Andrew Jones Moves to ELAC
Legendary speaker designer Andrew Jones has officially left the building. The man responsible for Pioneer's sub-brand TAD, the world-renowned Reference One speakers and a bunch of highly successful Pioneer branded entry level models, has confirmed he's made a move to a rival company.
Pioneer are exiting the Hi-Fi market, or something, no one's really sure since the Pioneer / Onkyo announcement back in June '14. One thing's for sure, Jones wasn't going to sit around and wait.
ELAC, the German manufacturer that's been in the game since the mid 1920's saw an opportunity and quickly moved to strike, announcing Andrew Jones this week as vice president of engineering for ELAC America. Well played ELAC.
Australian distributor Synergy Audio Visual 're-launched' the brand downunder this year after quite a few years of lacklustre presence.
StereoNET reviewed ELAC's FS77 speakers early in 2015 concluding:
... I really can’t find any serious fault with these speakers, especially at the asking price. And speaking of price, at only $1499 they are extraordinary value. The Germans really are passionate about their products and seem to really live by their own marketing words “Quality is more than just a word to us, next to music it is also our passion.” I would heartily agree. Recommended.
With Andrew Jones moving to the technical and design helm, his first project is the Debut Series, an entry level, high performance speaker line to improve on the previous Pioneer models. Starting with a clean slate, the first design will debut later this month.
Gunter Kürten, Managing Director for ELAC told StereoNET:
ELAC is pleased to bring Andrew Jones on board, as the company expands into a global market with products that establish benchmarks for performance and quality at every price point and in every category of the consumer audio market.
More excitingly though, Jones has said he will design an all new, from the ground up, ultra high-end loudspeaker. If it draws upon what was learned from TAD Reference One and improves upon it, it'll likely be something very special. Jones will be working from ELAC's new Southern California design facility.
Throughout his career, Jones has enjoyed successful stints as a speaker designer with other brands including KEF and Infinity.
ELAC is distributed in Australia by Synergy Audio Visual.
Marc Rushton
StereoNET’s Founder and Publisher was born in England and raised on British Hi-Fi before moving to Australia. He developed an early love of music and playing bass guitar before discovering the studio and the other side of the mixing desk. After writing for print magazines, Marc saw the future in digital publishing and founded the first version of StereoNET in 1999.
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