Certainly with the upper end, high-priced speaker brands, aside from the evaluation of the sound, it always looks to me that much of what you are paying for is in the more exotic and more expensive cabinetry and aesthetics. Aside from name recognition, I believe the recent Lexicon/Oppo controversy somewhat revealed how that comes in to play with the "perception" of the potential buyer.

If one looks at the market place today, no other brand comes close to the enormous variety of finishes that Axiom offers and of course when you get in to the "real wood" veneer products, the price to build them goes up significantly. No matter what the finish, it doesn't change the quality of the sound but in the perception of the potential buyer if "hypothetically" Axiom decided to produce speakers strictly in the more expensive finishes, called it their "ultimate V3" line and charged more money, would that "niche" market perceive it to be better? Given the way some think, that would likely be the case. We see this exact example with even Axiom's closest Canadian competitors such as Paradigm and PSB who manufacture three or four lines each somewhat more "exotic" than the other and more expensive.

The way Axiom handles it, I believe, in the variety, just lets the "performance" of the product speak for itself and give the customer the options of how much more money they want to spend on "looks". In the end, I am sure their sales volume shows this to be the best overall marketing strategy.