AXPONA 2023

If you wanted to hear an admirably smooth, solid, all-of-one-piece system with a huge soundstage and extremely fast and firm bass, Ed DeVito's Audio-Ultra exhibit was one of the best to visit. It was also the only room where you could hear CH Precision gear with the latest upgrades and the diminutive Magico A1 standmount loudspeakers ($9400/pair in silver finish).

It's a rare occurrence when this hi-fi reporter experiences sonic serendipity, so when it strikes, I'm all in from the downbeat. Such was my good fortune with my first AXPONA assignment of the day, covering the hallowed sound room presented by Nashville's AXISS Audio.

AXPONA (Audio Expo North America), the largest audio show in North America, will get underway April 14–16 in the Renaissance Schaumburg Hotel & Convention Center in the Chicago suburbs. As exhibitors begin the often challenging task of assembling their gear, Jim Austin, Ken Micallef, Michael Trei, Rogier van Bakel, et moi prepare ourselves for the discoveries that lie ahead.

Here's a list of the complete Dutch & Dutch product lineup:

1. Dutch & Dutch model 8c speakers.

And here's a list of all the audio electronics in the Dutchies' 11th-floor room at AXPONA:

1. Dutch & Dutch model 8c speakers.

That's it.

Colorado's Ayre Acoustics jammed a big system into a small room at APXONA, wall-to-wall attendees barely leaving space for Ayre's president, designer, and Chief Ayre-Head Ariel Brown to press the flesh and discuss the gear.

As much as I was aware of the dizzying array of diminutive, Korean-made SOtM (Soul Of the Music) components, each identified by a different difficult-to-type assortment of upper and lower case letters plus numbers and dashes, I did not expect them to sound as good as they did. Allied to K Sound Lab's Callas Nostalgia Jr. loudspeakers ($26,990/pair), manufactured by a 25-year old company that is reportedly well known in Korea, the system displayed lovely colors, a rounded midrange, and enviable clarity on a file of "I am at Ease in the Arms of a Woman."

Cambridge Audio CEO Stuart George arrived at AXPONA for the debut of the Cambridge Audio MXN10 streamer ($499). The faithful British brand's two hotel rooms were fairly jumping with interested "punters," I think that's a malleable Brit term one could use to describe audiophiles eager to hear more of this legacy brand that has for decades offered incredible value.