In my experience, ID brands are a mixed bag.
I have bought product from Elemental Designs, Philharmonic Audio, Empire, AV123, Salk, and Chase home theater.
3 of those are out of business, and one of the businesses is technically a different company (Chase/Chane - I'm sure Chase/Chane would provide support as well). Salk and Philharmic, of course, still going strong.
Can you get a great product from an ID company? Absolutely! But you may not get the long term stability or RD that goes with traditional brands. That's not to say good RD concepts are lacking, but smaller companies don't have millions to budget for RD.
One thing that I've found happens quite a bit is that the flavor of the month ID company comes to town, and it quickly gets divided into the cult disciples who have found a messiah to lead them out of the corrupt traditional audio companies grasp and those who question the companies products, measurements, or lead figure.
When an amp or speaker goes out after the company has folded where do you go from there?
Last edited by redfive; 12-21-2015 at 10:52 AM.