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Industry legend Paul Barton has been designing speakers for more than half a century. He's also quite the speaker himself.

I'd sauntered into the Lenbrook room to check out Barton's new PSB Synchrony T800 floorstanders (PSB is a Lenbrook brand). My visit was serendipitously timed. Not only was the man himself present; he and I, along with the gregarious Joe Corona of Chicago retailer Saturday Audio Exchange, were the only ones left when the doors closed at 6pm. We settled in. Corona provided slices of coffee cake, and Barton supplied wisdom and bon mots.

On the Renaissance hotel's 16th floor, in the room occupied by PureAudioProject, folks were utterly baffled. Also, occasionally horny.

Apologies. The fact that I'm away from home for four, five days to cover AXPONA means I temporarily don't have my teenage offspring to mortify with dad humor, so now I'm inflicting it on you. PureAudioProject, you see, makes open-baffle speakers. Some have horns. There's a reason I write for Stereophile, not Saturday Night Live.

At AXPONA 2023, Luxman America's Jeff Sigmund and John Pravel brought serious sonic finery from Luxman Japan with the same gracious, enthusiastic, generous manner they've extended for years.

As I think I wrote somewhere, it's one thing to hear equipment at a show, another thing to hear it at home. I meant to imply that, of course, at home is the only way to truly hear a piece, in your reference system.

But at AXPONA, where George Counnas (center) and Carolyn Counnas (right) debuted their new Zesto Audio Eros 500 Select KT-150 equipped, class-A monoblocks, with Zesto Audio's Leto Ultra II preamp, which I reviewed in January 2021, I was flummoxed at the beauty of sound, extravagance of liquidity and detail, and nearly spiritual physicality the system endowed to a variety of music.

If you're like me and the topic turns to active speakers, you'll probably think of affordable products. Maybe the mighty $649 Vanatoo Transparent One Encore comes to mind, or the sub-$1000 powerhouse that is a pair of SVS Prime Pro wireless speakers. The KEF LS50W is a strong contender even at $2800, and if your budget allows, you might consider Buchardt A5s ($3900/pair).

Picture this: the Devialet Phantom, reviewed by Jim Austin here, is suddenly sphere-shaped rather than pill-shaped. Now imagine shrinking it down to the girth of a fat grapefruit (or the size of a Cabasse iO3 speaker)—so, a little under 7" in diameter. The Phantom's push-push configuration remains the same, so you'll see the opposing drivers subjected to violent-looking excursions, tortured by brutal bass notes.

That's the gist of the Mania, a pocket-sized, battery-operated Devialet speaker (well, pocket-sized if you don't mind wearing cargo pants).

I wasn't necessarily expecting to find Alon Wolf (right) striking dangling bars of aluminum with a small mallet. Had Magico's celebrated designer embarked on a second career as a percussionist? Nah. He was demonstrating to Stereophile Editor Jim Austin (left) and myself that aluminum, which Magico has long used as the ideal material for its enclosures, rings, but can also be very effectively dampened by sandwiching a proprietary elastomer between two layers of it. The first (untreated) bar rang like a bell. The second one had a padded adhesive backing that took away about 80% of the effect. The last bar was the aforementioned sandwich, and yup: dead. No ringing.