And who’s got just the solution? Why, Kii does! Reichardt and Kii’s Alex Ligeti enthusiastically demoed two of their all-in-one, just-add-a-source systems. At $8585/pair, the Kii Seven stand-mounts are the more affordable option. Each speaker is Class-D-powered by a 600Wpc amplifier module designed by Bruno Putzeys, inventor of…
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On the 14th floor of the Schaumburg Renaissance hotel, Kii Audio CEO Chris Reichardt had a question about hi-fi’s future. “How many 30-year-olds say, ‘I need these seven components that will cost $50,000?’” Reichardt asked, reasonably. “People are tired of wires.”
AXISS Audio, led by president Cliff Duffey, made a bold showing at AXPONA 2025, with five rooms and as many product debuts.
In Room 1129, the company introduced the Air Tight ATC-6 line-stage preamplifier ($14,975) and the matching ATE-5 phono stage ($13,575). The ATE-5 offers native MM inputs with 40 dB of gain and MC support via an external step-up transformer, specifically the ATH-3S ($4475).
Room 1129 also featured an Air Tight Opus 1 MC cartridge ($15,975) mounted on a Reed 3P 10.5" Panzerholz tonearm ($7414), which in turn sat atop a Reed 3C friction-drive…
First unveiled in passive display at Munich High End 2024, the new D’Agostino Pendulum Integrated amplifier made its US consumer audio show debut in two places at AXPONA 2025: a hallway setup—where listening was possible only at close range—and in a room sponsored by Innuos.
The Stereophile team caught up with Dan D’Agostino during his brief visit to Chicago to get the lowdown on the newest and lowest-priced integrated in his line. Some of his remarks on sound versus measurements make this video a must-see.
The all-balanced Pendulum Integrated has one single-ended input…
Angie Lisi of American Sound Distribution exhibited several systems in multiple spaces. Room 1620 showcased gear from Grimm Audio, Wadax, Analog Relax, Avantgarde, Phasemation, and Rethm; Room 1642 offered a more compact setup focused on the latter three brands.
System One featured a Grimm MU2 streamer ($18,000) and a Perpetuum Ebner PE 1010 MKII turntable ($3495) equipped with an Ortofon 2M Red Verso cartridge ($160). These front-end sources fed Avantgarde’s fully active ZERO iTRON horn-loaded loudspeakers ($26,000/pair). The iTRON’s bass drivers are powered by a 500W Class D…
Mark Sossa of Virginia-based distributor Well Pleased AV brought a sweet lineup to Chicago, including the world-premiere Merason Mountain DAC ($20,000).
The DAC, the company’s first to eliminate output capacitors, is part of a new line that also includes Mountain Pre and Mountain Power amplification.
“By removing the caps, we’ve managed to tighten and deepen the bass response, delivering sound that is both more powerful and more precise,” Merason founder and managing director Daniel Frauchiger claimed.
Other upgrades include improved internal reclocking, an…
At AXPONA 2025, Jonathan Halpern of Tone Imports and Matt Rotunda of Pitch Perfect Audio teamed up in room 2025. Very au courant. I first met Halpern and speaker designer John DeVore years ago, when both worked at Steve Mishoe’s In Living Stereo, a high-end store in New York. Their careers have long intersected—and so has their gear.
The duo’s analog front end featured a MusiKraft moving-coil cartridge—misread by my editor as “Muskrat”; happily, its performance was anything but furry. The cart ($2950–$3650) was mounted to the tonearm of a JC Verdier La Platine magnetic-bearing…
Treehaus: The name conjures bark and birdsong, but its products are pure Klangbildvergrößerungsmaschinen*. Rich Pinto of Treehaus Audiolab creates gear that fuses sonic beauty with sculptural woodwork and the control of a practiced hand. All circuitry and internal construction are the work of Radu Tarta, a designer known for his meticulous builds.
Making its world debut at AXPONA, the Treehaus LCR phono preamplifier ($24,000) pairs a tube-rectified outboard power supply with Finemet inductors in LCR configuration and 7308/12AT7 gain stages.
The analog front end includes an…
There's nothing like a new turntable to set my pulse racing. So when I first saw the thread-drive, magnetic-bearing Yukiseimitsu Audio AP-01 ($31,975) at last year's AXPONA, my jaw dropped, my scalp tingled, and my ears pricked up. It's back this year in its new EM edition—still sleek, still strange.
TJ Goldsby, vice president of sales and dealer relations at Axiss Distribution Inc., brought a rig so striking I nearly tripped over myself trying to get closer.
The system included the Yukiseimitsu Audio AP-01EM turntable, paired with the world-premiere AP-01…
Rogue Audio’s Bill Magerman and Nick Fitzsimmons introduced the RP-3 at AXPONA 2025—a new preamp that’s tube-equipped and unmistakably Rogue. The RP-3 ($3495) is a feature-packed machine with two 12AU7 tubes in a mu-follower design, a remote control, home-theater bypass/unity-gain inputs, three sets of RCA inputs, and two pairs of XLR inputs. Also onboard: a mono button, a tube-based high-power headphone amp, linear power supplies, and a three-year warranty. Like all Rogue gear, it’s made in the US.
The system in the Rogue room included an Eversolo DMP-A6 streamer ($859), a Benchmark…
Charlotte de Witte's Sanctum, my current techno obsession, was already spinning when I stepped into the Audio Note UK room. Sales executive Adrian Ford-Crush stood nearby; across the room, founder Peter Qvortrup—the company's resident iconoclast—paged through Kate Crawford's Atlas of AI, a scathing look at the environmental and ethical costs of artificial intelligence. But then the music took over, as it always does in this room.
Ford-Crush and Qvortrup played vinyl and CDs through an all-Audio Note system. It included a CDT Four CD transport ($21,119), a prototype DAC 5.…