LATEST ADDITIONS

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.

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 there—sign 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.

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.

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.

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.

"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.