I'll make a few initial comments about the downstairs system. As it was totally unfamiliar to me, quite frankly it would be inappropriate for me to assign any attribute to a particular component. However, here are some general thoughts...
Gary Dodd's new battery powered pre-amp and amp were things of lust. Very compact, and appeared to be very well built. The Onyx CD player was an impressivly large and solid component.
As for the speakers...given Danny's price point for this kit they should be on every DIY'ers short list. Danny had mounted the crossover exposed on the back of the speaker - I thought this was a very sexy feature. I mean, why hide such audio jewelry? My only suggestion would be to mount the components (caps, inductors, etc.) on the top of the board, and the connections between the components on the bottom of the board.
I'd really like to hear this system again after a couple hundred hours of intensive play.