You pose an interesting question Ayo. I completely understand your unwillingness to sell Allen, Rodgers or *gasp* Johannus. I'll give you my two cents from a rather unique perspective.
I know Don and Jim Anderson. Don used to tune my parents' piano when I was young. He's an organist himself, and buying an organ from organists has it's advantages. Phoenix rebuilt the organ in St. John's Anglican Church in Peterborough, which was the organ I first learned on nearly twenty five years ago. It's decent. It's not spectacular, in my opinion, but you have to understand the St. John's organ to appreciate that comment.
The original organ came from a dark period in Casavant's history. by that, I mean that the tonal quality of the organ is dark. Heavy, lifeless, insufficient mixtures and upperwork, and dull reeds. Don and Jim chose to keep that tonal profile intact. Not my choice, but at the same time, knowing the church as well as I do, I understand completely why they chose to do that.
I'm a bit surprised you had trouble contacting them initially. That's not like Don. I have heard, however, on other forums, that their service is impeccable.
As for me, I had the option not too long ago to choose the organ for the new worship space at St. George's Anglican Church in Ajax. The historic church has an old Classic organ - one of their first digitals- and it's pretty nice for it's age. It's still better than many of the base model Allen and Rodgers available today. I chose Classic to build my new instrument. The company decided to upgrade the sound samples to Walker, at no cost to the church. I'm delighted they did. There is a quality to the samples that Allen and Rodgers just don't have. Check out
www.classicorgan.com and look for the church under custom organs. As far as I know, it's still the only fully Walker digital in Canada.
In fairness to Phoenix, I haven't ever played one, so I'm in no position to comment on how they sound. I will say, however, that I looked at their specs, and their stop lists are far closer to what I would choose on an organ compared to what anyone else offers. The hint here, is that I'm talking about custom organs, which is what St. George's was. There's no substitute. Of course, the cost also goes up as EVERYTHING has to be custom made - console, drawstop engraving, software, etc.
If you are serious about opening up shop, you may want to consider running dual purpose. Offer Phoenix as your A,B,C model out-of-the-box, and offer Walker for those who want and are able/willing to afford custom. Check to see if Phoenix will custom as well, but my money is still on Walker. Until Marshall and Ogletree came on the market, Walker was simply the best out there.
Here's some advice from someone who recently went through an organ purchase. Take it or leave it, but much of it comes from the organ builders themselves, and it will help you build and sell better instruments.
You have to approach selling digital organs in the same way you would approach selling pipe organs - all the same principles apply. From stop lists to audio system and audio placement, the acoustics of the space, the needs of the organist and the congregation. All of the things that pipe organ builders consider need to be forefront in selling digital organs as well. As a general rule, break down your instrument into thirds. One third of the cost for audio components, one third for tone generation, and one third for the rest of the hardware.
Most digital organ builders severly underestimate the audio requirements for an organ. Keep in mind that a 50 stop organ has over 3000 pipes. That means 3000 INDIVIDUAL SOURCES OF SOUND. Compare that to six speakers, and what kind of result to you expect to get? Keep your stop to speaker ratio at under 3 to one. For fifty stops, consider eighteen speakers with two subwoofers. Sounds like alot? It is, but it will drastically improve the sounds. Remember what I said about individual sources of sound. Also, try to spread each stop over four channels, making sure that the note one octave up never shares the same speaker as it's lower partner. Try to run sounds through the same speakers that are not likely to be used together. All this will help minimize the load on each individual speaker. Be careful where you set your frequency cutoff point. Even the last octave of, say, a diapason 8' should have a small amount of the sound run through the subwoofer. It will add incredible depth to the sound.
Stay away from toys. Don't waste memory on alternate sounds or registrations - keep the money focused on the core of the organ. Don't use sub and supercouplers, even on a small organ. If an organ is designed and voiced properly, you don't need them. In fact, they can completely ruin a well voiced instrument.
Voicing an instrument isn't easy, even though Allen and rodgers make you think anyone can do it. It takes years of experience and a great deal of knowledge to do it well. Unless that's you, hire someone who knows what they are doing, and who shares your own sense of tonal direction. Yes, you can make minor modifications as the organist, but overall voicing and blend is a fine balancing act. Ever try to perfectly balance a Cornet V?
Don't oversell the size of the organ. Church councils are generally ill-informed and ignorant as to how organs should be built. If the Allen dealer wants to sell a 50 stop organ with six speakers, you have to show them why that is the wrong approach, and why they are much better off with a smaller spec with more audio. During my time in university, I had the opportunity to be an organ scholar from one college on the campus. There was a three rank (one manual, no pedal) continuo organ built by Karl Wilhelm, and a two manual Casavant. I much preferred to play the Wilhelm, because, although small, it was of much better quality, and the individual sounds were so much more pleasing.
I'll finish with Hauptwerk. Very good, for home, and very promising. I don't believe it's quite ready for commercial use, although Phoenix supposedly set up one of their consoles to run the system. Clarion might know more than I about that. The downside is that it runs of a hard drive, and they tend to fail far more frequently that do standard sound processors. (Understatement of the year.) For a small parish on a shoestring budget you might get away with it, but by the time you add decent audio, you might find a good Phoenix isn't that far off the mark. BTW, can anyone tell me what the various Phoenix organs sell for these days?
Anyway, that's my 2 cents. (You get alot from me for two cents.) sorry if it's a bit long, but hope it's helpful
When the world comes to an end, I will be the Last Corpse Standing.