How about "The Clue" speakers. Designed to work their best with wall placement. Below your budget, but so what! Something like that with careful room treatment could work really well. You may have to scale down your high-end expectations and find something sweet that just allows you to groove with the music. Something with rich beautiful tone. Less High-End, more soul. Place less importance on depth, soundstage, etc. I remember the old days with AR's, KLH's, Dynaco A25's. We used them in whatever crappy rooms we had and loved every minute of it.