How important are the Speaker Cabinets?

selling hifi is a game of inches, even if you're jumping thousands of dollars....in the early 90's i did sales and marketing for a notable hifi manufaturer, who made wonderful speakers. each wrapped in a sock with wooden caps (not def teach or vandy). on the sales floor of a dealer, we were up against pretty big competition, and though we were certainly as good, we were being killed in sales. brainstorm.....we replaced the standard oak caps with a variety of exotic woods and of course, raised the prices a few hundred dollars. we also offered very rare caps and custom sock colors for a bigger price....sales and special orders improved dramatically....the speakers were always solid performers, they just needed to involve the consumer at a different level to seal the deal.

I know a lot us buy equipment based upon resale value just in case we want to upgrade and sell our equipment. So I guess brand recognition it just as important as sound quality. How do new speaker manufacturers overcome this?

Do they offer a comparable product for less than its value to break into the market? Then once they have broken into the market do they raise their prices to reflect their current market position.

I have notice some manufactures offer a great product at a reasonable price in the beginning and then almost price themselves out of the market.

It appears, IMO, that this becomes a game the consumer has to wade through to find the best value.

Very important!! You don't want them if you want the most accurate sound:

Quad

Soundlab

Magnepan

Martin Logan (well some)

Apogee

Analysis Audio

Viridian, you are absolutely right. A recording is an approximation of the original event at best. In room #1 we have components A,B, and C. The origninal recording engineer has listened to the playback and proclaimed it to be an excellent recreation of his work. Now we move A,B, and C to room #2 and the engineer listens again and proclaims the sound is too hard and steely. So, are the components accurate or not?
To the original OP, obviously the cabinet material/construction has a major influence in the sound. You can go from ultra rigid cabinets like Wilson to bending wave cabinets such as the Omnimon.