Is it possible that two of the best-sounding rooms at the show could be on the same floor? You know the answer.

It takes a superb system to hold its own against Bending Wave's powerhouse. Yet Jeff Joseph's considerably more financially modest undertaking wooed over one show attendee after the other. Opinions were unanimous amongst those I spoke with. If Bending Wave's set-up didn't walk away with Best of Show, this system did.

Without doubt, of all the systems I evaluated at the 2022 Pacific Audio Fest, the imposing, hardly bargain-basement set-up assembled by Elliot Goldman, of Florida-based Bending Wave USA, was one of the Top Three Best Sounding. Only equipment capable of top-level sound reproduction could have worked together synergistically to deliver such convincing full-range sound.

So large in size that few if any dealers will ever be able to carry them, the prototype Genesis Prime+ loudspeakers ($680,000/system) exhibited a beautiful midrange on an LP of Oleta Adams singing "Don't let the Sun Go Down on Me." Ditto for the voice of Mel Tormé, accompanied by George Shearing on "You'd Be So Nice To Come To."

"Really nice alive sound." Simple words, they. But truth be told, they only apply to a limited number of systems at an audio show and far beyond, in the supposed "real" world.

"Why do you need all of those microphones?"

I've been asked this question more than once, by musicians you may have heard of. I'm not going to name names, but if you press me I might. Let's see where this goes.

It's a reasonable question, sometimes. Still.

Another speaker surprise from Matterhorn Audio Group of Boston. The midrange exceled through FinkTeam Borg floorstanding loudspeakers (starting at $36,490/pair), shown next to the Kim standmount (starting at $12,990/pair). The sound of Dominique Fils-Aimé singing "Birds" was as fetching as Chris Botti's "What a Wonderful World" was lovely.

I first encountered consistently handsome Rosso Fiorentino speakers at a show years ago, and immediately encouraged a now-retired distributor to pick up the Italian brand. I'm so happy to discover that AudioThesis is now bringing them into the US.

A direct-sales company new to me, MK Audio of Charlotte, North Carolina, journeyed cross-country to present their Arion Audio Apollo 9 loudspeaker system ($35,900/pair) with full DSP and advanced room correction. The Apollo 9 is also available in Dual-Pack Woofer Package ($5900) that includes two additional woofers with two amps. With AMT drivers built in-house, the speaker is an open-baffle design with a claimed whopping 105dB sensitivity.

A speaker brand new to me, Kroma Atelier from Spain, caught many an eye and ear with the US premiere of their small black Mimi Xtreme standmount loudspeaker ($12,600/pair in white, $13,860 in black, left in photo) with Mimi stands ($3600/pair). Introduced by Tim Lukas's Matterhorn Audio Group of Boston, whose other brands include FinkTeam and Creek, the speaker is claimed to work with amps that output as little as 15Wpc. With a 6.5" midrange with proprietary cone, and a special AMT neodymium-ribbon tweeter designed by Mundorf to Kroma Atelier's specifications, the speaker boasts a 4 ohm nominal impedance, an 88dB sensitivity, and a frequency response of 30Hz–25kHz. The design of its woofer's surround (below) is intentional—it is possibly one the new Purifi drive-units.

Uh oh. It had to happen someone. But did trashed-in-shipment karma really need to strike New Hampshire's Gunny Surya, whose excellent Sonner Audio Legato Duo loudspeaker ($9500/pair) had to make do, not with the intended SW1X Audio Design DAC III SPX ($7500), but rather with an iFi DAC2 ($400)?