The story goes that starting in 1962, Malcolm Jones was KEF's "first employee," where he "did most of the design and development of the legendary KEF drive units—the B139, B200, B110, T15, T27—and the systems in which they were incorporated. Malcolm left KEF in 1974, having just completed the Reference Series 104 system and work on an active professional monitor to work full time at Falcon Acoustics Ltd."

Fast-forward a few years. I bought my first BBC LS3/5a in 1980. It was a Falcon Acoustics kit I saw advertised in the back of Speaker Builder magazine. Fingers crossed, I sent a postal money order in a thin Air Mail envelope to what I imagined was a garden shed in England. But of course it wasn't.

“Do you know where the room with Pearl Acoustics Sibelius loudspeakers is?” That question, which greeted Jim Austin and me as we navigated the stairs, grew increasingly common as AXPONA unfolded.

It doesn't happen very often, but every once in a while a new turntable comes to my attention that I have no prior knowledge of. The last new turntable company that was a complete blank slate was J.Sikora, which I first encountered about six years ago courtesy of importer Jeff Fox of Notable Audio.

Now I find myself in that position again, with UK-based Connected-Fidelity and their turntable the TT Hub. Until I read the press release last December, sent to me by Mike Fajen of importer/distributor Sierra Sound, I was completely in the dark about the TT Hub, its manufacturer Connected-Fidelity, and that company's owner and head designer Michael Osborn.

What I thought would be a quick hello to distributor Wynn Wong of Wynn Audio—accompanied by his wife, Candy, and their adorable 15-month-old daughter, Victoria—turned into a tour of premieres from three companies. Technically four, if you count Victoria’s AXPONA debut.

Mike Stephens of Farmersville, Texas’s Western HiFi presented one of the show’s top five systems at AXPONA. Built from modestly priced gear, it stopped people in their tracks and kept them planted in their seats—including me.

At AXPONA, Nagaoka’s Miyuki Nishii and Jie Ma joined Technics’s Bill Voss to present the full line of Nagaoka cartridges. The Japanese manufacturer is currently seeking US distribution, after years of limited availability in the American market due to a less-than-responsive distributor.

Masimo Corporation has entered into a definitive agreement to sell its Masimo Consumer Audio division, which is made up of the former Sound United hi-fi brands, to Harman International, a subsidiary of Samsung Electronics, for $350 million in cash. Pending regulatory approvals, the transaction is expected to close by the end of 2025.