Spike, as a staff shooter for Martin I have a little experience. Not a lot, but maybe can help you through this. First let me say that your man at the local shop is right. Martin bows do have aluminum risers. And so do about 95% of all the other bows. So that is not even a consideration here. They do have as good a quality in materials and workmanship as I've found in other bows, regardless of price or reputation.

I would suggest you shoot a lot of bows before buying. You have to determine what you want to use the bow for primarily and choose accordingly. If it's primarily a hunting bow then I would not necessarily recommend a SlayR. I shoot one and it's a real speed burner. I consider it on the heavy side for hunting. It makes a great 3D bow.

Depending on what you can or want to spend, I would look at the Cougar III on the high end of the price range. The Orion or Quest would be a good choice also. Of the two I like the quest. If going with the Cougar I would recommend the Nitrous cam for outright speed. It's a two cam system but don't let all the old myths deter you from two cams. If choosing the other two I would probably go for the TruArc cam. It's slower but just easier to shoot than the single cam.

If you have a proshop that carries Martin then Do some serious looking at the RazorX or the Saber. These are two nice shooter. Here agin, the Razor is available with the Nitrous cam, but in a longer ATA. More in the hunting version both bows are to be had in the TruArc cam. If you want the more accurate then I'd have to say the Saber for all around performance, speed and forgiveness. It's just a complete package in one bow.

For the most part you should find the bows fairly vibration free (there is always some) and pretty quiet, too. Of all the bows I mentioned above I think the Cougar would be the most expensive at a normal retail of about $500 to $529. So that should give you an idea of what to expect.