In the room shared by Gary Dews's BorderPatrol Audio, Greg Roberts's Volti Audio, and Peter Grzybowski's Triode Wire Labs, music flowed, immense of stage, fast of delivery, with heart-arresting texture, visceral verisimilitude, and dynamic fireworks.
In House of Stereo's Room 716, T+A's Chief Executive Office of North America, David Nauber, played the brand new, barely off the airship, T+A R 2500 R Integrated Multi Source Receiver ($18,880). A VPI Avenger Direct Turntable with FatBoy Gimbal tonearm ($36,000), DS Audio Grand Master EX System cart ($22,500) and phono stage ($45,000), T+A PSD 3100 HV DAC/PRE ($22,000), T+A A 3000 HV Power Amplifier ($24,275), T+A PS 3000 HV Power Supply ($16,695), and T+A Solitaire S430 speakers ($29,900) completed the setup. Cabling by WireWorld.
Jacksonville, Florida, dealership House of Stereo occupied eight (!) rooms at FLAX. Room 709 debuted Steinheim's 2.5 Alumine Two.Five loudspeakers ($23,500/pair), accompanied by a bevy of refined products that kept the room packed to overflowing. Several were from Germany's T+A ("Engineering emotion"), including the SD 3100 HV Reference Streaming DAC ($32,387).
Japan's TAD had two rooms at FLAX, including the large Bayshore ballroom, which itself contained two systems, each with two pairs of speakers. Both systems wowed me.
Dealer Scott Walker Audio, which has showrooms in Anaheim, California, and Keller, Texas, and Synergistic Research presented several new products at FLAX including the Synergistic Voodoo streamer erver ($14,995); the PowerCell 8 SX conditioner ($3495); and SRX USB ($5995), Ethernet ($5995), and XL Power cables ($13,000).
MBL is best known for its striking Radialstahler omnidirectional speaker systems, first introduced in 1979, but the company has made electronics to accompany its speakers since 1986. On the Tampa Terrace at the Florida International Audio Expo, MBL showed off a system featuring the new Cadenza C41 network player ($11,100).
I'm used to demoing SVS at AV trade shows, but not at high-end two-channel affairs like this Tampa show. The debut of the Ultra Evolution series speakers represents the dawn of a new era for a company that made its name designing high-performance subwoofers and affordable, high-performance speakers. With video.
In the photo above, worker bees Megan Bovaird and Matt Bochicchio welcome you to the sixth annual Florida International Audio Expo (FLAX), held this year and all non-COVID years at the Embassy Suites by Hilton, in Tampa, Florida.
Indeed! The voice of my full-range system in the living room is a pair of B&W 808 speakers, ca late 1980s. The smaller-scale system at our house upstate features a pair of B&W 805 D2s. So, outside of my mastering studio, most of the music I listen to is through Bowers & Wilkins speakers. I am accustomed to and enjoy B&W sound and styling.
I recently received a letter (not yet published) suggesting a need for a glossary of newer hi-fi terms. Some audiophiles raised on physical media, it seems, are perplexed by descriptions of the new streaming landscape. Just yesterday, all we had to worry about was DACs and transports. Today we have servers, streamers, players, streaming DACs, and all that. That immediately struck me as a good idea, allied with a second reason: To avoid confusion, it makes sense for the industry to standardize the nomenclature. When we see the word "streamer," for example, we should all be thinking about the same thing.
So, here's a brief glossary of streaming-related devices.