AXPONA 2025

Charlotte de Witte's Sanctum, my current techno obsession, was already spinning when I stepped into the Audio Note UK room. Sales executive Adrian Ford-Crush stood nearby; across the room, founder Peter Qvortrup—the company's resident iconoclast—paged through Kate Crawford's Atlas of AI, a scathing look at the environmental and ethical costs of artificial intelligence. But then the music took over, as it always does in this room.

Ford-Crush and Qvortrup played vinyl and CDs through an all-Audio Note system. It included a CDT Four CD transport ($21,119), a prototype DAC 5.1x ladder DAC, and an IO I MC cartridge ($5028) mounted to an Arm Three/II tonearm ($2465), set up on a TT Two turntable ($4287). An AN-S5 step-up transformer ($10,685) fed a Meishu Konzertmeister 300B integrated amplifier ($65,000). That, in turn, drove the AN-E/SPX Ltd field-coil speakers ($65,000/pair), a variant of which I recently reviewed for Stereophile.

Much like they did in my own room, the Audio Note field-coil speakers—driven here by an all-Audio Note system—delivered music with striking purity and wholeness. The noise floor was astonishingly low, letting the recessed corners of recordings shine through.

Sanctum filled my body cavity like warm Scotch, while a first Decca pressing of Ruggiero Ricci's Carmen Fantasie—performed by the London Symphony Orchestra and conducted by Piero Gamba—brought filigree, finery, and beauty.