$1500 is a great budget in the used world.
how big of a room?
would you rather not have to use a subwhoofer?
there are tons of excellent Maggies, Martin Logans, Von Schweikerts, B&Ws....etc etc etc available for this.
Todays used $1500 was 5 years ago $3500, or 10 years ago $5k.
Or...maybe even last years $2500 new price. You can buy a lot of speaker for this money. You just need to know what you want in terms of performance and certain strong points in your musical reproduction endevors.
Speakers can be like mics. Some do certain things better than others, and its the "certain things" that you like that should drive your decision. Some are brutaly transparant, and will shame any componant or cable of a lesser quality. Others are a little more forgiving in that regard, and seem to work on par w/a larger selection of gear behind them. Same goes for room interactions. Some speakes (like panels, or ESL) need good acoustics to really show you what they can do. Others can deal with tight quarters, or a more lively room. I learned this the hard way...