Ok, as to the comment previously about someone saying that JL are great. What people here have to understand is some people are just now getting into car audio. Growing up all you really hear is Pioneer, Alpine, Sony, Rockford, Kicker, maybe some Orion, PP, and Infinity. When you get into it, you start going to some higher end stores where you see MB Quartz, Boston, and JL. Then you have to look harder to find things like Rainbow, Arc, and Focal, etc. Some people jsut haven't had the exposure to those brands yet and each step they think, "Wow these are way better than everything I've heard." It takes a while to get to a level where you really do get high end products. It takes money and several steps. Also, remember that everyone's ear is just a little bit different. What you think sounds good might not sound that good to someone else. You must remember also that JL has gotten so much rep because of Pimp My Ride. That is some of the higher-end that people have been exposed to in the media.
As far as speakers that have won major competitions, I would have to say from my experience Focal is probably one of the names that will come up the most. Most of the people that I compete with, those on my team I mean, run at leaset Focal speakers. There of course is Mickey Brones who is at 14 World Final titles between USACI and IASCA. The rest of us together have about 8 more World Final titles. I'm not saying Focal is the best, but they hold their own. A lot is also going to have to do with tuning, we have some guys with us who have incredible ears and after a few hours you can hardly believe the difference they can make. There are still other brands out there that have high end products that have won some major competitions, they just aren't talked about or just no notice is taken. I mean I know someone who won with Steg amps, but it's not something you see mentioned often.
I think one of the reasons you see so much high-end in Europe compared to US has to do with the fact that there isn't much as far as low-end in Europe. Most of the companies you will see might have some lower-end, but you will also see those same companies have really nice high-end products as well. In the US we have companies like Dual that sell speakers for next to nothing and people will put that in just to have something better than OEM speakers. Also, from what I gather, people in Europe aren't really bassheads. I could be wrong about this, but from the impression I get they aren't about tons of subs with little improvement on front stage so it can be heard over the bass. They are more concerned about SQ than SPL.
I will now step off of my soap box.