Great points doc. I understand for development cost (which affects end price) considerations why Axiom might go the route of using the identical enclosure as the floorstander and just arraying the drivers differently, but I would rather pay a bit more for the new center to get an enclosure with one flat and one angled side. With two angled sides, the ONLY non-stand deployment option will be on a shelf BELOW the monitor. No stand of any kind will work in my environment; I do have shelf space, but it's above my monitor.
If I were to guess (and this is all that it is) is that Axiom probably has increasing economies of scale in speaker production (with standard vinyl finishes). The great thing here if this is the case, the M80 centre channel will use all the same parts (enclosure, drivers, tweeters etc) so there is little in R&D costs other than the time and materials to come up with the orientation of the drivers, tweeters and mabye changes to the crossover. For the M80 centre channel I assume this will be very cost effective for them even if they make minor changes for an angled cabinet (this is the area where I hope savings can be passed onto the consumer). Placement, development and need for the stand is probably where it gets tricky and where the consumer takes on extra added cost and can have an affect on their purchasing decisions.
