Opinions wanted: 10-30K Speakers for Jazz/Folk

Thanks, it will be an entirely new system, room is 14 by 18 feet. 

Agreed.  Their are many products in this price rang that meet the "sounds great for jazz and folk" but there are so may styles and different types, it is tough to suggest anything. 

What are the room dimensions?  How far will you be sitting from the speakers.  What kind of flexibility will you have in terms of placement?  Within 2' of the wall.  2' to 4' from the wall.  4'+ from the wall.  This has a MASSIVE impact on what works?  Limitations in terms of design?  Floorstanding or Standmount?  Would you add a subwoofer or two?  What about acoustic treatments?  Are they an option?  

For listening experience, do you like the sound presented to you or do you want to immersed in the experience?  Do you like a more forward or laid back sound?  Any preferences in terms of energy usage?  Tubes okay or are they a no go?  

Here are four very different speakers that would be in your range - 

Avantgarde Zeros and Unos which are amazing speakers and can be driven by flea watt amps.  They are great in medium sized rooms where setup is a pretty optimal equilateral triangle.  Insanely good with an Art Audio PX25 but they look different and are you open to low powered amps?  How is your room?  

Wilson Benesch has 5 models in this range that work with normal placement but which model depends on a lot.  They work in a pretty typical room but require a minimum 100w of power and are a relatively neutral.  Could drive them with Chord or AVM and net result would be forward chord, neutral with AVM.

There is MBL which is omnidirectional and delivers a massive soundstage.  Best with their own electronics and they have three models in this range.  Wild speakers but need to know about your layout as they require certain spacing to be at their best.  . 

Vivid three or four models in this range.  They are a bit more forward but the designs are extremely unusual and work well with near wall placments.  They need warmer amplification like Naim or AVM.  

Focal has multiple products in the range as does Magico, Wilson, Kaiser, Raidho, B&W, Harbeth, YG, Stereokonzept, Sonus Faber, Rockport and many, many more.  Without narrowing, you will get so many things to research, it will be overwhelming with no good way to narrow it.  

@verdantaudio - Those are some excellent choices (especially MBL). Also, Magnapan.

Thank you for the detailed response  @verdantaudio  

Some more info, room is 14x18 feet and speakers can be anywhere but will be facing the longer dimension. No sub and I prefer floorstanding partially for that reason. I hope to install some acoustic tx, perhaps I will use some software on my laptop or something. Energy usage does not matter to me.  Was thinking solid state but could be convinced otherwise. I really like mids/vocals coming through, as for immersion that's tough for me to say. Anyway there's a little bit more info.  

Can I ask if you have any experience with audio note gear, marten design speakers, or spectral amps? Someone suggested these. Feel free to suggest others or expand on those you mentioned given this info, appreciate your thoughts, I know my ask is a bit vague :-)  

I would presume that $10k to $30k is the quality level you are going for, and your goal is not to spend that amount but to attain that level of performance. If you are in the Seattle area you are welcome to come by and hear first hand why you can do far better than $30k worth of performance for not much more than $10k. Then again you can also spend more than $30k and have nowhere near $10k of sound quality. It all depends on what your priorities truly are and what you are willing to do to achieve them.

When I say $30k by the way I am talking not just speakers but amp, speaker cables, and speakers. Good luck with some of that other stuff, you can spend 10X and not get there. I mean, unless the goal is to spend the money.