"Best" speakers new/used under $3,000?

Well...the responses are flooding in and I'm a fan of many of the speakers mentioned, including the Maggies and Selah Audio (still think the latest TSM and VSM's are better)....BUT.....

What type of listening do you plan to do? I only ask because I don't like my Merlins for casual listening. They demand my attention and that's not always a wonderful thing. Someone suggested the Ohm line and I like those speakers a lot. I don't really consider them reference quality, but they make beautiful music and fill a room in a special way. That might be more of what you're looking for. At the end of the day you should consider how you'll listen, what you'll listen to and where you'll be listening. The room is your main speaker of sorts. And some designs may fit one room well and sound terrible in the next. As you can probably tell, I'm no speaker snob. I still miss my Heybrook HB1's!
If you provide a few more details folks can probably home in on some good choices.

Rob

Mtrot - I'm sorry to hear that. They had incredible product and screw it up. When they presented HPS-938 at at audio show in 2004 it was sensational - they were sold out for many months ahead. They got Absolute Sound Editor's choice 5 years in a row plus other awards including "Decade Award" from "Enjoy the Music" and Blue Moon Award. It looks like after that everything went south.

Waveman...love the speaker pic in your home office. You can almost see their tweeters.

I`m particularly drawn to the blond speaker, far left.

Most everyone recommends the speaker they own so you get the broken record on the site.

Buy used and you can get some great deals, up to 60% off on some relatively new speakers in some cases. Be careful with older models of great speaker lines because strides have been made over the years with transparency, midrange and tweeter detail etc.

It would be helpful if you could list some musical priorities. Soundstage, deep bass, non aggressive highs are a few of mine.