LATEST ADDITIONS

I wasn't the only reviewer who sought Nirvana in the large 16th floor Aster Presidential Suite jointly sponsored by retailer Kyomi Audio of Chicago, Audio Skies distribution, and Stealth Audio Cables. On Sunday morning, less than eight hours after many members of the press hung out in the room until 2AM, several returned for yet another fix.

Huge, colorful, and highly engaging sound highlighted my time in the room sponsored by Mark Gurvey's Source Systems distribution of San Clemente. Deserving applause for some of the best signage at AXPONA, Gurvey used Lumin's proprietary playback app to output files stored on I-O Data Device of Japan's solid-state fidata 2TB server/renderer/ripper/tagger/CD player ($1600) to the Lumin X1 flagship streamer with external dual mono linear power supply (LPS) ($13,990). From there, the system output the streaming signal to the brand new Lumin P1 streamer/renderer/DAC/AV hub/preamplifier with internal dual-mono LPS ($10,000) that John Atkinson reviewed in our April 2022 issue.

Upstate New York manufacturer Alta Audio debuted its new The Adam floorstanding speaker ($17,000/pair in piano black, $18,000/pair in rosewood or beech) at Axpona, in two separate rooms.

The Adam features a 5.75" neodymium magnet ribbon tweeter, 6" midrange driver, and an 8.75" woofer "whose tuning parameters are coupled to the unique cabinet design for its infrasonic (floor-moving) bass and for refined cohesion between The Adam's XTL (Extended Line Transmission) and its pure aluminum ribbon tweeter," stated the company's website. That's potentially copious bass created from a transmission-line approach.

"New Patented Product Replaces Stereo Systems, Headphones and $100,000 Listening Rooms" declared the press release in red bold letters. "Introducing to the public for the first time a transformational new pure acoustic audio technology and the TigerFox® Immerse 360® Pure Acoustic Sound Pod—a disruptive new high-performance audio product that delivers immersive sound quality without the pain points of modern electronic sound systems."

More debuts awaited in Fidelis Distribution's second room, where Heretic Loudspeaker Company's handcrafted-in-Montreal A612 high-sensitivity loudspeaker (price TBD—no more than $10,000/pair, I was told) and Lab 12's handcrafted-in-Athens electronics sang with AVIDHIFI's Volvere turntable ($8000, below) equipped with a TA-3 tonearm ($650) and inexpensive (by audiophile standards) Grado Opus3 cartridge ($275). Through Lab 12 and Siltech cabling, the sax on "Trippin' Out," on an LP from Vanessa Fernandez, sounded fabulous, The energy of the track came through loud and clear. It was all I could do to stop myself from getting up and dancing. Without a doubt, this system delivered the most fun I'd had during my first two days at the show.

When I've visited the Zesto Audio room at different hi-fi shows in recent years, I've noticed that sometimes they've shown their tubed electronics driving modern loudspeakers from Lumen White, for instance. Other times, it's been vintage classics, such as Tannoys. At AXPONA, they chose very old-school Tannoy Kensington GR loudspeakers ($18,000/pair), which of course, showed quite different sound characteristics from, say, Lumen Whites.

In the spring of 1969, as an aspiring jazz drummer of 15 pretentiously and largely uncomprehendingly drawn to the music's difficult avant-garde, I learned that Don Cherry, Ornette Coleman's alter ego during Ornette's starvation years and an icon of free jazz himself, had recently moved to the village of Congers in my native Rockland County, New York, just north of New York City. Ornette was putting together a group drawn mostly from his early cohorts, and the call went out to Stockholm, where Don had settled—to the extent that he settled anywhere—with his Swedish wife, Moki. Hence his arrival practically on my doorstep.