LATEST ADDITIONS

When you're a critic, you get paid to quibble, so here's mine: Bowers & Wilkins' iconic 801 D4 speaker ($35,000/pair) is pretty enough in gloss black, but gorgeous in satin walnut. In the company's AXPONA room, I encountered only the black version.

For two years now, pandemic-related supply-chain issues have racked (but not wrecked) the high-end industry. Things still aren't back to normal, and sometimes planned product launches have to be pushed back. Today, when I visited the room featuring Magico loudpeakers and Luxman electronics—see KM's report here—I found out we'll have to wait just a little longer for the next Magico speaker, but I can't imagine that anyone was disappointed when the company's Peter Mackay brought the M6s ($185,000/pair) to AXPONA. A known quantity they may be—the product was introduced five years ago—but I was whistling Eric Clapton's "Hello Old Friend" as soon as I saw them.

The Germans have a great word to describe things that are insipid and inoffensive: salonfähig ("fit for the parlor"). On that note: How many Patricia Barber tracks can a man take? After two days at AXPONA, I craved some kickass rock 'n' roll. Green Day, Rammstein, Rage Against the Machine; the Rolling Stones or Led Zeppelin would do in a pinch. And fortunately, that's the scene I found in the JBL room. Unapologetic raucous rock emanated from the new 13"-tall JBL L52 bookshelf speakers ($995/pair), powered by a JBL SA750 Class-G streaming integrated amplifier ($3000).

A consistent player both at shows and in the hi-fi world, Linear Tube Audio's Nicholas Tolson brought smart, sparse rigs to two AXPONA rooms that played great music.

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 dipoles—sound 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.

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.

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.