Obscure companies making excellent speakers?

Well, Pedrillo, since you asked...

Okay this brand has advertised in at least one of the big magazines, but they sell direct only and even sell through Audiogon (surely that qualifies them!): Tyler Acoustics. At CES 2008, the best under-ten-grand-total (electronics, wires & all) room I encountered was the Tyler Acoustics room.

Selah Audio is designer Rick Craig's house brand, and his speakers have also impressed me greatly.

Finally, you probably didn't catch this but Musicfile suggested my designs, which I sell under the brand name "AudioKinesis".

Duke

add apogee acoustics

Add to this list the following:

Oskar Heil Speakers--keeping alive the Heil pleated ribbon speaker technology. I heard these at CES a while back and thought they sounded pretty promising.

Trenner & Friedl -- Austrian, I believe. They make very musical sounding compact dynamic speakers.

Gradient--very good sounding speakers that are specifically designed to be very versatile when it comes to room placement. I have heard the Revolution (active biamped) at shows placed very close to both a back and side wall in a small room, and the sound was quite good for such a conventionally bad location.

ESP-- heard the big boys at a show and liked the overall weight and good tonal qualities, although they did sound a touch "slow" and lacking in dynamics.

Gershman--several quite good models, in terms of overall tonality, weight and musicality.

Another one for the list...while I've not heard any of Danny's work, I'm in love with the looks of the GR Research OB-7. I would be interested in hearing a pair that has been tweeked by Response Audio and with cabnets built by Custom Concepts.

Sorry Duke, I will be making a new list as more names come up, with yours included.
If only all these inovative companies could exhibit at the expo for one whole month, there I go dreaming again.