Thank you to everyone who has replied. There has been lots of fantastic information here. I'm around Portland, OR and there are only a couple of higher end shops around that I know of. I honestly have no clue about a club or anything.
So taking some of the advice I ended up getting a pair of LSA 20 Statements, an Audio-GD R28 DAC/Preamp, and a Silver USB cable all together under my budget. This is letting me replace not only the Emotiva speakers and preamp, but also my Drop Grace DAC and 780 Headphone amp powering my Dan Clark Ether CX headphones. Effectively great simplifying everything.
Walter at Underwood HiFi was great to chat with and has been very helpful with questions, even after I received the items this past week or so.
Now, for the equipment itself. Everything was received fairly quickly and in proper order. The cable is pretty straight forward and is replacing a fairly decent cable I was already using with the Grace DAC. There isn't much difference there. But as I said, this simplified my system so the USB to optical connector and optical cable to preamp went away. So did the Emotiva preamp. The R28 powers my headphones with a 4 pin balanced cable that is locked into place at the connector. Since I was already using a DAC and headphone amp, sound quality hasn't changed much on that side. It all sounded great before and still sounds great. My neighbor who is into audio stuff checked out the system and he said this headphone setup sounds better than his which uses a tube amp and $2k cans. I will freely admit that made me feel pretty darn good.
As for the speakers, they are still breaking in so I won't say too much at this point. I will give them the 200 hours Walter recommends and then post a review here. First impressions though...they are gorgeous and very solid. They appear to be well constructed and produce pretty good sound out of the box. I ran them continuously the first 2 days and then during work hours the next two. The first day I had them directly on my hardwood floors. The next day I installed the included 3 spikes on each and had them sitting on the little metal disks (so they didn't dig into the wood). There was a slight change to the sound when I put them on the spikes but to be honest I wasn't comfortable with how stable they were at that point since I have kids, dogs, and cats not to mention my own klutzy self. I order some decent sized rubber speaker feet that they are on now. I have 4 under each speaker so they don't feel quite as easy to push over.
Even though they are not broken in fully yet, the sound is fantastic. The copper beryllium tweeters are very clear. Mids have been clean as well. And the bass (yes, someone was absolutely correct for calling out my spelling in my previous reply lol ) is good. I have lost a little punch on the lower end because the system as I was using it before had an RSL Speedwoofer sub along with the Emotiva T2+'s. The sub's bottom end is around the same level as the LSA 20 Statements but it was powered so my Emotive BasX amp didn't have to push those frequencies and could focus on 80 hrtz and higher. As such, I was probably over-bass'd before and what I have now is probably more accurate for the music.
My neighbor was again impressed with this setup when I showed it off to him even without it being properly broken in and he is used to his high end B&W's. I have discovered with this that the Emotiva setup I have is really pretty decent. I hate the word but the synergy of using a full Emotiva setup (except sub) is actually a thing and they do a pretty good job. But, what I have now seems to have stepped it up a notch or two. Even more if you want to add in the form over function piece of the rosewood finish...they really are pretty.
Now, next up for me will be to focus on power and cabling. My house is newer so I am not dealing with older wiring and I really don't want to have to wire in a dedicated line. I did order a more audio friendly outlet and will wire that in one of these days probably after I am done breaking my back putting in a patio for my backyard. I will also get a power conditioner to plug into that instead of my relatively simple surge protector. Then new speakers wires, rca's, and power cords. Eventually I will replace the amp as well. The Emotiva BasX I am using only has RCA connectors. I know when I went from RCA to balanced cables (3 pin) on my headphone setup, sound was a little clearer and more powerful. I imagine that holds true in this instance as well. I may get another solid state or I may go with something like a Raven tube amp. We will see where things take me at that point.
Thanks again for everyone's input and assistance in my journey so far.
