LATEST ADDITIONS

Vandersteen lovers, of which there are many, may stare in disbelief at these words, but AXPONA 2019 marks the first time that I truly got why so many people rave about Vandersteen's sound. At least I think I did. Even if I didn't fully get what other people get, I got enough to say, "Oh yeah, uh huh, that Vandersteen midrange is surely something worth writing home about." In fact, based on what I heard, I see why some people would prefer to cart up the whole thing and let it do the speaking.

Getting ready for the first day's visitors in AXPONA's Ear Gear Expo, Ayre's vice president and CTO, Ariel Brown, was busy setting up the Colorado's company's QX-5 Twenty D/A processor ($8950, right) Codex D/A headphone amplifier ($1795, hidden in center, and the new QX-8 D/A processor ($4450 with S/PDIF inputs, $4950 with asynchronous USB input, $5450 with USB and Roon Ready Ethernet, left).

In front of the room sponsored by GoldenEar Technology and PrimaLuna USA, I saw tube maven Kevin Deal (above)—the latter company's Primary Dude—displaying the insides of a PrimaLuna amplifier. PR man extraordinaire Anthony Chiarella was sitting next to him saying, "Its built like a Fabergé egg." Which indeed it was.

I'm a little old to be a fan (but I am), and some say singer-songwriter Billie Eilish is a little young (just turned 17) to be as famous and successful as she is. But hey, what's-his-name from the Jackson Five was only five years old when he was that famous . . .

On my way to AXPONA's Master Class Theater to catch Rob Robinson's seminar on current-mode phono preamplifiers, I was buttonholed by David Janszen. The Janszen name is synonymous with electrostatic drive-units—the midrange unit in the legendary Wilson WAMM was based on Janszen technology—and at AXPONA David was demonstrating prototype electrostatic headphones, the Lotus.

I turned up at Mike Jbara's Master Class presentation Friday afternoon, "Achieving Authentic Studio Quality Sound," expecting fireworks. Jbara is the chief executive of MQA and many internet denizens had declared that they would be attending his presentation to oppose what he would be saying. But all was quiet during Jbara's 45-minute talk on what he regards as the benefits of the controversial codec to both the music industry and to audiophiles. Another MQA-related Master Class takes place at AXPONA Saturday April 13 at 12 noon. Moderated by Besflores Nievara Jr., Brand Ambassador for Music Direct, Mike Jbara will join MQA partner NAD's CTO, Greg Stidsen, and other panelists to discuss "The Future of High Resolution Audio." Perhaps the fireworks will be in evidence tomorrow!

Spying the Scaena (pronounced Sane-a) room, I was happy to hear their fabulous sounding speakers once again. This time it was the Scaena Model 3 ($90,000 pair including the two big subwoofers), driven by a High Fidelity Cables MA-1 amplifier ($30,000), fed by a four-stack dCS Vivaldi system ($114,996 total) and connected by High Fidelity cables.