Anechoic chamber testing and data analysis are necessary for the designer to determine a base line and give them further data points to help understand what it is that they are doing when they change something.

It is a data point, nothing more, nothing less. Just like the finish is a data point, nothing more, nothing less. If I like black, and the speaker is black, my metal tally gives it another point over the white speaker.

One thing to remember with regards to Axiom, is they use the anechoic chamber quite a bit, but they also follow up with blind listening evaluations.