AXPONA 2023

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AXPONA 2023
Grandinote's Gargantuan Soundstage
Jason Victor Serinus  |  Apr 24, 2023  |  0 comments
Grandinote owner/designer Massimiliano Magri (above) joined his North American distributor Reinhard Goerner at AXPONA for the premiere of the Grandinote Premier Mach 8XL loudspeaker ($30,800–$33,000/pair, depending upon finish). According to Grandinote's endearingly "English as a second language" website, the Mach 8XL's eight full-range drivers utilize a special treatment behind the drivers' membranes that prevents cone break-up. The drivers roll-off above 13kHz, allowing a super tweeter that handles harmonics above 7kHz to come to the fore. Rather than employing a crossover—the Mach 8XL has none—drivers are modified to create "a solution in the middle between bass reflex and transmission line."
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AXPONA 2023
Dynaudio and Octave Triumph over Acoustics at AXPONA
Jason Victor Serinus  |  Apr 24, 2023  |  0 comments
Air-walled exhibition rooms are one of the biggest challenges at audio shows. With no solid surfaces, many exhibitors in the large rooms on the first and second floors of the Schaumburg Convention Center had no choice but to struggle to put their best face forward.

Dynaudio and Octave probably had it better than most because, at the end of a row in Utopia D, presumably two of their walls were solid. Their sound on their biggest system certain was solid and all-of-one piece, yet extremely smooth. It had lots of life and flow, especially if you listened to LP and sat in the first row where the sound was at its tube splendor wettest and the low bass clearest.

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AXPONA 2023
ADD-POWR at AXPONA
Jason Victor Serinus  |  Apr 24, 2023  |  0 comments
Just as I dashed into the Expo Hall to check out Coherence Systems' ADD-POWR SorcerX4 ($4399.95) and smaller Apprentice ($3299.95) harmonic conditioning devices, Bill Stierhout (above) was packing up. We just had enough time to snap this photo before his booth became a booth no more.
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AXPONA 2023
Another Wow from Credo Audio Switzerland, EMM Labs, Meitner Audio, VPI
Jason Victor Serinus  |  Apr 24, 2023  |  0 comments
Credo Audio Switzerland's Cinema LTM loudspeakers ($199,995/pair) may have towered above all else, but the gear from EMM Labs and their lower priced Meitner Audio line, van den Hul, VPI Industries, and DS Audio displayed in another "give it all you've got" large room was nothing to scoff at. Though I've grown tired of the overblown sound on Gary Karr's LP, Adagio di Albinoni, I was awed by the midrange beauty of Sara Barreilles's voice on a 24/88.2 file of "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road." The recorded sound of this live performance seemed uncannily real, and the soundstage was awesome.
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AXPONA 2023
The Big Toys Play Without Limitations in Quintessence Audio Ltd's 3 Rooms: Wilson, Dan D'Agostino, dCS, Sonus faber, Boulder
Jason Victor Serinus  |  Apr 24, 2023  |  3 comments
Mick Survance of Quintessence Audio in Morton Grove, IL knows his brands well. Wilson Audio, Dan D'Agostino Master Audio Systems, Clearaudio, DS Audio, dCS, Transparent, Bassocontinuo, Sonus faber, Boulder, Critical Mass Systems, Hana, and Kubala-Sosna: these are among the major, time-honored brands that fill the homes of many audiophiles with means.

Each of these rooms had several elements in common: premium equipment, meticulous set-up, and heavy black draping that, while necessary to reduce multiple issues in narrower air-walled spaces (which were nonetheless larger than my music room), also reduced three-dimensionality and air. It was thus a wonder that individually as well as collectively, Quintessence's showcases produced some of the best sound I encountered at the show.

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AXPONA 2023
Focal's Dolby Atmos Demo
Jason Victor Serinus  |  Apr 24, 2023  |  2 comments
Some believe that Dolby Atmos, Apple's spatial audio variant, and other immersive technologies are the wave of the future. While the best way to determine what the future will bring is to live long enough to render the future the present, Jim Austin and I independently dipped into Focal Naim's impressive self-contained 7.2.4. Dolby Atmos Theva exhibit, staged within their larger exhibit space, to get a taste of what's available right now.
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AXPONA 2023
Scott Walker Audio, Von Schweikert, VAC, Aurender, LampizatOr, and MasterBuilt
Rogier van Bakel  |  Apr 23, 2023  |  1 comments
Trigger warning: If sky-high prices for audio gear make you gnarly, this AXPONA report (and many others) won't lift your mood. Just the MasterBuilt-brand cabling in dealer Scott Walker Audio's room carried a heart-stopping six-figure price tag.

