Which used speakers in the 5K range?

Why do you feel that the Alto Utopias can't be around your kids? They weigh 167 lbs. each and would be very hard to tip. They are also tall enough that smaller kids wouldn't be able to reach the tweeters to poke dents in them (though that changes quickly enough).

Back when my first kid was born (1987) I bought a pair of speakers pretty well suited to toddlers and young kids: ADS L1090 columns. They were sealed enclosures, so there was no tempting port to stuff toys in, the midrange and tweeter were flexible domes, and the grills--difficult for little fingers to remove--were perforated metal, completely protecting the drivers behind. The columns had a narrow footprint, but I got the optional plinth bases to widen the stance, and these days you can get outriggers for nearly anything.

I'm not actually advocating for ADS speakers, though a pair of M12s or M15s might work for you. My point is that if you want speakers that are safe against little kids, they should be difficult to tip, not have ports visible and accessible, and the drivers need to be protected by something better than stretchy cloth.

Thanks all for the recommendations so far. Looking forward to more, if anyone has them.

Johnnyb53, my third daughter, that is just now turning 3, has poked the tweeters three (yes, three) times and I'm not sure she'd had enough... my fourth, a son, is now 6 months old and I'm not tempted to test if he takes after his sister or chooses to let the tweeters alone.
The issue with poked tweeters is not just their substantial cost but also the hassle it takes to fix them.
I'm also not looking forward to day when I walk into the living room and there's a smiley face drawn on both mediums.

Thanks again.

You need to find something with hard-to-remove perforated metal grilles. That's what's great about many ADS loudspeakers including the M12s and M15s, but they're long out of production and it could get problematic if you do have to replace the tweeters.

I know there are current production speakers with perforated metal driver protectors, but don't know who they are offhand.

I don't have much to contribute on your question. I was just happy to see someone else that owned Celestion Ditton 66 speakers. I still have mine in use at our summer home.

Best of luck in your search.

Jim Perry

I had a pair of Brines Acoustics speakers with a metal grill that strike me as pretty kid friendly; in fact, I sold then to a friend with young kids, who loves them.

They were a good sized tower that would be hard to tip, but not so heavy as to cause fatalities if they did. The build quality was nice, but not fussy; not the sort of finish where you freak if anyone touches it. My model had big ports -- I'd not thought of the port filling issue before -- but big enough that an adult hand could fish out toys.

I'd rate them pretty highly for kid-safe, and a pair built to your specs with this in mind would likely be 2-2.5k.

They sound very good (I didn't notice a difference with the metal grills on/off) -- and Bob Brines describes some of his models as having "vintage" sound, but they are single driver designs, which have strong pluses and minuses. (Mine went pretty deep; interestingly, my complaint was about a regions higher up.) But since it sounds like you are thinking of these as interim speakers, you could have fun in single driver land for a few years, and then move on if so inclined.

In short, recommended; definitely worth it to contact Bob Brines, who is a helpful guy. There's also a couple of users here, I think, if you scout systems.

Let us know how it turns out!