Axpona 2023

Hey, Axpona is this weekend in the Chicago area. I'll be down there all weekend, but might dip out a little early on Sunday. Anyone else here going?

Also, anything new that people recommend checking out?

 

If anyone's there, would love to see some pics and hear some impressions so I can live through you.

 

I didn't take too many pictures

My "best of show"



These are Diptyque planar magnetic speakers that run for $50K - just sounded perfect to me.

The surprise was to find a room filled with DIY speakers



driven by an unmodified ADCOM 5800 - some of the vendors hopefully stop by to hear what a well balanced and integrated speaker sounds like - scan speak revelator soft dome tweeters, ATC dome mid, not sure what the big woofers were but they sounded great.

I grew up on British fi , so it was a real treat to hear the MISSION 770 and new LEAK Stereo 20 / 50 gear.

Coolest room goes to Cardas - wish I had taken a pic = set up like a teenage room from the 70's , just a lot of fun.

and I couldn't resist takin a picture of these



There were a few things I wanted to hear - Pure Audio Trio - not well set up, shouty and muddy , the smaller ones sounded better but no real bass. Linkwitz - also not a great room, sound was incoherent .

A neat surprise was a new PASS First Watt - SIT4 - this uses the TH51 pucks in mu follower config - sounded really good. I did not get to hear a new prototype headphone amp that was lurking in the room.

Many of the usual show vendors, most rooms not ideal to show of the goods, overall not inspired . Down in the EXPO room - the SOTA table demo was cool and not crazy money for some excellent engineering.

hopefully more people take pictures and share experiences. Sorry I didn't get to see ( or aware of ) other SBAFers there.

..dB

 

Does Audeze have the MM-100 there? Anyone try them out?

 

I wasn't too familiar with the music but they sounded decent. Great form, lightweight, very listenable and deserve a deeper listen,

 

Anyone hear the new Tannoy Stirling? In the Upscale room, I'm guessing.

 

I specifically sought them out to hear them. It was quite funny though, they were playing Billy Eilish when I first walked in which is recorded with massive distortion and a number of folk left thinking that they couldn't handle the bass. The room wasn't great, bass sounded a little boomy and because you were sitting 20cm (a little poetic license) from the drivers, the mids were a little etched. You could hear the potential and they are just works of art. They had the Kensington on the counter, form factor was the same but didn't get to hear them.

The other concentric I sought out was the new MoFi = very boomy but again, just a challenging set up in those small rooms but one I also anticipate would sound great set up in a listening room.

 

I had a good audition of a vintage (70s-80s?) pair of Tannoy Arden last year; they surprised me with a lot of coherence and great tonality. However, I've also heard a pair of the big new Tannoy Legacy (the Westminister?) and found them super dark. So, a more modern take on the Tannoy concentric driver, that doesn't cost $30k plus, definitely appeals.

 

Yes, I got to hear them out of my portable stack (Soekris DAC1101 into a Triad Audio L3 amp).

They sounded a little anemic to me so I definitely touched the bass boost knob on my portable amp which helped a treat. Detail was very decent, imo, and they seemed to have a nice laid back signature without being "boring". Nothing I heard there sounded bad, though, everything was "good" but not blown away by anything. Just a non-discerning environment imho due to venue noise floor.



I got to A/B the Diana TC with the DCA Stealth. Stealth had nicer bass while Diana TC had more fleshed out and forward mids. Stealth build quality is nice and the pads are heaven on my face.



ZMF Caldera. Nice tuning, good detail, and actually a bit of noise isolation made this one of the highlights for me. Granted, it was hooked up to their ?Tidal? service, there wasn't much music, and it was all very eclectic, I honestly struggled finding even one song I had heard before. They sounded "good" but not "CrAzY". Bunch of wood chassis tube amps, hahaha. Booth full of wood. Zach seemed super cool and down to Earth, but I did not introduce myself due to time constraints and the popularity of the ZMF booth, he was busy with other folks. There was a Chord DAVE at the ZMF booth I wish I had gotten the chance to hear, but alas, not in the cards.


My father listening to Stax SR-L500's. The Stax rep seemed very authentically Japanese and his knowledge of their product line seemed vast. Was cool to chat. I was surprised by the bass on these, honestly not as polite as I was thinking for an electrostat. Wish I could have had some time with these in the sound-proof booth, tbh. I am even more interested in Stax now. The Stax rep took a picture of me with my portable rig because he thought it was good social media content, haha. I guess a big ole stack of portable audio gear is rare these days with dongle DAC's and such.

 

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I sadly didn’t make it this year. I agree that the smaller rooms often have challenges, especially for set ups such as PAP. My wife left underwhelmed the last time we went because of the muddy sound of the trios. I own Omega 3 set up in my home 12 x 24 room and hoped to convince her to upgrade. oh well.

 

I was there most of the day Friday & Saturday. I agree with the observation that most rooms were not ideal, especially the ball rooms. The music was often lame and played at too low of a volume to gain even a modest sense of what the rig could do. I was sorely tempted to ask some room attendants if the current track was on the playlist for a key party later that evening. Speaking of attendants, many that I interacted with wouldn't or couldn't talk about their equipment in an interesting way. Having said that I missed many rooms that I wanted to hear as well as the Garrett Hongo talk and book signing that I really wanted to make time for after finishing the audiobook as I pulled into the convention center parking lot Friday morning.

The most impressive rig I demoed was the new Børresen M3, which they were willing to play loud and which was always completely controlled and the most satisfying of the really expensive speakers I heard at the show. If I had half a million dollars to spend on audio I would consider that setup. The entry-level Børresen room was also interesting in how much performance they managed in a complete system that was 1/12 the price of the M3 speakers alone.

I had a good time listening to records in the SOTA and Treehaus rooms, and also enjoyed the demo in the Quintessence Sonus Faber room where the attendant managed to trip the clipping protection on Boulder's TOTL stereo amplifier playing a track from the Dark Knight soundtrack. I spent half an hour talking to J.R. Boisclair in the expo hall about his protractor and issues related to setting anti-skate correctly on VPI tonearms. I bought one of his protractors.

I most enjoyed getting to spend two days with a friend I hadn't seen in over twenty years.