The space, featuring Von Schweikert Ultra 7 speakers ($180,000/pair), wasn't especially small or large. Let's call it a Goldilocks room. Leif Swanson, Von Schweikert's chief designer, said that the brand's products had often been demoed in big expo rooms, which occasionally scared off potential buyers who assumed that the speakers needed a jumbo-sized space to sing. Not so, says the company.

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AXPONA 2023
Atohm's GT1 Bookshelves Offer Impressive Bass
Jason Victor Serinus  |  Apr 23, 2023  |  0 comments
The room was noisy, and the switching between selections a classic case of trackus interruptus. Nonetheless, the ability of Atohm's GT1 bookshelf speakers ($4499/pair) to convey bass far more powerful than one might reasonably expect from speakers of their size left me smiling. I was smiling as well because the first demo track chosen to display this wonder was one I occasionally reference for color, texture, and speed: Yosi Horikawa's "Bubbles" (16/44.1Tidal/First World Records).
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AXPONA 2023
Kyomi Audio Goes Extreme with MBL!!!
Jason Victor Serinus  |  Apr 23, 2023  |  14 comments
I'm not one for abusing punctuation, as in ending every sentence of a press release with an exclamation point. (It happens more frequently than you may wish to know.) But when MBL named its top-of-the-line loudspeakers X-treme ($398,000/pair), they weren't kidding. These speakers are as huge as they are imposing.
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AXPONA 2023
Partnered with Shunyata, Clarisys launches neodymium-magnet Minuet speakers
Rogier van Bakel  |  Apr 22, 2023  |  1 comments
Room 352 at AXPONA, where cable constructors Shunyata Research and speaker builders Clarisys had joined forces, was something of a feast for the senses. The Clarisys Minuet speakers ($38,800/pair) look like high-tech heaters in a 1940s film noir, and I mean that in the best possible way—I love how they seem simultaneously retro and thoroughly modern. They sounded wonderful too.
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AXPONA 2023
With B&W and Marantz, Masimo, a maker of medical devices, makes the push into audio
Rogier van Bakel  |  Apr 22, 2023  |  7 comments
Masimo must have been the biggest, most valuable company at AXPONA by far. Its market valuation is slightly north of 10 billion dollars. The NASDAQ-listed firm had more than two billion in revenues last year. And yet it's a safe bet that most expo-goers who saw the Masimo name on one of the demo rooms thought, "Who?"
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AXPONA 2023
Linkwitz (no longer just for DIYers) teams up with Linn, Kuzma, and Jeff Rowland Design Group
Rogier van Bakel  |  Apr 21, 2023  |  0 comments
I probably spent much of my time at AXPONA with a severe case of resting bitch face, as I'm usually concentrating hard. There's a lot to cover, and a thousand facts to get straight. But during system auditions, I occasionally smiled too, sometimes unintentionally making eye contact with exhibitors who were excited to see that I was excited.

That's what happened in the Linkwitz room, where CEO Frank Brenner and noted Linkwitz evangelist Charles Port were demoing the company's LX521.4 open-baffle speakers.

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AXPONA 2023
An ideal match: JMF Audio & Harbeth in the Fidelis/Blue Skies Room
Jason Victor Serinus  |  Apr 21, 2023  |  0 comments
When I first heard JMF Audio components from France at AXPONA 2022, I had no idea that, paired with the right speakers, they would produce heavenly sound. But in the room jointly sponsored by Fidelis Distribution, who handles Harbeth loudspeakers, and Audio Skies, which distributes JMF Audio and Ideon Audio, the mating of JMF with Harbeth delivered some of the finest-sounding music I heard at AXPONA 2023.
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AXPONA 2023
Ultra Fidelis impresses with Vandersteen, HRS, and more
Jason Victor Serinus  |  Apr 21, 2023  |  0 comments
Harmonic Resolution Systems (HRS) unveiled its new, significantly less expensive EXR-1921-4V audio stand ($7795) at AXPONA. (I'd originally seen this stand at Definitive Audio's private Music Matters event in Seattle.) Put to good use in the Ultra Fidelis Room, it joined HRS's SXR-1921-5V audio stand ($11,550/frame), M3X2-1921 isolation base ($3995), R3X-1921 isolation base ($1975), and Vortex V150 isolation feet ($1630/set) to support a system that included Vandersteen M5HPA High Pass Amplifiers ($16,800/pair) and Kento Carbon loudspeakers ($41,700/pair)...
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AXPONA 2023
Ayre Acoustics Debuts New VX-8 Stereo Power Amplifier
Ken Micallef  |  Apr 21, 2023  |  1 comments
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.
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