However, a $5K price tag is going limit their sex appeal, and customers. Lot of high end options in this territory.
Bring them on

We offer free in-home audition (yes, we pay for shipping!!!) and trust that it will out perform anything at any price on the market.
Having said that, $5K is not cheap regardless of performance. It is value for money considering what people who demand this level of performance typically pay for source, wire, preamp and speakers. The amp is probably the cheapest piece of equipment in the system. We spent tons of money on R&D so even though the production cost of the amp is relatively low (as compared to those 100 lb monster amp where the chassis and shipping cost more than everything else combined), the top of the line mono amp is still costly to make.
Few people pay attention to IA-7V2 which is damn good!
Or Ref8.5V2 which cost only half of the 9SEV2.