xforce,
i would not presume that the Paradigm reference line has more 'quality' parts because of a slightly higher price difference or because they are considered the 'high end' of the Paradigm lineup.
This is how a company's marketing strategy sucks in the buyers. They could change one feature of a speaker from their 'low end' brands, give it a new better sounding name and sell it for an extra hundred bucks knowing that buyers coming in looking for the best their money can get, will buy the 'higher' end speaker.
For example, we take two speaker brands and place them a mere $100 apart in price and change the drivers from an aluminum tweeter to a combo Al-Ti tweeter. Change the woofers from a polymer cone to a mica polymer cone or perhaps make them out of heavier HDF instead of MDF and rename them. Now which one would you buy?
A) Company Name Stylus Theatre series or,
B) Company Name Superior Reference Gold series (for only a hundred or two more)
Alot of research goes into product name testing to see what sounds good to the consumer in the world of electronics, food products...you name it.
Axiom does not have model 'categories' like Paradigm, so it is easy to think that all Axiom has is one standard line of speakers with just differences in size and driver numbers.
Don't let the names or prices fool you. Axiom simply builds the best speaker they can, period.
The only way to know better quality is to audition for oneself and to do it without any predisposition or bias towards a brand.
I think of that advice when reviewing speaker prices and component materials by trying to remember Wilson Audio's $80, 000 (USD; $125, 000Cdn) X-1Grand SLAMM speakers.
I don't care if they do weigh 1200 lbs, they are not worth that much cash unless that weight is due to solid gold parts.
wilson ridiculous audio grand slamm
No one will ever convince me that they actually sound
120, 000 times better than the $1000 Axioms.
