Although I didn't get a chance to audition them—Roy Hall tried to ply me and just about everyone present with Scotch or something to get me to linger, but this extremely moderate drinker decided I could do a better job if I didn't stumble from room to room, dragging cables behind me—I was quite intrigued by the AktiMate Mini ($695/pair) in the Music Hall room. This Australian baby, engineered by folks from Creek Audio and Epos, is an active speaker, similar to the popular AudioEngines, and the master unit is equipped with an iPod dock as well as stereo RCA phono and mini-jack inputs. There is even an RCA stereo out to enable connection to a subwoofer, as well as a volume remote.

One of the things I love about Shows like Axpona is the chance to hang out with <I>Stereophile</I>'s readers, like Ed Lippman and his son Ross. "Can you publish our photo in the magazine?” asked Ed. So here they are. Ed’s on the right and Ross (who wrote an Axpona report for <A HREF="http://www.audioasylum.com/cgi/t.mpl?f=general&m=561669">Audio Asylum</A>) is on the left.

To anyone who has committed my blogs to memory, or treated them with the same reverence as passages from the Bible, my love for mbl speakers and electronics will come as no surprise. Listens at CES 2010, RMAF 2009, and CES 2009 left me in awe. If only the newest mbl speakers on the market had been on active rather than static display, I expect I'd be waxing ecstatic once again.

Audio Plus Services, Toronto, distributes a luscious batch of products that includes Pathos, Focal, Cambridge Audio, MicroMega, Crystal cable, Siltech cable, and Solid Tech racks. At Axpona, throwing aesthetics to the dogs in an attempt to tame the room, APS's Ian McArthur sent files wirelessly from his Macbook Pro or a PC running the Airfoil utility via the MicroMega WM-10 Airstream wireless receiver ($1595) to the Pathos TT Anniversary 35W class-A hybrid integrated amp ($7695) and Focal-JM Lab Electra 1028BE loudspeakers ($8495/pair). Cabling was Crystal Cable Reference for both interconnect ($2400/1m) and speaker cable ($7500/3m), and the industrial-look rack was Solid Tech ROS Reference 3 ($1495). The Airstream basically incorporates a self-configuring WiFi router to feed audio data (limited to Red Book at present) to its DAC. Although use of iTunes as the media server, without benefit of either the Amarra or Channel D's Pure Music interfaces, undoubtedly contributed to a lack of transparency, cellos sounded extremely deep and solid, and Marta Gomez's debut CD on Chesky (played directly from the computer's CD drive without benefit of burning) was rewardingly crisp and extremely fast.

As I walked into the Emotiva room, a blast from the distant past greeted me with a smile. It was the Eagles, live, welcoming me to <I>Hotel California</I>. Resisting the temptation to declare, "But I've just come from there," I instead noted the solidity of the bass line, the powerful slam, and the sonic warmth that really did feel like a welcome. "Welcome to Emotiva land," the system seemed to sing.

One of several low-cost, high quality exhibits at Axpona came from Jaton. Based in Fremont, CA, Jaton sources its speaker components from Germany and other parts of Europe, but assembles them in China. It amps, which include 14 Mundorf caps in the amp proper and four more in the power sector, are assembled in Fremont. Everything is designed by the company's unnamed and extremely secretive CEO, who only began to enter the high-end market a few years ago.

Don't even think about the juxtaposition of so-called "modern art" with the kitsch figurines of Nipper and the parrot. Instead gaze upon the Classic Audio T1.3 Reference loudspeakers ($36,500), shown here with Classic's John Wolff. The T1.3 uses two 15" woofers , a TAD compression-loaded tweeter, and the jewel of the design, a 4" compression-loaded midrange dome feeding a Tractrix-flare horn designed by Bruce Edgar. All the drive-units are energized by field-coil magnets rather than permanent magnets. The rest of the system comprised Atma-Sphere MA-60 MUIII monoblocks ($6800), an Atma-Sphere MP-1 preamp ($12,100), Esoteric DU-50 CD player, Kuzma Reference table ($8900), TriPlanar arm ($4850), Van den Hul The Grasshopper cartridge, 59-cent hook-up wire, and my feeble attempts to decipher illegible handwriting. (So much for the "You don't have a sheet listing your products; you do the writing while I listen" approach). Playing the same Mahler as auditioned in the fabulous Koetsu USA room, this system certainly nailed the sound of the cymbals.

As I entered Jeffrey Catalano's High Water Sound exhibit, I was immediately taken by the beauty of Herbie Hancock's <I>Watermelon Man</I> (Cisco LP re-issue). Listening to a recording of the music of Heinrich Biber further underscored the beauty of this system's midrange. Heard were the turntable owned by the First Chair violinist of the Vienna Philharmonic, the TW Acustic BlackNight ($40,000) with TW 10.5 tonearm ($5500) and Dynavector XV1T cartridge ($9000), TW Acustic Raven phonostage ($9000), Th&#246;ress linestage ($8000), Th&#246;ress 300B 6W monoblocks ($10,000), Horning Aristotle 98dB-sensitive loudspeakers ($15,000) with Zigma Ultimate Plus Lowther DX65 drive-units, Stealth cables, and Silent Running Audio Equipment rack ($12,000).

Remember when my living room looked like <a href="http://forum.stereophile.com/photopost/showphoto.php/photo/2173/size/bi…;? Cozy, comforting, warm, functional, and tidy. Not bad at all.