Tower Speaker Reviews

When a speaker company changes hands, particularly when it is sold by its founders, a new design team often comes on board. That can be a tricky affair. Like passing a baton in a relay race, if it's not handled smoothly, or if it's dropped, sometimes there's no catching up and the race is lost. That almost happened to giant Harman International when it bought Infinity from Arnie Nudell and Cary Christie. Both men ultimately left to pursue other ventures. It took years for Infinity to fully regain its footing, which it did with the rollout of the outstanding, high-tech Prelude system, reviewed by Joel Brinkley in the July/August 2000 issue of SGHT.

Even if you're not a baseball fan, you've probably heard of Mark McGwire. After crushing the previous single-season home-run record a couple of years ago, McGwire continues to pound the ball out of the park to the delight of Cardinals fans everywhere. Yet, despite his imposing form and incredible swing, McGwire (like most power hitters) strikes out with some regularity. Of course, who's going to complain to a guy who has hit 72 home runs in a single season?

Gestalt
Time after time, I find myself asking, "Now what did I go and say that for?" Recently, while sitting in our weekly staff editorial meeting, I once again opened myself up to an idea that would inevitably lead to more work for me. After requesting speaker systems to have on hand for review, I realized that they all shared one common similarity: They were all around $3,500 or less. I don't know of a retailer on this planet where you can audition Polk, Klipsch, and RBH speakers at the same time, yet I'm sure it will cross some reader's mind who's looking to spend that extra change under the mattress.

When was the last time you heard somebody say they were looking to spend as much as possible on something? When it comes to A/V equipment, you never hear people say, "Keep the change" or, "That's a little less than I was looking to spend."

When Pioneer commissioned Allen Boothroyd, a British industrial designer best known for his work with Meridian Audio, to come up with a unique appearance for its new surround-sound speaker system, they apparently knew what they <I>didn't</I> want: another boring set of square boxes. Nor did they want a speaker system that would blend into Ethan Allen surroundings.

In the summer of 1996, <I>SGHT</I> editor Lawrence Ullman made me an offer I couldn't refuse: "Wes," he asked, "how would you like to review M&K's new THX speaker package?"