Great hi-fi can give you goosebumps. And it relates to another source of horripilation: live music, and its recordings. I've also always been a live music junkieever since I was a kid.
I was fortunate to have grown up attending the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and Cincinnati Pops Orchestra's "LolliPops" children's concerts. I'd seen some tepid live acts as a kid (ie, Donny and Marie). But nothing prepared me for my first rock concert. It, um, rocked my world.
Unless you live under a rock, you've followed Russia's invasion of Ukraine. You know something about sanctions against Russia and Russia's responses to those sanctions. If, in addition to not living under a rock, you're a tube-audio aficionado or electric guitar nut, you may have thought about a likely consequence of that war that's far less momentous than the destruction and carnage we see on TV: Will I be able to get new tubes for my amplifier? Especially those lovely Russia-made tubes.
You never forget your first time. Ask any audiophile about that first moment hearing music through a good hi-fi systemhow it rocked their world and changed their life. Maybe it was at a friend's parents' house when they were a kid. Often, though, it was the first time they found themselves in a hi-fi dealership, back in the day.
The MoFi Distribution classic gear fun continued in Suite 346, with two pairs of Wharfedale Heritage Linton speakers ($1799/pair), stacked, with the one on top inverted so that the two tweeters were in the middle. One Wharfedale Linton stand ($399/pair) supported each side's stack.
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.
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.
Lenbrook of Canada has several modern hi-fi brands under its "umbrella," and I had the chance to check out some of the latest wares from DALI, NAD, and Bluesound in room 729 at AXPONA.
Tucked away in a corner of the 6th floor were two Fidelity Imports rooms showing a few new gems. Fidelity Imports focused one (room 604) on its imports from the UK.
Fidelity Imports' second room showed on passive display the latest speaker from Perlisten, the three-way S5t tower, a smaller sibling to the Perlisten S7t in the active setup (and that Kal Rubinson reviewed in December 2021, bottom photo). A (forthcoming) new Aurender A15 music server/streamer with DAC (top photo) decoding full MQA served as the source.