Yes, OK, you have Dave's phone number, so do I. But that does not make the sluggish, fat, boomy, dull, no micro detail whatsoever, slow sounding midwoofer in the Sierras sound any better. There just comes a time where you have to go by what sounds good, not by customer service, or hype online. The midrange of the Kevlar midwoofer in the CM5s is extremely detailed, snappy, layered, and sounds like Stax headphones. It's on another level better than the Sierras and for same price. That same magical midrange is also present to some extent in the Totem Model 1s and Epic 2s.
ID companies actually offer worse value than retail from reputable manufacturers. Under $2000 we have SVS Ultras, Salk MBOW (and variants), Ascend Sierra, Carnegie, GR Research, etc. Most of those use cheap soft MDF cabinets from China. Have you actually measured the resonance on some of these? Crossovers use cheap Bennic parts, Chinese coils, electrolytic capacitors in the woofer slope correction circuit, etc. Cheap, barely mid-fi drivers like Peerless, Seas Prestige, Vifa, Tang Bang, Dayton, Usher, and other Chinese garbage. LR4 acoustical slopes because they are a no brainer.
Now for the same price, have you seen what the cabinets look like inside the CM5s, or Totem Model 1s? Damping sheets on walls, dense stuffing, extremely intricate bracing, etc. CM5s use very high quality cast Kevlar woofers and Nautilus tweeters, complete with the tubed chambers, etc. Model 1s have modified Seas tweeters where the designer has added a special chamber and poly cones from Dynaudio variants. CM5s have Supreme Mundorf ($50+) capacitors and heavy gauge aircore coils, which have been baked. Model 1s have Solen bypassed with high quality Polyester caps, Solen aircore inductors, silver wiring, and WBT binding posts. CM5s also have true LR2 acoustic slopes, which is very difficult to design and require specialty drivers.
Some of these retail companies offer a true hi-fi product at mid-fi prices. ID companies offer mid-fi 20 year old technology and pretend to give you a good deal. I've heard most ID offerings and just honestly don't get it. It's stuff I used to make in high school.
