hehe yeah, thanks for the advice, guys. I'm not a total newbie to audio stuff, so I know that there's much better stuff out there than what the marketing droids recommend. dnewma04 and dbzjr if i remember right helped me out a couple years ago with my car audio setup; It sounds great and not one "big name" speaker in the bunch.
( dayton titanic sub, peerless 6.5" and vifa tweets )
same deal with my grado headphones - no one's heard of them, but after 1 week with the sr60s I'll never use anything else ( except maybe a better grado )
so i guess what I'm looking for is maybe some more recommendations like that - stuff no one has heard of, but still sounds sick, so i can save a buck