I just watched a very interesting conversation between Ron Resnick and Roger Hwang regarding the dismissal of Val Cora and his wife from Acora and ARC.
Resnick asked some hard hitting questions and Hwang answered them with surprising candor.
Big changes coming for the speaker company, starting with a rebranding and a downmarket move for at least part of the line. (I wonder if they’ll attach the ARC name to the speakers)
I always thought Val was the primary shareholder of Acora but he never was.
According to Hwang, his cosmetics company has ample spare capacity to move some part of the upcoming speaker line to China. Audio Research will “always be made in the US”.
Drawing the curtain back on ARC/Acora with a brutally honest interview. Announcing ACORA will be rebranded, a Signature Line to be released followed by a more affordable line. Link below:
I think Mr. Hwang exposed a little too much of his… thoughts. 
One might argue it’s good for us, but as a the major shareholder of a privately owned company I think he made some missteps, one of them being telling everyone that Kevin Hayes from VAC had been brought on to consult in some of the design work for ARC. He indicated Kevin would/might continue in that regard. It caused Kevin (who I take to be an honest fellow) to have to issue a statement clarifying what his role was at ARC (which according to him had completed). To me Mr. Hwang’s responses pointed less at candor and more at not knowing what to say, what not to say, or how to say it. What it did suggest to me is that he doesn’t seem to understand how his words would be taken by the audiophile community. He chose to speak how he did, however, so it is what it is.
Cultural differences noted. Should ARC continue, well that could be a good thing.
I wonder if some of it had to do with using VAC stuff on his demos at the shows. I always thought that was very silly for the CEO of one tube design company to use its competitors stuff for their speaker demo. I am sure there was more, but I can see that starting some rifts.
It may be an intentional ploy to get the entrenched to more or less move on.
I work at a very political large company (not retail) and see this happen all the time. The ARC side I get but not sure on the Acora. That was his baby he started and hate to see a VC come and do this, but of course I do not see the profit numbers. The way he said we will make it profitable makes me think they were loosing money. I owned both (have Acora now and just sold my ARC) and love both and hope they grow.
Well he put his cards on the table, not sure how the interview serves him and future clients. I’ve no dog in this race.