Hmm from my perspective a pair of JBP LSR 308P MkII and a transport matches the price of entry-level consumer audiophile speakers and a cheap (Topping/SMSL) AMP/DAC pairing yet will outperform it any day.
They're engineered to work together, and while you _can_ go without the sub for a while... it's a shit setup and only useful in the short term.
Wouldn't want to be doing production stuff (or even end user setup) without the sub. ;)
One of the thing that's interesting to note with monitors is how 'biased flat' is very much a thing and that consumer audiophile speakers are very much not always biased flat, I think the varying companies have a sound profile which they aim to target.