Issue 145 / December 2003 - January 2004
the abso!ute sound
2003 Golden Ear Awards
Alón Exotica Grand Reference Speaker System
$126,000
Since its introduction, designer Carl Marchisotto made improvements
to his statement speaker system. But they did not lend the sweeping
"authority" to the system that the recent Series II change did. He
replaced all the capacitor coils in the three-way system that
integrates the drivers in the main towers with much more sophisticated
and expensive windings. The transformation gives the speaker a focus
and coherency, not to mention its images, an eerie palpability that
place Exotica now among the world's great reproducers, thus making it
a "classic."