Jacksonville, Florida, dealership House of Stereo occupied eight (!) rooms at FLAX. Room 709 debuted Steinheim's 2.5 Alumine Two.Five loudspeakers ($23,500/pair), accompanied by a bevy of refined products that kept the room packed to overflowing. Several were from Germany's T+A ("Engineering emotion"), including the SD 3100 HV Reference Streaming DAC ($32,387).

Japan's TAD had two rooms at FLAX, including the large Bayshore ballroom, which itself contained two systems, each with two pairs of speakers. Both systems wowed me.

Dealer Scott Walker Audio, which has showrooms in Anaheim, California, and Keller, Texas, and Synergistic Research presented several new products at FLAX including the Synergistic Voodoo streamer erver ($14,995); the PowerCell 8 SX conditioner ($3495); and SRX USB ($5995), Ethernet ($5995), and XL Power cables ($13,000).

MBL is best known for its striking Radialstahler omnidirectional speaker systems, first introduced in 1979, but the company has made electronics to accompany its speakers since 1986. On the Tampa Terrace at the Florida International Audio Expo, MBL showed off a system featuring the new Cadenza C41 network player ($11,100).

I'm used to demoing SVS at AV trade shows, but not at high-end two-channel affairs like this Tampa show. The debut of the Ultra Evolution series speakers represents the dawn of a new era for a company that made its name designing high-performance subwoofers and affordable, high-performance speakers. With video.

In the photo above, worker bees Megan Bovaird and Matt Bochicchio welcome you to the sixth annual Florida International Audio Expo (FLAX), held this year and all non-COVID years at the Embassy Suites by Hilton, in Tampa, Florida.