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Getting to AXPONA 2026 is half the adventure. My direct flight from Bangor was canceled hours before departure, and the airline routed me through Philadelphia. Somewhere between home and gate, I lost one of my brand-new AirPods—not both, just one, which is somehow more annoying.

When Stereophile editor Jim Austin, en route himself, texted to ask if I was "planed" (don't try this at home—we journalists are trained professionals who can turn any noun…

Ken Micallef and Miguel Barrio welcome one and all to our upcoming in-depth AXPONA 2026 coverage. Ken, Miguel, and Rogier van Bakel will be conducting show interviews and showing us lots of great new gear from the show in the days ahead, so stay tuned!

Permit me a brief thought experiment. Let's imagine that your long-lost uncle from El Paso, the one who did a little legal work for the Sinaloa Cartel, suddenly left you a car trunk full of cash. After getting over the shock, you apply this tax-free windfall toward renovating your kitchen or putting a child through college, but before long you visit an audio salon. Armed with some f *ck-you money, you can now afford a f *ck-you…

The design, reminiscent of a three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle, is far more complex and ingenious than it might at first appear, and while the SG1.1 superficially resembles a few other turntables now on the market, those took…

Within each category, products are listed by class; within each class, they're in alphabetical order, followed by price, a review synopsis, and a note indicating the issues in which the review and any subsequent follow-up reports appeared. "Vol.48 No.11" indicates our November 2025 issue, for example. "WWW"…

The most malicious response to this music came from DownBeat's John Tynan, who called the music, Eric Dolphy's solos in particular, "musical nonsense being peddled in the name of jazz" and "a horrifying demonstration of what appears to be a growing anti-jazz trend." Apparently, Tynan had overdosed on Mitch Miller or Dave Brubeck and his…

On Friday, I entered a Schaumburg hotel room that, it's safe to say, looked like no other at AXPONA. The first thing tipping me off that this would be special was that exhibitor Tony Crocker (shown above), the man behind Swan Song Audio, greeted me with a good-natured "Hello! Come to see the freakshow?"

Once inside, it was hard not to be impressed. Make that amazed. Delighted. In front of me stood a pair of loudspeakers that looked like honest-to-god rockets. I don't mean they were vaguely cigar-shaped and pointy. I mean that right there arose (if you will) two 3D-printed…

The Western Electric room at AXPONA 2026 (room 464) is one of those rooms that make you feel you have traveled in time the moment you see it.

Charles Whitener, tube expert and Western Electric CEO, was in the room, among the company's newest creations: the WE 203C CD player ($12,000), 91E preamplifier ($8000), 100E monoblock amplifiers ($150,000/pair), and A2 speakers ($140,000/pair). Absolutely stunning in construction, scale—and specifications!—were the new 100E…

Oftentimes, when I see a piece of equipment that is highly stylized in form, I expect that function will not be up to par. Listening to Treble Clef Audio's TCA-M Signature active speaker ($103,900/pair) in room 1505 at AXPONA 2026 proved me wrong.

Shaped like a musical note, this Treble Clef Audio speaker (shown below) incorporates a host of cutting-edge technology: The transducer includes a folded dipole air velocity bass system—producing bass that radiates to the front and back eliminating sidewall reflections, linear-phase DSP crossovers, three integrated Pascal Class-D…

Playing a wild, assaultive Afro Cuban track, the Axiss Audio USA system in room 1628 at AXPONA 2026 practically shook the walls. Though the room didn't do the bass response any favors, the soundstage was well scaled, and imaging was strong, though at times a mite diffuse.

But this system also made me forget my critical listening hat and simply pulse, rock, and sway my old joints 'til they grew warm enough to resurrect the…