ah yes,seems that article i read was dated,"note to self,check dates"but still i cant see spending that kind of money on an off brand not that there off but there not like well klipsch,canton,svs,kef etc etc,bass wont matter much i have a 12" sunfire sub to mate with the towers,yeah im basing it on a few things,reviews mostly and looks,those JBL's im sure sound great but boy are they ugly lol,im in hagerstown maryland so im not that far from virginia,what finish are those GLE's you have in? Also coming from a car audio background,that is where i get my cerwin-vega love from, i used almost exclusively their product in all my vehicles.Oh and yeah i have heard the GLE 496 but but not the 496.2 so im figuring they could only be better.