This is my own particular sense of it certainly, but I'd say that if you're the kind of customer that does not have a lot of specialized experience or detailed working knowledge or familiarity of the audio market (and perhaps speaker market especially) - the kind that can take many years or decades to cultivate anyway - IOW you are **not** what we'd call a "hobbyist" per se, nor do you have any kind of DIY background as well, but instead are perhaps, say, a young, or middle-aged, professional with a more limited exposure and are possibly looking to employ someone's professional help or input up front in your decision making process, then I'd say that certain companies like Wilson or B&W might have a more intriguing profile for you than some others. They tend to attract such buyers by offering well-reviewed designs (by that I mean In-House reviewed, I'm not really talking about pro or user reviews, but here I mean ee reviewed designs in-house). These guys tend to be more 'careful' in their design approach and they essentially want to "play it safe", so to speak, on behalf of their customers. That is, they don't do things in a splashy sort of way, they don't go in much for design fads or the very latest trends and they don't introduce new models or discontinue older models at anything approaching a dizzying rate...more of a steady-as-you-go, tried-but-true approach that is meant to project, along with good service, support and marketing, the reassurance of a certain measure of authority and professionalism. Say what you want about such companies, and I count myself among those who might say that, for my own tastes anyway, they might be playing things a little *too* safe generally, but they have been around a long time and seem to continue to do some business at a time when the audio market, nationally or worldwide, happens to be deader than 4 o'clock.
For my own purposes, while I would likely say that Wilson does not do things quite the way I would prefer my kinds of manufacturers to do things, that may really only be because I've been around the audio neighborhood a while (45 yrs) and have since acquired the kind of audiophile background that has allowed me to 'outgrow', if you will, the need for such a company business model and that that may not be necessarily the case for others...but, I certainly don't hate them.
