As Cacatalysis said, they are more established. Who wants to slap down that kind of money on an amp that's really no better (or worse) than an amp that already has a following.
At the TOTL level, there is no discrete "better" and "worse". Things are just "different" from one another. Just because something that "already has a following" is good doesn't mean that everything that comes out after it shouldn't be considered. And, if the CLL is no better or no worse than anything already out there (meaning it has equivalent performance when compared to the other TOTL e'stat amps on the market), it'd be a no-brainer, as it's cheaper than the WES and BHSE. You'd be getting similar performance for less money.
If the LL was doing something totally incredible that these other amps aren't, than it would be a different story.
If the amp was doing something "totally incredible", it'd be the exception and not the rule. So every product has to be "the best" or a "giant-killer" to warrant purchase? If it was "totally incredible", would you be willing to pay more for it? That would likely garner criticism for it being "overpriced". At the price point these amps sell at, you're well past the point of diminishing returns, so looking for a huge improvement over what's already out there is an unrealistic expectation. The way I see it, the LL does something different than other e'stat amps on the market, performs well in all fundamental aspects of sound reproduction, and is priced fairly. That should be reason enough to take it into consideration.
However, since it all basically comes from the same roots it's hard not to follow the 'old guard'.
The "same roots" argument can be applied to much of audio. There have probably been hundreds of discrete opamp power amps built in the past ten years. They all use the same fundamental building blocks. Aside from Class D amps, there hasn't been anything constituting a truly "new design" in many years now. Everything that comes out is basically just a new take on old an old circuit design.
Then there's the issue of resale. Which one will be easier to unload if something better comes along, or you just wanted to sell it for cash.
I can't really speak to this point. Were I to try to make a point here, it'd be based purely on speculation. This much we know: The BHSE holds value over time. I wouldn't expect any of the other TOTL e'stat offerings to be any different, but that's not something I can prove.
For someone like myself, who hasn't heard any of them (not even at a meet), how do you decide which one to pick?
Making a blind buy at these price points is absurd. If somebody wants to go ahead and do that, that's perfectly fine, but those people certainly have bigger stones than I do. I'd be scared to spend $4-6k on something I haven't heard before. Are you in the market for a TOTL e'stat amp? I don't think anybody needs to worry about "which one to pick" until you're ready to throw down for one.
I've ruled out the Woo because of the number of tubes. None of the other amps have reached production yet, so there's really been no feedback (I mean having listen to it for 6 months or longer type of feedback).
This argument is cyclical. Nobody will adopt an amp that doesn't have long-term feedback, and long-term feedback can't exist until people adopt an amp. If you don't know how good/bad it is yet, why be so quick to dismiss it? Funny thing is that, though the BHSE is currently in production, you'd still probably be able to get an LL before a BHSE, even though the LL isn't yet in production.
