Rogier van Bakel

I counted more than 40 audio products in the MoFi Distribution Schaumburg B ballroom. How to cover such a cornucopia? Making my job easier was that only eight of them were hooked up. The others were there to be oohed and ahed over, perhaps prodded and poked, but they’d (re)produce no music at the show.

High-flying Fidelity Imports occupied seven rooms at AXPONA 2024—probably a show record. Since starting the company in 2018, industry veteran Steve Jain has signed up a bevy of brands from Italy, France, England, Japan, and beyond.

Going to an audio show is a bit like being a finalist in that old Monty Hall show where your prize is behind one of three identical doors. At AXPONA, there are more than 200 identical doors.

A $20,000 system is probably no one’s idea of cheap, but it’s affordable-ish by AXPONA standards. And if the sound quality of such a setup is as good as it was in room 394, where Chicago dealer Saturday Audio Exchange had again partnered with Canadian marques Paradigm and Anthem, we’re getting into bargain territory.

During each AXPONA, the makers of head-fi products set up their booths in the ground-floor central ballroom of Schaumburg's enormous Renaissance hotel. The Ear Gear Experience, they call it. I always have a look and a listen, in part because the products there aren't crazy expensive: three and four figures, mostly.

Sometimes I wonder what the etiquette is at audio shows. I mean, nobody tells you anything. It’s fair to assume that playing windmill-style air guitar to songs by the Who is generally frowned upon, at least in public, but is it gauche to sway and groove in your chair when the music moves you?

One question the Stereophile team asks in every AXPONA room we cover is, “Is any of the gear new?” The Cambridge Audio team wins a trophy this year—or would if there was a trophy. When I dropped in for a listen on the first day of the show, account manager Joseph Buechel told me that the Class AB CXA81 MkII integrated amplifier ($1199) was making its debut "today, right now."