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—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 Alón efforts were taken aback when Marchisotto unveiled a new flagship for his Alón 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.

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—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 Alón efforts were taken aback when Marchisotto unveiled a new flagship for his Alón 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.

One of audio's true originals, Irving "Bud" Fried first made his mark in the late 1950s by becoming an early US importer of Lowther corner horn and Quad electrostatic loudspeakers. By 1975, he had established his own company and began releasing speaker models under the Fried nameplate.

The music industry's traditional packaged-goods retail business may be continuing its long decline, but the sale of downloadable tunes is hot and getting hotter.

The Recording Industry Association of America (<A HREF="http://www.riaa.com">RIAA</A&gt;) has lost a couple of important rounds in its fight against file sharing.

The audiophile Rosetta Stone? From the December issue, Kalman Rubinson goes looking for the perfect all-purpose audio player as he reviews the <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/digitalsourcereviews/1203linn">Linn Unidisk 1.1 universal disc player</A>. As KR notes, "Even more important than comprehensive compatibility will be any truly universal player's ability to optimally play back all of these formats without robbing Peter to pay Paul."

Audio manufacturers love to make big announcements at the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas (which runs January 8&ndash;11, 2004), and the upcoming show is no exception. In addition to Fried Products' aggressive relaunch (see <A HREF="/news/122203fried">related story</A>), several other companies are heading in new directions.

<B>PJ HARVEY: <I>Dry</I></B><BR>
Too Pure/Indigo/Island 162-555 001-2 (CD only). Head, PJ Harvey, Robert Ellis, prods.; Head, eng. AAD? TT: 40:06

Sony's first flagship Super Audio CD player was the two-channel SCD-1, <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/showarchives.cgi?180">reviewed by Jonathan Scull</A> in November 1999. (The $5000 SCD-1 had balanced outputs; the cosmetically different but otherwise identical $3500 SCD-777ES had unbalanced outputs and was <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/showarchives.cgi?346">reviewed by Chip Stern</A> in April 2001.) Sony's second-generation flagship player, the $3000 SCD-XA777ES, was <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/showarchives.cgi?491">reviewed by Kalman Rubinson</A> in January 2002, and added multichannel capability with channel-level adjustment and bass management. Sony's third-generation flagship is the SCD-XA9000ES, also priced at $3000, which adds time-delay adjustment for its multichannel analog outputs and is presented in a smart new styling that Sony calls "Silver Cascade." The disc drawer and the most frequently used controls are on the angled top half of the brushed-aluminum front panel; in the lower half are the display, the headphone jack and its volume control, and the multifunction control knob.