Mezzo Utopias are great speakers, and you can't go wrong with them, that's for sure--but here's another suggestion, the Egglestonworks Andras, Stereophile Class A until last fall. They're small (about 40 inches high) but incredibly solidly made (205 lb. each), made to work best within a foot of the rear wall and 2 feet of the side walls, have astonishing deep and detailed bass (2 woofers, one mounted behind the other), a wonderful Dynaudio tweeter, and two transmission line-loaded midrange units. I had several tube traps in the room when I got them, and wound up removing them as not needed. Somehow they don't seem to excite room resonances the way my B& W's did. A warning however--they need a lot of power--250-400 watts a side--and sound their best with cable on the warm, full side--e.g. NBS Monitor or Cardas Golden Reference. They're about $15,000, but used run in the $ neighborhood you're exploring. Not only is the soundfront so wide it's startling at times, but they don't take up the whole room, a significant WAF factor. Oh, yes, they're also very attractive in a modern way--black acrylic and Italian granite. As to the Nautilus 801, I've never heard a pair which sounded comfortable in the room they were set up in, whether at a dealer or in a home (I found the upper midrange too aggressive each time,although they still did amazing things), and I understand that B & W is just about to introduce a new speaker, the 800, which everyone has gone nuts over. If you're thinking B& W, you might want to wait a few months to see what happens--a lot of discounted 801's, for example?
