AXPONA 2025

John DeVore brings more than music to his rooms: he brings thoughtfulness, a sense of discovery, and superbly curated recordings.

At AXPONA 2025, DeVore’s system featured a Well Tempered Lab Kauri Mk II MC cartridge ($2000), mounted to the integrated tonearm of a Well Tempered Lab Versalex turntable ($4850). A Grimm Audio MU2 streaming DAC/preamplifier ($17,500) handled digital.

Amplification included a Leben RS-30EQ tube MM phono preamp ($3495) and a Leben CS-600X 30Wpc EL34 integrated tube amplifier ($8995), driving DeVore Fidelity Gibbon Super Nine loudspeakers. The Nines are a ported two-and-a-half-way design with a ¾" textile tweeter and two 7" paper woofers per channel ($9990/pair). Also in the room, but inactive when I visited: DeVore Orangutan micr/O monitors—sealed two-way monitors with a ¾" textile tweeter and a 7" paper woofer ($3950/pair).

Speaker cables included Black Cat Graceline 1s ($2195/2.5m/pair) and Cardas Audio SE9s ($1330/2.5m pair). Supporting the electronics were a Box Furniture Heritage five-shelf rack ($9500) and a Box Furniture Heritage Isolation Platform ($3500).

The system evoked a return to childhood listening, beginning with the familiar grooves of Steely Dan’s “Any Major Dude Will Tell You” (off Pretzel Logic) and Stevie Wonder’s Talking Book. Equally seductive was the contemporary jazz on Gary Bartz & Maisha’s Night Dreamer Direct-To-Disc Sessions. Each album brought out the system’s natural ease and terrific tonal integrity.

Soon, John DeVore and I got to talking about the music he plays at shows. “I’ve been choosing hi-fi show demo music for 25 years,” he told me. “At most early shows I brought only records. It’s hard to imagine now, but two decades ago a working turntable in a demo room was rare. Though digital has come a long way, records are still my medium of choice—I believe vinyl is the best-sounding practical source even today.”

DeVore likes the intentionality of playing vinyl, he explained. “There’s a ritual and care that goes along with proper vinyl playback that entices a listener to pay attention. It tells them something is going to happen, something requiring more than a swipe and tap of a screen.”

He makes sure to always bring new music to each show. “As my record collection expands and my ability to remember contracts, I’ve come up with a system for tagging records. I use colorful Post-Its to identify different traits, so that I can find specific types of records easily. For instance, a pink Post-It tells me it’s good-sounding.”

Choosing the right music may start weeks before a show. “When I’m playing music for visitors at a show, I’m a DJ. Each track has to make sense following the last. It should be the right track for the audience. Should it be upbeat? Should it showcase bass? Maybe something obscure to stump Shazam apps? A few records will be added to the show pile automatically—records from previous shows I know will be just the thing for a certain demo moment. I want to be sure to cover many genres, as well as styles of production: slick studio, lo-fi, live, and so on.”

DeVore doesn’t shy away from some quirky choices. Last year at AXPONA, he demoed a system that could play 78rpm records; there were 20 or so shellacs among the vinyl discs. “Demoing those older formats adds to the specialness of the event,” he finds. “Most show attendees have never heard truly optimized playback of mono or 78rpm. It can be a revelation the first time someone hears a 70-year-old mono vocal record played back through a well-tweaked system.”

In the end, says DeVore, the goal is to provide a memorable musical experience. “It can be a modern, non-audiophile LP with startling sound quality, or a 78 from the 1940s with astonishing midrange dynamics. It doesn’t matter, as long as people talk about the experience long after the last day of the show.”