Recommendations on small ESL speakers for tiny room

I started with Acoustat 2 + 2, then speakers with Heils (AMT), then ribbon Apogee all together for thirty years. i have spent a lot of time with Quads. I changed over to traditional speakers about fifteen years ago.

Facing that your challenge I would consider speakers with Air Motion Transducers. They will get you the midrange and the super high frequency harmonics and loose a lot lof the really difficultes in positioning, excessive high frequency loading the room, and lack of punch. They could be stand mounted or full sized.

I moved my seat all the way back to the end of the room and find that the speakers disappear. The sound stage is much more natural. Also I moved the speakers to about 6 inches from the side walls. To minimize wall reflection, I put two diffuser/sound absorption panels (2x4 ft) in front of the speakers along the side walls. I thought this would be a disaster but I am getting a nice and wide stage as if I am in a larger room. The Achilles heel of ESLs always have been the lack of  bass punch. But with the Bass Focus of the new generation Sound lab speakers coupled to the small size, punch bass is not a problem. I am quite pleased with the result.

Glad to hear you got it working for a lot less than $7,000.00. :-)

Excellent. Yeah, planar are all about positioning.