I own a set of these they will take alot of abuse. I have a Pass Labs Aleph 30 and have driven them to 116dB levels wihout any problem. This is the point where compression becomes apparent. The drivers are rated at 5 wrms / 15 w-music @ 8 ohms. I spoke to a Foster/Fostex engineer at the NAMM show last year and he told me they rate them using SQUAREWAVES! :^O Jeez! Re: The recent Stereophile review. It difficult to do near-field measurements on a horn loaded system. The results are almost always bizzare. I have a modest size room and mine show to half-power (-3dB) at 55Hz. Other than a prominent rise around 10kHz, they have a perfectly acceptable response curve to 18kHz. (Note: Mine have the Fostex FE-108-Sigma's which have been superceeded with a newer version with a different cone and motor structure.)