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The Palm Ballroom and adjacent rooms hosted systems from Acora Acoustics, Scott Walker Audio, and VAC—an ambitious collaboration by Valerio Cora, Scott Walker, and Kevin Hayes. The trio presented a range of well-curated systems.

Four systems were up and running. Let’s take a closer look.

System One featured a VPI Avenger Direct Statement turntable ($36,000)—including a VPI Fatboy Gimbal 12" 3D tonearm—and a Hana Umami Red MC cartridge ($3,950). The signal flowed through a VAC Statement phono stage ($82,000) and VAC Statement line stage ($82,000) into the world-…

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.

Nagaoka’s full cartridge lineup was on display, each model supplied with an included headshell: MP-700H ($1499), MP-500H ($999), MP-300H ($859), MP-200H ($549), MP-150H ($439), MP-110H ($209), MP-100H ($173), and the Jeweltone JT-80BK ($699) and JT-80LB ($279)(80BK and 80LB, cartridge only).…

The analog front-end included a Goldenberg Maestro MC phono cartridge ($6000) fitted on a Garrard 301 Advanced turntable via an SME V tonearm ($54,900), feeding a Goldmund Mimesis PH3.8 NEXTGEN phono preamplifier ($48,000). For digital playback, a Goldmund Eidos Streamer ($27,000) was paired with a Silent Angel Bonn NX network switch ($3999).

Amplification came from Goldmund’s…

Room 1130 was my kind of space—tubes and turntables!

An AirTight PC-1 Coda MC cartridge ($10,975) was mounted on a Transrotor TRA-9 tonearm ($1495), itself installed on a Transrotor Dark Star turntable ($4595). The signal passed through a Transrotor Phono 8.2 MC Symmetrical…

It featured a Goldenberg Brilliant MC phono cartridge ($4250); a British Garrard 301 Classic turntable with an SME M2 tonearm ($37,900); an Engström M-Phono Mk II preamplifier ($35,000); and two digital sources from Luxman—the NT-07 streamer and the D-07X DAC, priced at $7495/each.

The system also included Scandinavian electronics: an Engström MONICA Mk III preamplifier ($70,000) and Engström ERIC…

I signed up to cover several Fidelity Imports rooms at AXPONA, expecting to find components that overdeliver on performance and value. I wasn’t wrong.

That happened in Room 1209, where Fidelity Imports founder Steve Jain and his team curated a system of genuine overachievers: an Aurender A1000 music server/streamer/DAC ($3500); a Geshelli Labs Torc DAC ($2499); a Unison Research Unico Primo integrated amplifier with built-in phono stage ($1999); Q Acoustics 5050 floorstanding speakers ($1999/pair); and, making its global debut, the Q Acoustics Q Sub100 10" subwoofer ($1049).

Founder Matthew Beardsworth, an electrical engineer with a background in semiconductor design, spent years building tube guitar amplifiers before deciding it was time to create a hi-fi amplifier. “The goal,” he writes on the Bandwidth Audio website, “was to build an amplifier where most of the cost is spent on things that matter: component quality, circuit design, and mechanical ruggedness—the fundamentals of a great-sounding product…

Ask the average jazz-loving audiophile to list his favorite recording engineers, and such icons as Rudy Van Gelder, Roy DuNann, and Fred Plaut would top their lists. but if you asked a handful of current and recent New York City jazz musicians to cite their favorites, one name would leap to the front of the pack: James Allen Farber.

Farber's engineering and mixing credits span nearly 1000 albums, dating from the mid-1970s to the present day. He has won five Grammy Awards, in the Best Jazz Instrumental Album, Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album (three times), and…

Micallef: Regarding Rudy Van Gelder, he did live mixes. Did he generally cut lacquers soon after the recording session?

Farber: That I don't know, but I do know his mastering was very active. I know a mastering engineer who remastered one of Rudy's recordings. Compared to the original record, it was obvious how many moves Rudy made in the mastering process, revealing that mastering was a large part of his final sound. But I'm sure the recordings sounded ridiculous before the mastering, too. Rudy and the Columbia guys had an advantage I don't have: They…