Are we truly moving closer to the alpha and omega of high-end audio, or are we still at the beginning of an ever widening—some would say deviating—path that now includes virtual reality 360° listening, Dolby Atmos, Apple Immersion, and so much more. All I know for certain is that showgoers who visited Quintessence Audio's Perfection Audio when Wilson Audio's Sasha DAW speakers ($39,000/pair) had their grilles on came away with only a partial sense of all this system could accomplish.

Of Morton Grove, IL dealer Quintessence Audio's three rooms at AXPONA, those in the ground floor Knowledge and Perfection showrooms remained. Since it's hard to imagine Perfection without Knowledge, reality cast the die to first cover a superb Knowledge set-up that mated Wilson Audio Alexx V speakers ($135,000/pair, or $151,000/pair in the show pair's special finish) with Audio Research electronics (see below), Clearaudio Master Innovation Wood turntable with TT-MI linear tonearm ($62,000) and Clearaudio Goldfinger Statement MC cartridge ($17,500), dCS's new Vivaldi Apex DAC/Clock/Upsampler system ($90,000), Transparent XL cabling with PWX power ($73,985 total), and Critical Mass Maxxum component stands ($75,000).

"Cover McIntosh," Jim Austin wrote by text. "Sure," I replied. "But I don't see them listed in the show guide." "They're behind the escalator," Jim replied.

And there they were. Against a wall, with comfortable couches facing the system, McIntosh's Ken Zelin had set up a lovely system headlined by the new, two-piece McIntosh C12000 preamplifier ($16,000).

There was one room at AXPONA where I was too in awe to take notes. In shock is more like it. The brothers who own JS Audio have acquired and restored the very first pair of WAMM loudspeakers that the late Dave Wilson began to manufacture in 1981. It seems that after living with the model for a few months, Dave's other half in the truest sense, his beloved wife and life partner Sheryl Lee preferred a different cabinet color for their living room and encouraged him to move this pair along. (If I've got that wrong, please forgive me.)

Having reviewed the top-of-the-line Innuos two-piece Statement music server, I was eager to hear an A/B demo of the version I reviewed with an Innuos Statement that contains its forthcoming Next-Gen power supply upgrade. Thanks to two extremely helpful and enthusiastic Innuos staff people, Director of Sales Steven Gomes and North American Director of Sales, Kevin Jackson, it was easy to hear the improvements.

Tucked away in a corner of the 6th floor were two Fidelity Imports rooms showing a few new gems. Fidelity Imports focused one (room 604) on its imports from the UK.

Fidelity Imports' second room showed on passive display the latest speaker from Perlisten, the three-way S5t tower, a smaller sibling to the Perlisten S7t in the active setup (and that Kal Rubinson reviewed in December 2021, bottom photo). A (forthcoming) new Aurender A15 music server/streamer with DAC (top photo) decoding full MQA served as the source.

Toronto-based American Sound of Canada, with Angie Lisi at the helm, had a striking showing at AXPONA: Huge horns. If you saw and heard them, you'd remember them. It was a popular room, so I made an early first stop on Sunday when it wasn't crowded.

American Sound presented a second demo in the suite's smaller room: Avantgarde Acoustics' Uno XDs, a smaller model soon to be upgraded to G3 status, driven by Japan's Phasemation amplification.

When I heard Usher's "Yeah!" being blasted out from the, uh, Serenity Room, I wondered whether to go in or hang back from the crunk. Not hating on the song, but it was awfully early in the day for this. (It turns out there was someone shooting a video in there.) But the real surprise was that the bumping, club-worthy music wasn't coming from outsized tower speakers, but from a pair of stand-mounted two-ways with some innovative porting.