me from these shows, 1) I could not see much of a correlation between price and sound quality - at least for my tastes, and 2) my mid 90's vintage system consisting of Krell amplification and Mirage M3si speakers could challenge all but the best systems that I heard. Granted, I've had years to optimize my room and the rest of my system but I realized that I will have to spend a lot of money to achieve a serious upgrade.

Thanks for all the suggestions guys. Right now I have a list below. What do you think?

  Most interested =====
Nola concert grand reference
Rockport Cygnus
Focal stella utopia 2 EM

Somewhat interested =====
Von Schweikert VR10
TAD Reference 1
Magico S5 MK2
Magico M3
Revel Salon 2
Lumenwhite Kyara
Canton 1k
Paradigm Persona 9H
Dynaudio evdience platinum
MBL 101e
Peak consult Kepheus
Surrountec monolog

You may want to have somwhat interest in the KEF BLADE. I have heard 5 of your somewhat interest speakers and I would take the BLADE over those.

Josh358 thanks for your contributions. I see you've been posting knowledgeably about Magnepan speakers for at least a decade now! I agree that they are magnificent at what they do best.