AXPONA 2013

If you value smoothness and liquidity, the eye-catching system from Beauty of Sound and KT Audio Imports was to fall in love with. Playing Aaron Neville's aptly named LP Warm Your Heart, the sound was so warm, sweet and mellow, and the presentation so beautiful and spacious, that it was a challenge not to feel as though I had died and gone to heaven.

Then again, given how many rooms I had left to cover before show's end, heading straight to heaven certainly seemed like a viable alternative to an exponentially accelerating case of AXPONA angst.

The room was a bi-coastal affair. KT Audio Imports, located in Torrance, CA, supplied the eye-catching Triangle Art Signature turntable ($12,500) which was playing, as well as the more expensive Reference turntable ($16,500). They also provided the Triangle ART TA-1 record clamp ($800)

Beauty of Sound, located in East Greenbush, NY, provided, from Ikeda, the IT-407CRI 12" tonearm ($6500) and Kai moving-coil cartridge ($10,000) that I heard, as well as the TubeGuru ECC808 MM/MC phono preamp ($4400), Kaplan Cable GS Mk.II 1.5m interconnect ($1395) and 6' power cord ($1695), Slagle step-up transformer w. silver wiring ($2500), and Pi uberBUSS w/Furutech Cu receptacles ($1400). The music supplied the rest.