LATEST ADDITIONS

Satellite startup <A HREF="http://www.xmradio.com">XM Radio</A> got a nice Christmas gift on December 24&mdash;an infusion of $450 million in new financing that should sustain it well into 2004.

The last months of 2002 were uneven ones for electronics retailers. American consumers, apparently trying to stretch their home entertainment dollars as far as possible, patronized discount stores while bypassing more upscale competitors.

Price fixing rumors squashed: On Tuesday, December 23, the US Department of Justice officially ended a two-year investigation of price fixing by major record labels, with a report that it had found no evidence to support any of the allegations. The investigation began in summer 2001 and concentrated primarily on online music service MusicNet, a joint venture by Warner Music Group, EMI Group, BMG Entertainment, and RealNetworks; and Pressplay, a joint venture by Sony Music Entertainment and Universal Music Group. The majors had been accused of conspiring to keep startups out of the online music distribution business.

There's traditional AM and FM radio, there's XM and Sirius satellite radio, and there are various cable and satellite dish "radio" music services. And finally, there's HD Radio.

<B>FAIRFIELD FOUR: <I>Standing in the Safety Zone</I></B><BR>
The Fairfield Four: Isaac Freeman, bass, musical director; James Hill, baritone, group manager; W. L. Richardson, lead, chaplain; Walter Settler, utility lead; Wilson Waters, tenor, treasurer<BR>Warner Bros. 26945-2 (CD only). Lee Olsen, prod. ADD. TT: 38:13

As names go, "Reference 3A" is awful. It sounds less like a company than it does a model number, as in the Dudco Reference 3A (on sale now wherever Fourier speakers used to be sold); I find it hard not to expect a Reference 3B with each new year. Add to that a cumbersome and somewhat meaningless model designation, "MM de Capo i"&mdash;what do the <I>M</I>s stand for? what does the <I>i</I> stand for? haven't there been other de Capos in audio recently?&mdash;and my poor brain becomes utterly confused. And the older I get, the less I can tolerate being confused. Forgive me if, during the course of this review, I get lazy and fall back on the lazy and admittedly somewhat Clintonesque <I>this speaker</I>.

Since 1991, Acarian Systems' Carl Marchisotto has brought home the bacon by focusing most of his efforts on conventional dynamic, three-way, floorstanding designs in the $2000-$7000/pair range&mdash;28 different loudspeaker designs in 12 years, 13 of them still in production. That's why Home Entertainment 2001 showgoers who were familiar with previous Al&#243;n efforts were taken aback when Marchisotto unveiled a new flagship for his Al&#243;n speaker line: the Exotica Grand Reference, a $120,000 line-source ribbon/dynamic hybrid system comprising five 7' towers. For those attracted to cost-no-object designs, the debut of the Exotica Grand Reference was quite a spectacle.