AXPONA 2019

Happily, extremely listenable and well-balanced sound from a 24/176.4 file of Brubeck's "Take Five," and a 16-bit file of a track that I think was titled "Camptino," from the Erik Truffaz Quartet featuring the wonder Rokia Traoré, was the hallmark of a large, air-walled space sponsored by multiple companies. Here, chatting was minimal, perhaps simply because the sound was so good. I really enjoyed how mellow the sax sounded, and how drums were rendered with truthfulness without becoming clattery.

Spying the Scaena (pronounced Sane-a) room, I was happy to hear their fabulous sounding speakers once again. This time it was the Scaena Model 3 ($90,000 pair including the two big subwoofers), driven by a High Fidelity Cables MA-1 amplifier ($30,000), fed by a four-stack dCS Vivaldi system ($114,996 total) and connected by High Fidelity cables.

I am not a bot. I measure my own DIY audio gear. But as an audio-show reporter, I'm only interested in those biologically significant sounds that connect my mind as directly as possible to the music being played. I want to see and feel some inkling of a real orchestra floating between the speakers. I found that connection right away in the room sponsored by retailer-distributor Refined Audio.

I turned up at Mike Jbara's Master Class presentation Friday afternoon, "Achieving Authentic Studio Quality Sound," expecting fireworks. Jbara is the chief executive of MQA and many internet denizens had declared that they would be attending his presentation to oppose what he would be saying. But all was quiet during Jbara's 45-minute talk on what he regards as the benefits of the controversial codec to both the music industry and to audiophiles. Another MQA-related Master Class takes place at AXPONA Saturday April 13 at 12 noon. Moderated by Besflores Nievara Jr., Brand Ambassador for Music Direct, Mike Jbara will join MQA partner NAD's CTO, Greg Stidsen, and other panelists to discuss "The Future of High Resolution Audio." Perhaps the fireworks will be in evidence tomorrow!

The room presented by importer Vana LTD of Lake Grove, New York, featured (in addition to some record cleaning fluid and Okki Nokki record-cleaning machines) analog components by the European Audio Team (EAT) and loudspeakers by Audio Physik.

In the middle of AXPONA's annual pre-show industry reception, held Thursday evening in the huge Schaumburg Ballroom of the Schaumburg Hotel & Convention Center, Paul Miller (on the right in the photo above), Director of AVTech Media/AVTech Media Americas—which publishes Stereophile, AudioStream, InnerFidelity, AnalogPlanet, Sound & Vision, and the UK's Hi-Fi News & Record Review (amongst other properties)—unexpectedly took to the stage . . .

The late Arnie Nudell, co-founder of Infinity, was very much a mentor to PS Audio's Paul McGowan, and Paul and his team have been working a loudspeaker design that would honor Nudell. AXPONA saw the first public demo of the new speaker, the AN3, which is expected to be available toward the end of the year at a price somewhere in the region of $11,500–$14,500/pair. The AN3 features a servo-corrected 12" aluminum-cone woofer, driven by a 700W amplifier mounted on one of the sides, with a folded ribbon tweeter, a rectangular planar midrange unit sourced from Bohlender-Graebener, and an 8" cone "mid-bass coupler," the last a consistent feature of Nudell's designs for Infinity and Genesis.