Does this speaker exist or am I being ridiculous?

published low frequency responses quite often don't translate to effective deep bass or balanced sound. the other stuff your looking for is all over the place...there are hundreds of choices

Gradient makes a speaker that is designed to go against the wall and has been considered among the most musical speakers available for years by audio reviewers...

published low frequency responses quite often don't translate to effective deep bass or balanced sound. the other stuff your looking for is all over the place...there are hundreds of choices

Here's an idea, but they're well below your budget. Silverline Prelude. They go only down to 35Hz, but you'll likely not miss the lowest bass unless you're a metal head (like me). I'm a bass hound, and I was darned impressed by these at CES. 91dB/8 ohm nominal...they can be driven by a wide variety of amps including relatively low powered tube amps (I'd guess 30+ wpc).

They cost $1200 new, and can often be found for ~$800 used. Heck, at that price, buy a used pair and try them out. If they don't work for you, then re-sell.

In our old place, we had out Von Schweikert VR2s about 18 inches from the wall. Not ideal placement, but acceptable. I have to admit they don't have the same pop w/o the subs, but they still do a nice job with the full range, and the WAF factor should be high. Plus, in your range, you could add the matching sub at some point if your wife would agree. Of course, I'm a big fan of VSA. We haven't auditioned full range speakers since '03, but we've been thrilled with our decision and felt at the time that the VR2s out performed a lot of more expensive speakers.