Empire was a long established Long Island manufacturer of turntables and cartridges which also sold a series of speakers which were almost all designed not to look much like speakers, instead being columnar with marble tops and so on so that they could function and look like end tables or pedestals for whatever. The had downward facing woofers which coupled them nicely to the floor boundary, and used high dispersion drivers for the upper end, coupled to acoustic lenses. The sonic results were mixed -- some people liked them, and others didn't care for them. Probably depended on how you used them -- location, location, location. The aesthetics were also a mixed bag -- the wood column was nice, but the metal acoustic lenses stuck out like a sore thumb in my opinion. And the woofers tend to sag over time, which can be a problem.