also - to reiterate and amplify a sentiment above:
Higher price often implies higher quality/better sound.
Take for example wines. Most of us are not coinnesuers (sp?) of wine. Considering how many wines are available to us, it makes if very difficult to decide what wine to buy when you go to your local mega-mart. Wine companies take advantage of this fact. They acknowledge that, by and large, the consumer doesn't know a good bottle or a bad bottle of wine (unless given the chance to taste it). So, what do they do? They mark up their wines so that people will believe that the fermented goodness inside is of a higher quality. Most imbibers will likely tell you that their favorite bottle is not the most expensive. So, why do the more expensive bottles sell? (1) Because unwitting consumers confuse price with quality. (2) Because a higher price imparts a certain intangible prestige factor. And (3) Because when you spend more a wine (especially) you're more likely to think that it will taste better (psycho-acoustic wine tasting).
Applied to audio ---
Certain companies likely jack up their prices to trick unwitting consumers (1) with a lot of money, (2) with an unwillingness to shop aroudn or research, (3) with a desire to impress others, or (4) who seek to impress others or believe that the speakers they bought sound better because they paid more for them (actual psycho-acoustic phenomenon)
On many occasions, consumers don't like to buyt the cheapest item on the shelf. Cheapness makes people think that the items that they are buying are, well, cheap. Pricing an item more expensively may actually help to fool some people into believing that the item is of a higher quality. I suspect that this at play as much as anything else.
