Apple AirPods Pro 3: First Impressions

Hegel H150 Integrated Amplifier Officially Announced

Sonus faber Announces Amati Supreme Speaker

FiiO M27 Headphone DAC Amplifier Released

Audio Advice Acquires The Sound Room

LATEST ADDITIONS

AXPONA 2022

The MartinLogan Rooms at AXPONA

Rogier van Bakel Apr 24, 2022

When a brand that's rightly famous for world-class electrostatic panels wants to design a line of in-wall speakers, things can get pretty daunting. After all, electrostats are dipolessound flows from both the front and back. Installing a dipole in a wall is as useless as hanging a stained-glass window in a dark closet.

AXPONA 2022

The Audio Archon & Audio Note (UK) System

Ken Micallef Apr 24, 2022

Trends come and go. Manufacturers lose their shirts and pull up stake. This year's hot design trend becomes tomorrow's price knockdown. Amid the hype and ballyhoo often found in high end audio, Audio Note (UK) remains an oasis of beauty, purity, and simplicity, and at affordable prices. A legacy brand that doesn't feel the need to change designs, when, after all they make music, Audio Note (UK) offered lucidity and great music at AXPONA.

AXPONA 2022

Focal and Naim at AXPONA

Rogier van Bakel Apr 24, 2022

Elton John fans, forgive me. I've nothing against the man, but most of his songs do less for me than a nude painting does for a blind man (that is, we literally can't see the attraction). So it was fairly remarkable that, in the Focal demo room, the Dolby Atmos version of Elton John's "Rocket Man" made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. If a high-end rig can put you in touch with music you normally don't even care about, it's time to investigate.

AXPONA 2022

Legacy Audio Loudspeakers at AXPONA

Ken Micallef Apr 23, 2022

Bill Duddleston brought not one, but four of his Legacy Audio systems to Axpona, where he mixed and matched components, but each system was largely unique, especially in the loudspeaker complement.

AXPONA 2022

Devialet at AXPONA: Raising the (Sound) Bar

Rogier van Bakel Apr 23, 2022

The AXPONA experience is head-spinning in more ways than one. So many rooms, so many people to meet, so much gear to listen to. And so much regret when you realize that you can't fit it all into two or three days, unless each day were to last as long as it does it on Mercury. (Maybe one day we'll have audio shows theresign me up!)

Another head-spinner occurred Saturday morning when I had to almost forcibly drag myself off the listening couch in the 16th-floor Avantgarde Acoustic room, where dCS front-end gear and a pair of gargantuan Trio G3 horn speakers ($180,000) had bowled me over with perhaps the most heavenly, enveloping sound of the entire show. Why did I leave? Because I had an appointment at the Devialet room on the same floor to listen to...(drum roll) a Dolby Atmos soundbar.

AXPONA 2022

Upscale Distribution, Cabasse, Feliks Audio, Kiseki, Pathos Acoustics, PrimaLuna, Sbooster, Tannoy

Ken Micallef Apr 23, 2022

Upscale Distribution's Kevin Deal brought his posse to AXPONA (leftright: Randy Bingham, Kevin Deal, Craig Hoffman, Alex Brinkman). Though Deal's room was static, he also sponsored legacy French brand, Cabasse, in an adjacent room, where Cabasse representative Jean-Michel Polit demoed the thrilling flagship Pearl Pelegrina loudspeakers ($20,999/pair).

AXPONA 2022

Magnepan's giant-killer upgrade, the $995/pair LRS+

Rogier van Bakel Apr 23, 2022

After a few hours of listening to speakers that cost well into the five and six figures, how much enthusiasm could I muster for a pair that retails for just $995? As it turns out, a lot. I'd heard the $750/pair Magnepan LRS a few years ago and marveled at how low the admission price to true high-end sonics can be. They sounded fast, surefooted, and transparent. Magnepan's new LRS+ speakers offer more of the same but at an elevated level and a slightly elevated price. Wendell Diller, a.k.a. Mr. Magnepan, calls them "higher-resolution" speakers.

AXPONA 2022

Acora Acoustics, Valve Amplification Company, Aurender, Cardas, TW-Acustic

Ken Micallef Apr 23, 2022

Presented in the Nirvana A Ballroom with Val Acora's Acora Acoustics granite SRC-2 loudspeakers ($37,000/pair), Valve Amplification Company (VAC) electronics sounded crisp, lively, and human.

AXPONA 2022

Von Schweikert Audio, Aurender, Esoteric, Kronos Critical Mass Systems, VAC, The Audio Company

Ken Micallef Apr 23, 2022

Valve Amplification Company electronics also appeared in the Euphoria room, hosted by The Audio Company, where I believe Von Schweikert's Damon Von Schweikert and Leif Swanson were in attendance.

AXPONA 2022

Wynn Audio with Thales, Kalista, Vimberg, Karan Acoustics: Stereo with Style

Julie Mullins Apr 23, 2022

It's showtime again! With a business and showroom in Toronto, Wynn Wong's Wynn Audio is a next-generation dealer and distributor for a number of luxe European high-design high-end brands, a few of which had new product introductions at AXPONA. Wynn's preferred equipment leans toward striking and colorful rather than gaudy or blingy.