I purchased an "upgraded" a pair of Von Schweikert vr-35's which are 8K retail and will say that they will compete with speakers in the 20K+ range and do it quite easily. They are very "musical', not sterile and overly detailed and have lots of the trickle down technology from Albert's more expensive models. My friend owns the Sashas and they are very nice in deed. Combined with his ARC 5 preamp they sound very very good. I personally prefer the silk dome tweeter to metal tweeters. I believe Von Schweikert speakers are a great bargain and out perform their competition across the board at comparable price points.