I was on vacation for a week (out of phone, cell, pager, computer, carrier pigeon, and smoke signal range) which was glorious, but now returned to find my MMMicroOnes and hooked them up yesterday. Yes, they were fantastically packaged and flawless, but the real treat is the sound. I agree that they sound great out of the box, a little constipated but there will certainly be no gritting of teeth waiting for break-in. All of the fullness of sound along with speed is there. BTW, these are replacing my Ridge Street Audio Sasons and I use Essence solid-state (amp) and tube (preamp) gear along with SME/Graham/Lyra/Manley Steelhead analog front end.
One word on pricing. I am a small business owner and I have had numerous instances where I, in the best of intentions, severely underestimated pricing prior to full production. I am going to give EA the benefit of the doubt that they had no intention of doing the bait-and-switch on pricing after they initially drummed up interest on their products.