I actually quite like B&W speakers, even though I don't own any of them. They are extremely well made speakers. A good friend is a B&W nut and has one pair of 801's in his 2 channel room, 802's as mains in his 5.1 channel room, and several other random pairs of 'old' B&W bookshelves from years past. I've heard them all. Yes, he's a nut.
When I was ready to make the move to M80's, I carefully considered moving to B&W's instead of Axiom. Budget-wise, that meant their 600 series. Careful listening tests at local shops revealed that the 600's are nice and have a pleasant (to some!) warmth to the midrange, but really couldn't produce the volume that I was after. The 700's sounded much better to me. Quite good, in fact. Much more Axiom-like in that the midrange wasn't so pronounced and that the overall feeling of the sound was better. Great soundstage and very dynamic. Of course, with the price tag of a pair of 703's I could buy a whole 5.1 Axiom setup.
So there it is.
There is most certainly more 'show-off' factor in buying B&W speakers over Axiom. Their speakers are, to a large degree, a work of art. The cabinets and cones are beautiful to behold, especially the kevlar ones. They are great speakers and they are priced accordingly. With Axiom, you're going to get a very similar level of sound quality but at a much more affordable price.
When I demoed my system for my buddy, he was quite impressed. He did have a few minor criticisms about their sound compared to his 801 system. Then I told him how much the M80's were and he almost didn't believe me. Considering that M80's are about 10% the cost of his 801's, and my M80's were being driven by components that were about 5% the cost of his, he admitted that they were pretty incredible.
