Celebrating 21 years of affordable Music Hall turntables, the irascible Roy Hall (right) was in fine form on AXPONA's opening day, offering show specials.

On my way to AXPONA's Master Class Theater to catch Rob Robinson's seminar on current-mode phono preamplifiers, I was buttonholed by David Janszen. The Janszen name is synonymous with electrostatic drive-units—the midrange unit in the legendary Wilson WAMM was based on Janszen technology—and at AXPONA David was demonstrating prototype electrostatic headphones, the Lotus.

I turned up at Mike Jbara's Master Class presentation Friday afternoon, "Achieving Authentic Studio Quality Sound," expecting fireworks. Jbara is the chief executive of MQA and many internet denizens had declared that they would be attending his presentation to oppose what he would be saying. But all was quiet during Jbara's 45-minute talk on what he regards as the benefits of the controversial codec to both the music industry and to audiophiles. Another MQA-related Master Class takes place at AXPONA Saturday April 13 at 12 noon. Moderated by Besflores Nievara Jr., Brand Ambassador for Music Direct, Mike Jbara will join MQA partner NAD's CTO, Greg Stidsen, and other panelists to discuss "The Future of High Resolution Audio." Perhaps the fireworks will be in evidence tomorrow!

Despite the challenging acoustics of air-walled conference rooms, retailer Audio Video Interiors produced extremely satisfying sound. True to McIntosh Laboratory's sonic signature, the company's C-1100 preamp ($14,000), relatively new 600Wpc MC-611 monoblocks ($15,000/pair), and MPC-1500 line filter ($5500) produced a beautiful, strong midrange and mellow top.