I'm too enthusiastic at the moment to be beleiveable. I'm going to spend a few weeks with this and my Joule 150 MKII to get a fair measure of both. I have the sense I will keep both, as they both make recording sound wonderful, though different, and both they and the rest of my system sound different than live. Nevertheless, they both reproduce music that is very, very enjoyable in the home. At the price points of the passives, even the "expensive" ones, they seem to be a no-brainer to at least audition. I also get the sense they will last for many, many trouble free years - not much to wear out (except maybe the switches at some point).