When a budget speaker is preferred to a high end one...

@ghdprentice  It's never happened to me either in my personal system, and for the exact reasons you mentioned, proper research and auditioning.

@blisshifi   I have to say the Scansonic MB2.5s showed me what could be done with a sealed ribbon tweeter, better sound than the Esotar II I had liked in the Dynaudio Sapphires.

Occasionally I have been wowed by the sound of great budget system and its probably a combination of things that all went right. Rare.

I see speakers costing 10000s using cheaper drivers than ones costing 1/2 as much. With audio price doesn't necessarily equal performance. 

Years ago, I heard and fell in love with Martin Logan Monolith IIIx, active xover, two amps, lots of wire, cost a fortune, amazing speakers... bought them, and within a year, replaced them with Vandersteen 3As. Much better.
The problem was my room.
(Sold the Monoliths to a buyer in Japan and actually made money, so it's all good.)
I think it comes down to your order of preference: less expensive speaker can do some things spectacularly well (I love the Revel M106) and if that's what floats your boat, might as well stop there. But some, not all, more expensive speakers do many things well, and... can float more boats? Float bigger boats? I'm lost...

Good luck!

I heard the Radialstrahler System Xtreme in a good demo once... breathtaking. Truly breathtaking. $250,000 was a little high for me at the time (ya think?). But I heard the incredible sonics and could see the engineering and expense. Well done, MBL. Clearly they represent value for (an incredible amount of) money. 

Chacon a son gout! And happy listening.

@bobpyle 

 "There is no difference between high end and budget speakers. Only the price."

Please can you explain your rationale for this statement?

Thank you,

BP

How about I turn the tables and ask you to show me evidence that there is any difference?

@akg_ca 

The key word in the OP is “preferred”, and no assertion of “best”.This is a fine but important distinction.

What is the distinction?