I bought a set of Ardennes. After a spoke popped, my LBS discovered that my straight-from-the-factory Ardennes were laced with mismatched spokes. The wheel contained several off-brand "clone" spokes and two spokes were not even bladed spokes. Bad deal. My wheel was delayed coming from HED and, when I cancelled my order, my wheels were suddenly ready. I suspect they were out of the proper spokes and threw it together with whatever they could find, just to get my order out.

That's probably not true of every set of HED wheels, but it soured me on their product.