My B&W speakers

Who says there not high end. They may be entry level pricewise but they are very good "High End" speakers. Go to this site for an excellent review
http://www.enjoythemusic.com/magazine/equipment/0900/bwdm602.htm

The cabinet and crossover are critical to speaker performance and the lower lines do not pay the same attention to them as the more expensive ones. What do you care anyway, if they sound high end to you say so; I doubt if the Audiophile police will come for you.

Yes, they are high-end. Just believe "they are high end", and they indeed are... All kidding aside, low end, hig end, etc.... who the hell really cares.. as long as you enjoy the music coming from them, isn't that what matters? As in any hobby, it all depends on how insane you get, and there are many on this forum that people outside would classify them as such for claiming to hear and getting excited by the minutest difference in sound. Remember, beauty is only in the eyes of the beholder!!!...:-)

A true search for enlightenment.

There is no doubt that most products from B&W would be considered high end compared to the general market of Best Buy specials. While some of the construction details are part of trickle down design coming down from prior high end efforts.

If you do move upscale, you will likely find additional performance up the ladder, but a substantial cost increase that is often an inverse of performance gain. As for your statement about the tech being the same, its the finer details the manufacture may gloss over. The use of the tapered tube to absorb resonance on the back of the tweeter is only one part. The top tweeter now uses a quad magnet structure for greater field strength, a diamond dome to push breakup nodes to beyond any signal you would possible feed, and square voice coil wire to maximize conductivity within the coil. That is just the driver itself and doesn't consider the low resonance material used in the high end driver casing or the lack of baffle plate for diffraction. The reason I mention is to show that while you receive a good dose of high end tech, they do have more tricks to apply in future models. I am sure that if you decide to upgrade to a future series, some of these might end up in your next model.

One thing is for certain, the speaker you currently own likely competes very well with cost no object design from less then ten years ago. The one you may own in a few years from now might be comparable to the best of todays models. Its the great part of technological evolution of todays products.