Florida Audio Expo 2025

Thomas Kiss (AVLG) and Philip O’Hanlon (On A Higher Note) delivered a startling surprise. Upon entering their room, attendees faced an unsettling ambiguity: fight, flight, or surrender to the experience. Most chose the latter.

Along with a vintage tape deck and top-flight digital components, the room’s Bayz Audio Courante 2.0 loudspeakers look and sound like no other. But first, here are the system details.

A ReVox/Sonorus PR99 vintage reel-to-reel tape machine, Accustic Arts Player III CD player ($14,990), Aurender N20 network transport music server/streamer ($12,500), Berkeley Audio Design Alpha USB Series Two noise isolation reclocker ($2495), Berkeley Audio Design Alpha DAC Reference Series Three ($28,000), and the Accustic Arts Power III integrated amplifier ($20,490). These components drove the Bayz Audio Courante 2.0 loudspeakers ($47,900 to $69,900 per pair).

Cables included a Shunyata R. Omega USB cable ($2800/1.5m), Shunyata R. Omega AES cable ($3800/1.25m), Shunyata R. Sigma X XLR and RCA interconnect cables (from $4950), Shunyata R. Sigma X NR power cords ($4000 each), Shunyata R. Denali 6000T/v2 Limited Edition power distributor ($7000), all supported by an Artesania Audio Rack Exoteryc 3 ($7300) and Prestige 3-shelf ($5800).

When O’Hanlon revved up deck, music flowed like a Tesla zooming down Tampa’s Bayshore Boulevard with that sense of pure live performance and coherency only tape can summon. The capital C-shaped Bayz Audio Courante 2.0 loudspeakers rolled off the treble in the small room, but contributed to a sense of total music immersion, of music wrapping through and around our audiophile skills like giant headphones attached to our heads with super glue.