AXPONA 2022

I heard people at the show, including Stereophile writers, were talking about the Ø Audio room—though when I say they were talking about it, I don’t mean that they were saying the company’s name, since no one knew how to do that. I looked it up. Ø is a letter in Norwegian and Danish that comes after the end of our alphabet, after Æ and before Å. If you want to know how to pronounce it, I'll provide a link to a pronunciation guide. You'll notice that the pronunciation in Danish and Norwegian is quite different—though the pronunciation I heard from Norwegian Jonathan Cook to me sounded more like Danish.

Robin Wyatt's Robyatt room wins my early, best sound of show. Playing recordings I thought I knew well, as well as those I'd never heard, his exacting, tonally true, vivid, physical, natural and extremely transparent system left my jaw on the floor and other's mouths agape.

Exciting. Engrossing. Exhausting. Enjoyable. Nothing but e-words from me. I could go on, but not without breaking out the thesaurus. —Rogier van Bakel, Stereophile's newest Contributing Editor

A large, almost loft-style suite on the 16th floor housed a big, all-out system presented by Bending Wave USA, the Florida-based distributor/dealer for Germany's Göbel Audio (among other brands); their name nods to Göbel Audio's bending wave drivers.

T+A elektroakustik GmbH & Co. brought the A-team to the 2022 AXPONA, including American rep Senior Vice President of Sales and Operations David Schultz, Chief Operations Officer (and heir apparent) Conradin Amft, and Founder and CEO Siegfried Amft. During a light Saturday breakfast in the big T+A room, the elder Amft briefed the Stereophile team on T+A's status and plans; expect some big announcements at High End Munich later this month.

Dealer/distributor Verdant Audio's room included a few important debuts, including the new Wilson Benesch Geometry Discovery IIIZ standmount loudspeaker ($31,000).

In addition to exhibiting a plethora of "classic" hi-fi gear, MoFi Distribution introduced a modern lifestyle system in Suite 340: the new Piega Ace Wireless series.