Obscure brands worth considering

Absolutely!

2 or 3 that compete with the "high-priced spread" at a fraction of the price are these:

Wavetouch Audio Grand Teton's / Antero's
Linkwitz Orion's or LX521's
AudioKinesis Dream Maker's / Jazz Module's
Lahave Audio Mela's

All of these have incredible sound quality that compete with the best available.  

However, because they are "obscure," they are more difficult to resell than the big brand names.

I'm not sure I would buy from "obscure" company again.  Hyperion Sound, I bought speakers from, went bankrupt (very poor marketing) and now I cannot replace drivers or Xover if necessary.  Drivers are "exotic" to make it worse.

Every company will disappear sooner or later or become something that is not worth paying attention to, especially when the founder is gone one way or another. There are always risks, replacing speakers every decade or so is not a big problem unless they are unique or/and cost too much. $100k masterpiece is supposed to last longer.

Sooner or later?  I prefer later.  When company has only three dealers for whole US and doesn't advertise at all the outcome is almost guaranteed in spite of fantastic product.  There are many established companies to choose, that exist for many decades.  You might choose cheaper obscure company paying more at the end.  Would you buy washer or dryer from unknown company?  What about car? (still less than $100k). Just saying.

Anyway, we are not talking about buying decisions and thought processes. I wouldn't compare speakers and cars, speakers rarely blow up and never crash unless you drop them somewhere.