Tom you are not talking with a novice here...I'm an audio dealer myself and have been in this business for over 25 years, first as an enthusiast and later a little more involved on it...
If you disagree just go to Part Express and Madisound, just two of them, an check for high-end drivers from Vifa, Peerless, Morel, Seas, Dayton, HiVi, Dynavox, and even Chinese drivers, etc...and see the prices, with technologies more sophisticated than titanium and aluminum cones...Peerless has right now similar aluminum drivers for less and God knows about performance, I have not tested them...
The tweeter from the Alesis monitor ones, that are excellent tweeters BTW, are right now in Parts Express for $8.00 in a buyout, my brother have the monitor ones and let me tell you that those are reference monitors for any decent setup or in any decent studio...
AV123 and even some projects from PE done by D'Appolito sounds very good for the money and employs drivers that rival if not better any Axiom drivers for less...Remeber that just because one company manufacture drivers, doesn't make them better than others, to manufacture drivers is indeed a way of lower costs in some cases and in others just to get a reliable quality and availability overtime...and rarely about the specs...driver technologies are about a century old now if not more...
Read here a little over the lines, from the engineer of McIntosh Audio:
http://www.roger-russell.com/lsd2.htmThose prices are IMO symbolic prices to stop upgraditis, and force to buy the new models, that God knows if indeed sound better...we are trusting their ears not ours...and do not forget that audio is not just a sum of elements, geometry, real state, of the room etc...plays a very important role in the sound at the end....I have seen very good speakers sod miserable in odd shaped rooms, while others less expensive will shine
