AXPONA 2024

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AXPONA 2024
A Full Active Gryphon System Wows
Jason Victor Serinus  |  May 01, 2024  | 
There are times when a music critic gets so upended by a recording of well-loved music that their previous plaudits for a different recorded version demands reassessment.
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AXPONA 2024
AirTight, Reed, and Franco Serblin Make Joyful Music
Jason Victor Serinus  |  Apr 15, 2024  |  First Published: Apr 13, 2024  | 
What better way to start the first day of an audio show than with some light joyful music? In this case, it was with a 1974 LP, Heinz Holliger: Famous Oboe Concertos, on which the famous oboist joined players of the Dresden State Orchestra under Vittorio Negri for, among other works, Leclair’s Concerto in C for Oboe, Strings, and Continuo, Op. 7. In the first movement, the lively presentation complemented equally lively music, which cheerily zipped along.

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AXPONA 2024
Ampsandsound, Auralic North America Inc., SME
Ken Micallef  |  Apr 24, 2024  | 
Ampsandsound’s Justin Weber brought a big pile of black vinyl to Chicago, lining the small room’s walls with album jackets. He had me at Sphongle, an electronic industrial act that churned out of the world-debut Ampsandsound Hudson 3-Way speakers ($18,000/pair) like dirty psychedelic water erupting from a broken sewer pipe.
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AXPONA 2024
Artisan Fidelity’s TIDAL room with Garrard, Schroeder, VDH, and Signal Projects
Jason Victor Serinus  |  Apr 29, 2024  | 
TIDAL made a fine showing in the room sponsored by one of its three US dealers, Christopher Thornton’s Artisan Fidelity. Totally drug-free I swear, I melted into the exceptional smoothness and beauty of “The Girl from Ipanema” on vinyl.
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AXPONA 2024
Audio Note (UK)
Ken Micallef  |  Apr 17, 2024  | 
I typically attend Audio Note (UK) rooms not just to listen, but to learn.
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AXPONA 2024
AXISS impresses with Gauder Akustik, Soulution, Innuos, Accuphase, Transrotor w. DS Audio, and more
Jason Victor Serinus  |  Apr 24, 2024  | 
The all-out AXPONA push by AXISS Audio of Nashville, now headed by Cliff Duffey, encompassed four rooms. The biggest presented three new headliners: Gauder Akustik’s DARC 25-0 Mk II 4-way Reference Loudspeaker ($249,975), Soulution’s 727 preamp with phono module ($89,950; review forthcoming), and Soulution’s 757 deemphasis EQ preamplifier phonostage ($84,975).
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As We See ItAXPONA 2024
AXPONA 2024 in the Rear View
Jim Austin  |  Jun 14, 2024  | 
Photo: John Atkinson

If buying a hi-fi product from an internet retailer is like an arranged marriage, a hi-fi show is like speed dating. Not everyone, I realize, approaches hi-fi shows (or speed dating, for that matter) the same way, and anyway, the analogy between hi-fi and dating is far from perfect. Speed dating is how this year's AXPONA, America's biggest hi-fi show, held at the Renaissance Schaumburg Hotel & Convention Center (above) near Chicago in April, often felt to me as I moved from room to room. Every new system I heard had the potential to become a long-term relationship. Could I live with this one forever?

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AXPONA 2024
AXPONA Coverage Resumes: Clarisys Audio USA, Convergent Audio Technology, Black Path Audio, and Essential Sound Products
Ken Micallef  |  Apr 22, 2024  | 
In the Nirvana C ballroom, Nguyen Phuong of Clarisys Audio USA played his range of Clarisys Audio Panels, of which the smaller Minuet panel had so impressed me at the recent Florida International Audio Expo.
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AXPONA 2024
AXPONA Revs Up for the Big Open
Jason Victor Serinus  |  Apr 12, 2024  |  First Published: Apr 11, 2024  | 
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AXPONA 2024
Bayz Audio, Chord Electronics, Aurender, Shunyata Research
Rogier van Bakel  |  May 05, 2024  | 
Going to an audio show is a bit like being a finalist in that old Monty Hall show where your prize is behind one of three identical doors. At AXPONA, there are more than 200 identical doors.
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AXPONA 2024
Bel Canto, Pure Fidelity, YG
Jim Austin  |  Apr 15, 2024  | 

When I walked into this room, just before closing time on Sunday, the show’s last day, they were spinning vinyl. Two things are notable about that fact, at least to me.

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AXPONA 2024
Børresen / Audio Group Denmark from Next Level HiFi
Jason Victor Serinus  |  Apr 30, 2024  | 
It was hard to tell where distributor / dealer Next Level HiFi ended and Audio Group Denmark began. Or, vice-versa), it was equally hard to tell if more action was taking place in the room during the demo or in the hallway. Suffice to say, there was a lot of energy flowing, and all that talking made listening a challenge.
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AXPONA 2024
Cambridge Audio and Triangle
Rogier van Bakel  |  May 02, 2024  | 
One question the Stereophile team asks in every AXPONA room we cover is, “Is any of the gear new?” The Cambridge Audio team wins a trophy this year—or would if there was a trophy. When I dropped in for a listen on the first day of the show, account manager Joseph Buechel told me that the Class AB CXA81 MkII integrated amplifier ($1199) was making its debut "today, right now."
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AXPONA 2024
DALI and NAD
Rogier van Bakel  |  Apr 13, 2024  | 

The amiable and loquacious Jason Zidle is a product manager at Lenbrook, the Canadian company behind NAD and Bluesound. Lenbrook also imports Denmark’s storied DALI speakers. At the Renaissance hotel in Schaumburg, the star performers in the Lenbrook space are a handsome pair of just-launched DALI Epikore 11 floorstanders ($60,000/pair).

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AXPONA 2024
DeVore Fidelity
Ken Micallef  |  Apr 13, 2024  | 
In the room operated by Brooklyn’s John DeVore, we time traveled to the 1940s and 50s as he spun pristine shellac 78s on an EMT turntable, playing through the world premieres of both his O/bronze Loudspeakers (30,000/pair) and the 7Wpc Komuro Amplifier Company K300S direct-coupled SET 300B stereo amplifier ($20,000).
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