Best small, desktop speakers, $500 or under (new or used)

Thanks, Kacomess. I know I was very pleasantly surprised by the audioengine DAC I got. Good company. I’ll look into the Vanatoo, too. I like the name. I’ll look at the A5, b_limo!

I also noticed some Totem Dreamcatchers. I like Totems.

The one hesitation I have with powered speakers is that I like all the $$ to go into the speaker itself, not the connections. I do have some reasonably good power and that inclines me to have a speaker that is passive. But maybe that's outmoded thinking for this application.

This thread ties in with my diminishing returns thread... it just goes to show how awesome of a set-up you can get for very little $ and how many choices are out there.
My buddy has the Adam T5v and they are awesome! His $800 setup (acoustic panels, isoacoustics, dac) sounds waay too close to my $4000 set up

You might as well add emotiva B1+, wharfedale 225 and Elac Debut 2.0 b6.2 as well.

Theres going to be a difference between something like the adam A5x and the Audioengines.  The Adams will rock the house, the Audioengines, especially the A2+ really aren’t 

I think you’d be pretty surprised with something like the Adams.  They probably sound better than your adcom gear with some dreamcatchers.  I love totems too, bu the way.  There is a pair of rainmakers for $400 somewhere I saw.

Your adcom gear paired with elacs, or the wharfedales in nearfield will sound so good you might feel a little bad about your main rig.

Another thing too, if you buy a pair of Adam A5x’s used at $500 and sell your adcom gear for $250, you’re only in it for $250. Powered monitors are going to clean up the look at volume controls easily accessible on the speakers might be a plus over the adcoms.

Some swans or edifiers might be a consideration as well but 
Adams are definitely the real deal though.  You need to know that with these powered speakers you are getting 4 amps, so think of it as dual mono blocks.  Each driver has its own amplifier, picked out but they speaker designer to perfectly pair with the speaker that they designed.  Also, they don’t have conventional crossovers.  The crossovers are all handled in the digitail domain.

I have the powered Audioengine 2+ in a gorgeous glossy red finish with a cheap powered sub on the floor. All on closeout and total price under $500. They blow me away with any halfway decent recording on YouTube. Or just everyday spoken voice.
Plenty of exotic mini-stuff out there, but with this setup I am in heaven when working on computer, which is half the day.
Note, be sure to buy the optional stands which position the speakers toward your head. Under $30 if I remember right. 
If it's something you need to look at every day, get these. Endlessly beautiful in sight and sound. And damn near free.

So, did you get enough opinions? You are probably more confused than when you started. The reality of the situation you describe really has no good answer. What is the environment - - -? What volume do you expect to play them at. 3' is really "nearfield" so I assume office. And more important, what type of music do you primarily listen to. If you have to play the speakers at moderate to low volumes, there aren't many inexpensive speakers that do that well. I would suggest making a list of the suggestions in this blog, and see if you can find a place or places near to you, to audition as many as possible. For the past 2-3 years the industry has been turned on it's ear by some of the so called, entry level bookshelf speakers by ELAC. Assuming you are not looking for powered speakers such as AUDIOENGINE, the ELAC B 6.2 currently at $244 /pr. is pretty hard to beat. However there are Wharfedale, and Klipsch speakers in that same price range. You just need to listen to them They all sound different. I'd stay away from used. Or, I'd certainly ask "if your speakers are so good, why are you selling them" ? I think you get my drift.