KEF Debuts New Finishes for Blade One Meta and Blade Two Meta

Sennheiser Drops HDB 630 Wireless Headphones

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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.

AXPONA 2022

SVS Is Ready to Rumble at AXPONA

Rogier van Bakel Apr 23, 2022

"The road to the graveyard is littered with corpses of subwoofer companies that wanted to sell a range of regular speakers," Gary Yacoubian observes with a laugh. We're standing outside the SVS room at AXPONA while on yonder side of the door, a 7.2 SVS Dolby Atmos setup is testing the Renaissance hotel's structural soundness with an explosive fight scene from a Spiderman movie. Fittingly, Yacoubian is ready to, you know, rumble. His company has built a solid reputation by making and direct-selling excellent-value, powerful subwoofers and providing some of the friendliest pre- and post-sale service in the industry.

AXPONA 2022

Burmester of North America

Ken Micallef Apr 23, 2022

Some audio equipment makes its presence felt simply by its elegance. With its Versailles-like appeal, the colossal Burmester rig in the Schaumberg A room was magnificent to behold, virtually an audio treatise in luxury. A legacy German brand that manufactures everything from nuts and bolts to speaker cabinets and drivers, Burmester, represented at AXPONA by its US distributor Rutherford Audio, brought some of their classiest, biggest, and boldest equipmentall the listener need do was indulge the senses.

AXPONA 2022

Nordost Teams up with Stenheim, Wadax, VTL, and VPI

Jason Victor Serinus Apr 23, 2022

For huge sound in a huge room, you needed to look no further than the Schaumburg Renaissance Convention Center's Schaumburg F. Played at full volume, the momentous, quasi-apocalyptic opening of Richard Strauss's Also Sprach Zarathustra, aka the theme from 2001: A Space Odyssey, virtually knocked me back a row. Only the deep bass, which was eaten alive by the room's spongy air walls, suffered. Which means that the deepest organ pedals on the forthcoming superbly recorded 7-CD Strauss set from conductor Andris Nelsons (heard in 24/96) had about the same weight as on the hi-rez digital transfer of Fritz Reiner's famous RCA Living Stereo recording with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

AXPONA 2022

Luxman America & Magico

Ken Micallef Apr 23, 2022

Peter Mackay of Magico Loudspeakers (pictured above) and Jeffrey Sigmund and John Pravel of Luxman America brought a fantastic-sounding system to the Prosperity room. Exceptional scale, resolution, depth, dynamics, precision, and juicy tone could all be heardaudio prosperity of the highest order.

AXPONA 2022

Krell's New Amplifier with the Estelon Forza

Rogier van Bakel Apr 22, 2022

The night before AXPONA's official kickoff, Krell's director of product development, Dave Goodman, was still assembling the latest offering from Connecticut's solid-state powerhouse: the yet-to-be-released KSA i400. (With that model name, no prizes for guessing the number of watts per channel.) The Krell and its associated components were set up in a large, cube-like room—on paper, far from ideal acoustically. But what resulted on Friday morning sounded powerful and impressive. I don't mean to say that anything was excessively muscular. Effortless, poised, and relaxed though? You'd best believe it.

AXPONA 2022

Quintessence Audio Proclaims Connection: Sonus Faber, Boulder, Clearaudio, dCS, Transparent, and Critical Mass Systems

Jason Victor Serinus Apr 22, 2022

Nothing beats starting a show on a high note. Thanks to Musical Surroundings' Garth Leerer and the Quintessence Audio dealership of Chicago, that's what happened when Charlie Byrd played magnificently on a white vinyl direct-to-disc platter from the late 1970s.

AXPONA 2022

AXPONA 22: The Big Show is Back!

Jason Victor Serinus Apr 22, 2022

As early as 9AM on Friday, April 22, early registrants began wandering the halls of Chicago's Renaissance Schaumburg Hotel and Convention Center. By 9:30AM, the first semi-crazed rush for vinyl old and new had begun in The Record Fair. And by 10AM, music was resounding in all its glory in the 138 exhibit rooms and 10 floors that comprise AXPONA 2022.

Solid State Power Amp Reviews

Luxman M-10X power amplifier

John Atkinson Apr 22, 2022

As I started to write this review, the news broke that Sound United, the owner of Boston Acoustics, Bowers & Wilkins, Classé, Definitive Technology, Denon, Marantz, and Polk, was going to be purchased by a corporation that makes medical instruments. Such consolidation is not new. China- and UK-based International Audio Group (IAG) was one of the first organizations to acquire iconic audio brands. IAG owns Audiolab, Castle, Quad, Leak, Mission, and Wharfedale. In 2009, they purchased Luxman.

Stand Loudspeaker Reviews

Fleetwood Sound Company DeVille SQ loudspeaker

Ken Micallef Apr 21, 2022

Oswalds Mill Audio's products espouse a sort of steam-punk-meets-modern visual style, but the company's philosophies are straight from hi-fi's '50s and '60s glory days, an era when idler-drive turntables, low-power tube amps, and horn-loaded loudspeakers were the norm. That history and hi-fi's future fascinate and inspire Jonathan Weiss, OMA's proprietor.