I bought mine four years ago, and had them in less than a week. (I've since bought and sold several more expensive speakers)............Well, if you have a wimpy amp, they won't go very loud. I use mine in a small room with correct ASC and RPG acoustic treatment, and they'll traverse beyond 100 dB at the listening position indefinitely with my amp (500 watts/channel rms into 4 ohms). The louder, the better, to a point. They're AWEsome, and at least the best speaker buy in the world, if not beyond. They need many hundreds of hours with a powerful amp to break in, and you need to do some simple mods/bypasses to get true highend sound from them (no soldering necessary). I augment mine occasionally with the Sunfire Subwoofer Pro (same as Mk 2), and feel that this combo betters the Wilson Watt Puppy 5.1 system, at least in my small room. $1,700 (including sub) versus $17,000; hmmmm......I feel that to go without buying these (especially considering their price), would be like a vow of celibacy before a year's stay at the playboy mansion. HOW CAN ANYONE NOT OWN THESE SPEAKERS???? It is a shame that everyone doesn't.