Jason Victor Serinus

In the quiet inner sanctum of Ultra Fidelis’ two-room suite with Vandersteen, AudioQuest, AMG, Audio Research and more, I sat enthralled before one of the most musical systems I encountered at AXPONA.

Anyone who knows these brands senses the potential for great sound in this room. Great sound in and of itself, however, was not the system’s raison d’être.

Excellent, well-controlled bass was one of many strong suits in a room headlined by Vinnie Rossi BRAMA monoblock power amplifiers (gen2 - $59,995/pair) and BRAMA preamplifier (gen2 - $38,995) paired with YG Acoustics Hailey 3 loudspeakers ($63,400/pair).

Damon Von Schweikert, CEO of speaker manufacturer Von Schweikert Audio, did something interesting in the room (1621) he shared with Gary Leeds of WestminsterLab. Faced with a challenging room whose opening to a second inner chamber of similar size all but guaranteed that bass would be a mess, set up two Von Schweikert V-12XS MkII Shockwave subwoofers ($33,000 for two), facing each other.

Another big system with a midrange to love, with speakers well-matched to the space. I wasn't converted to the style of singer Vanessa Fernandez, whose cut from her new platter seemed more derivative than inspired, but the midrange sounded excellent, and there was also lots of bass to attract attention.

After achieving Serenity and acquiring Knowledge, do we end up in the land of Perfection? The room I visited after Perfection was Connection, which was occupied by Quintessence Audio. So perhaps we can say that Serenity + Knowledge + Perfection produces a Connection to something higher than ourselves, which in this case would be Nirvana. (There's also a Nirvana room.)

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.