Top down or bottom up? Just asking...

It still all comes down to personal taste. I could easily see someone preferring Paradigm’s top offering to whatever Sonus Faber, for example, has at that same price point.

The bigger issue, I think, is that Paradigm has a much harder hill to climb scaling up than it is to scale down in large part due to brand perception. I shook my head when VW launched the $100,000 Phaeton and new it would fail from the get go. The Phaeton was actually an impressive car, but are you gonna drop 100 grand on a Volkswagen when you could have a BMW, Porsche, Mercedes, etc.? It’s precisely why Toyota, Nissan, and Honda created Lexus, Infiniti, and Acura — they knew perception matters, a lot.

The benefit to scaling up might be that as higher-volume manufacturers they can possibly leverage their cost advantages in creating higher-level products theoretically giving them even higher margins selling high-end products, but it doesn’t matter if people won’t buy them in sufficient numbers.

Case in point, MA’s top speakers are by all accounts fantastic and a great bargain for the performance they deliver, but they don’t get near the attention of the Wilsons, Magicos, etc. at their price points. I believe if MA launched a luxury division with a nice new name and raised their prices their top speakers would be getting a lot more interest and exposure. But, all else being equal and speaking from a manufacturer’s perspective, I’d certainly rather be in the position of scaling down as it’s a hugely easier path than going the other way.  Not sure this answers anything, but anyway...

Theoretically, all other things being equal, yes. When in fact all other things are never equal, so the answer is no.

Everything I loathe about these sorts of threads, distilled down into two concise sentences. Practice makes perfect. If only you guys would back off on the opportunities to practice.

Soix: Points well taken. MA gx50 I chose for my 'second' system and I thought them much better than other more expensive. They were so small I thought I was hearing things, but on 3rd listen made up my mind., The PL100II I own--bought unheard because they were an incredible bargain--I thought much more to my taste than 50% more expensive Focal, Kef, and Totem. 
but after all--who could prefer MA or Paradigm to Raidho or Wilson. 
lol.

@OP,
I can only base my opinion upon what my favorite speaker manufacturer does (Vandersteen).
Mr. V's top of the line incorporates the best of the best-Hence the price.
But, the technology incorporated into that speaker has trickled down the line into more affordable speakers like the Quatro and Kento, as well as the venerable 1,2 and 3 speakers and now his subs.
I imagine manufacturers like Wilson and Magico do much the same.-All the while preserving the 'sound' that distinguish their brands.
Bob

@rsgottlieb I don't think it's a case of top down or bottom's up.

I think it's a case of execution against a product strategy and the product offering.

If a company is disciplined in their product strategy and execution they can produce products using a good, better, best offering.  Audio Research is pretty disciplined in this approach.

Other companies focus on satisfying customer demand through presenting themselves through as many channels as possible - think of Sony and their presence at Best Buy, Cruchfield, Target, etc.

So I'd be inclined to focus on what the product strategy is versus the price point of the products.