I went in to Infidelity in Kingston recently and they had an amazing reference system, using a fully specked LP12 as source into a NAC 552/NAP 300. The speakers were Focal JM Lab Utopia 3, and it seemed like a match made in heaven. They were playing Chick Corea's 'Return to Forever' and you could touch the Rhodes piano chords hovering in the air like ghosts. Stunning. The whole system was worth a completely ridiculous 45K. A lot of this was taken up by the LP12 and the NAC, but the speakers go for about 7-8K I think, so would fit in to your reference system budget.