too much.

You need to divide people into two different camps. You have the listeners and the followers. The listeners buy for sound, the followers buy things because they look nice or someone else told them they were good. Often they don't feel qualified to make a good choice.

I'm an American who thinks B&Ws sound awful, lean towards the Scandinavians, think Paradigm is the "new" JBL (I'll agree with RGA on that one, but not on API product...Energy/Mirage), except for some of the high end bizzaro stuff, American speakers tend to not be very good, the French stuff tends to be quite good (JMLabs, Triangle, Cabasse), the Italians as well (Opera...I love the new Callas), but the Brits...who's really left? I've got a pair of old Castles that I love dearly. I generally like Pro-ac stuff, and much of the Acoustic Energy product, Epos, Harbeth, among others.

Who else is there out there? There are still speakers out there to hear.