Lord knows many of us small business owners trying to make a living in audio would love to be in Earl's position with a huge backlog of orders.
Interested forum dwellers should remember quite a few things about Earl's products (such as the Constant Directivity horns and high efficiency drivers) can be found in designs from other manufacturers. Of course some of Earl's tech with the specific horn design is unique to him, but then other companies also have things that are unique to them too.
Some other ideas if the waiting list is too long:
Audiokinesis (e.g. the Jazz, which is less than a pair of Abbey's), which has already been mentioned and I have heard very good things about from my friends in the acoustics community.
PHC (Professional Home Cinema, the designer is none other than Paul Hales, who some of you may remember from 10yrs ago) who have been quietly making digitally crossed over home theater systems for many years now and have come up with a few new models recently at much lower price points, some of which are definitely suitable for home audio use. A model equivalent to the Abbey, the SCR12sm is around 25% more expensive than the assembled Abbey.
Also I believe one of the smallest Danley horns (SM-60M) is at a similar price point.
All other options worth investigating. PHC I am more familiar with, Danley and AudioKinesis less so. Jeff Hedback is a good person to ask about AudioKinesis.
