This is a nice price range to be shopping; I hope you can budget for making trips to hear some of the candidates. I like a lot of suggestions made above, such as the various JBL Everest speakers. I certainly think that Avantgarde is worth hearing too. The Classic Audio suggestions are also among the speakers I like. My tend to favor speakers that are lively sounding and have good dynamics, even at modest volume levels, and these speakers fit the bill.
I cannot begin to guess what speakers will fit your particular taste, so I will start by mentioning some brands that tend to be well liked by a wide range of listeners, even if they are not necessarily favorites: In that category I would put Vandersteens--a brand that consistently makes well rounded speakers. I would put in this category Focal speakers as well. The floorstanding ProAcs sound pretty good and you would be saving money. I am particularly fond of Audio Note AN-E speakers, but, I don't know if they are well suited for high volume rock, if that is your thing, but they are certainly worth auditioning.
If you like horn-based systems (I do, and I own one), your budget would allow you to assemble a horn system or have one custom built for you. You should google Deja Vu Audio and talk to someone there about such systems.
If you want to save an enormous amount of money and still get one of the best sounding high efficiency/horn type system on the market, you must audition the rearhorn loaded full range systems of Charney Audio (a trip to New Jersey is required). I own a horn-based system in your price range, but, I am considering a $17,000 Charney system which is incredibly well rounded (not the usual one-trick pony of single-driver systems) and capable of playing all kinds of music very capably.
It would also make sense to hear a variety of fundamentally different types of speakers. You should hear large panel dipoles, such as Soundlab electrostatics, or Magneplanar speakers. You should also hear a good omni-directional system (e.g., German Physics or MBL).
