My experience has been that ALL speaker manufacturers charge quite a premium for drivers. It is one of the only ways they have of protecting intellectual property rights. It's pretty easy to reverse-engineer the crossover and enclosure; not so easy to reverse-engineer the drivers. The only way to avoid knockoffs (aka somebody stealing and profiting from the significant investment already made in research and development) is to control at least one critical part of the equation. For loudspeaker companies, that piece ends up being the drivers.
Personally, I have no problem with Axiom's policies or pricing in this area, and have absolute faith that they would deal with me fairly if I ever needed service.
