AXPONA 2025

Cliff Duffey, TJ Goldby, and Steve Huntley of AXISS Audio aren’t just savvy representatives—they’re passionate advocates for the high-end brands they carry. Their rooms at AXPONA reflected care, from product selection to well-curated playlists that demonstrated a serious grasp of what makes music sound alive.

Room 1130 was my kind of space—tubes and turntables!

An AirTight PC-1 Coda MC cartridge ($10,975) was mounted on a Transrotor TRA-9 tonearm ($1495), itself installed on a Transrotor Dark Star turntable ($4595). The signal passed through a Transrotor Phono 8.2 MC Symmetrical phono stage ($4895), while power purification was handled by a Transrotor Konstant Studio power supply ($895).

An Absolare Model 2 Preamplifier ($40,000) fed an Absolare Model 2 Hybrid power amplifier ($42,000), which in turn drove Rockport’s new Lynx loudspeakers ($78,000/pair).

Cabling included Echole Infinity XLR interconnects ($14,000/1.5m pair), RCA interconnects ($13,700/1.5m pair), speaker cables ($37,500/8' pair), and AC power cords ($24,500/6' /each). Also in the system: an Echole Infinity power distributor ($22,500).

Accessories included a TAOC CSR-3 shelf ($4950) and a trio of room-treatment devices from Nihon Onkyo Engineering: the Acoustic Grove System ST1 ($2795), FS1 ($2198), and MN1 ($995).

Digital playback came courtesy of a Totaldac server and a $1299 Eversolo DMP-A6 Master Edition network player.

This was an intimate, feel-good kind of rig. Country crooner Chris Stapleton’s “Whiskey and You” sounded present and visceral. The other tracks played were uniformly engaging, even life-affirming. A damn fine system.