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The Type A has served as Snell Acoustics' flagship loudspeaker since 1974. The Type A Reference System reviewed here is the sixth update of the late <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/floorloudspeakers/378snell/index4.html">Peter Snell</A>'s original three-way floorstanding design, and is the most radical departure from <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/floorloudspeakers/378snell">Snell's original</A>. Gone is the pair of "upright bricks of polished wood and stretched cloth" (footnote 1) that delighted decorators because they functioned best against a wall. Today's Type A Reference $18,999 price tag (footnote 2) purchases two tall midrange-tweeter towers, two huge subwoofers, two short but heavy enclosures housing the outboard passive crossover networks, and a small electronic crossover.

Discs may be getting pass&#233;, but the technology keeps maturing and most music is still released on CD. Besides, deals on used discs also abound. Are you still interested in CD players?

Digital sales rep, Jon Banner, just shared with me this bit of beautiful brilliance.

Lydia Lunch's 1980 album <i>Queen of Siam</i> (ZE Records ZEA 33006, LP) is so impressive&#151both sonically and musically&#151that, while listening, you might just find yourself compelled to send an enthusiastic, breathless text message to one of your friends.

"Experience which is not valued is not experienced....Value is at the very front of the empirical procession."</I>&#151;Robert M. Pirsig, <I>Lila</I>

Lyle Owerko likes boomboxes.

One of the records we listened to <a href="http://blog.stereophile.com/stephenmejias/at_the_monkeyhaus/">at the Monkeyhaus</a> last week was Sonny & Linda Sharrock's <i>Paradise</i>&#151a powerfully uplifting record, in my opinion. Sonny Sharrock, however, did not feel the same. In a 1989 interview with WKCR's Ben Ratliff, Sonny dismissed <i>Paradise</i> as being "not a good album," and attributed the album's failure to his own incompetence as a bandleader.