Florida International Audio Expo 2024 Coverage.

Organizer Bart Andeer and his logistics and communications teams have once again put together a collection of exhibitors that takes up almost 12 floors of the host hotel.

For the sixth year, the Embassy Suites by Hilton Westshore in Tampa will feature multiple high-end hi-fi, home theater, headphone, and accessories displays for showgoers to enjoy.

The show runs from Friday, February 16th until Sunday, February 18th, and is sure to be another well-attended event. Editor-in-Chief Carlo Lo Raso and Co-Editor Chris Eberle will be reporting their findings from the show on our Secrets Facebook and Instagram feeds along with it being ported over to this webpage after the show concludes. Please make sure to check our social media feeds often and also keep an eye on this page for the latest updates.

We hope you enjoy our coverage!

Pre-show

As I was roaming around before the show I ran into VPI’s Mat Weisfeld and he is all smiles as he’s helping dial in the vinyl setup in the Acora Acoustics/VAC room.

Sneaking in on Ozan Turan from distributor High End by Oz as he is dialing in a system based on the Lansche Audio No. 5.2 loudspeakers with those crazy plasma tweeters, and the very yellow Viva Audio Solista Integrated amp. The room sounded pretty fantastic to us even as Oz was still tweaking the details.

A few advance shots of the stunning real granite finish on the new Acora Acoustics loudspeaker here at Florida Audio Expo. It’s kind of like looking at an image of a nebula in space. Mat Weisfeld and Valerio Cora are looking mighty jazzed at what they’ve helped put together!

TAD

TAD CEO Shinji Tarutani and PAD-HiFi’s Dave Malekpour were here in Florida debuting the new TAD GE-1 floor standing loudspeakers ($65K/pair) as the next step up in the Evolution line. The demonstration paired with matching TAD electronics was completely convincing. The GE-1 takes all the outstanding qualities of the CE-1TX and refine several details while deepening the bottom end reach. Additional decoupling of the concentric driver, significantly increasing internal bracing, and a revised porting scheme help elevate the speaker further. During the demonstrations with various kinds of music the speakers sounded tremendous!

And speaking of TAD, any day I can get to sit and listen to the Ultimate Reference One TX ($160K/pair) and the Compact Reference One TX ($87.5K) is a good day. While well out of my price range for speakers, I consider them both as benchmarks to judge other comparable speakers by. I think my wife put it best when, after she listened to a couple of tracks on the Ultimate Reference One, she turned to me and said, “They sound alive.”

Perlisten

Our friends at Perlisten partnered with Dreamedia and pulled off a little stroke of genius by setting up a full 5.2.2 ATMOS home theater system here at the Florida Audio Expo. The speakers consisted of a pair of R7t towers ($9990/pair), an R5c Center Channel speaker ($2995/each), two pair of R4s surround speakers ($3999/pair), and two R212 subwoofers ($5495/each). Processing and power were courtesy of the Primare SP25 Home Cinema Processor ($5299) and the A35.8 Eight-channel power amplifier ($5499). Special mention to Kaleidescape for providing the content delivery. It was stunningly effective sonic onslaught combining effortless dynamic clarity with brutal, distortion-free power.

Our good friends at Perlisten also had the S7t Limited Edition towers at the Florida show in all their carbon fiber glory. CEO Dan Roemer and CSO Lars Johansen are justifiably proud of how the S7t Limited has been received. Not that the standard S7t is any slouch, but both men love sharing every detail about how the Limited Editions have been exhaustively “turned up to 11!” At the show, the S7t Limited Edition ($30K/pair) were paired with some of the best from Italy, namely the Audia Flight FLS1 Preamplifier ($7,500) and the FLS4 Stereo Power Amplifier ($10K). The rack was courtesy of NEO High End, cables were from QED, and power cords provided by Titan Audio. Lovely, lovely room.

Geshelli Labs

That little ol’ family from Florida, Geshelli Labs, had a whopping three rooms at the Florida Audio Expo. Makers of some of the funkiest, affordable and frankly baddest-ass headphone amps and DACs in the land, they continue to bring value and fun to this hobby without pretensions. The Geshellis were featuring the final versions of their highly anticipated Dayzee DAC ($1300 base) and Zoofa ($2000 base) integrated amp. The exquisitely hand carved multi-species wood casing on the Dayzee and the fine dovetail joinery work on the Zoofa are just a few of the options they are planning. The Geshellis have been asking for patience from their fans as they slowly ramp up on ordering and production as these are the largest and most involved components that they have created. After listening to these products in the room through a pair of Mo-Fi SourcePoint 10 speakers, I’m sure people will feel that it was worth the wait!

In another room, Geshelli Labs was going a little more upscale, spinning some vinyl through a Zoofa via a Michell Gyro SE turntable provided by Fidelity Imports and speakers from Treehaus Audiolab. Cables were provided by the fine folks at Viablue.

In the third room Geshelli Labs had their full array of headphone amps and DAC options available to sample with a variety of headphones. They have been teaming up with Andrew Sparks from Sparkos Labs to provide discrete socketed opamp options for Geshelli DACs and headphone amps. The base J2 DACs with either ESS or AKM chips start at $249.00 each while adding a socket to allow opamp swapping bumps that to $260.00 base price. Choosing a Sparkos discrete opamp adds $79.00 per piece to the price. The Archel 2.5xl headphone amp starts at $219.00, while the fully balanced Erish 2 headphone amp starts at $219.99. The new Archel 3 headphone amp with tone controls starts at $449.95. Different wood case and Sparkos opamp options will increase prices accordingly. Still, with a fully decked out DAC and amp listening station, Geshelli continues to provide users a high value and vibe quotient!

Fine Sounds America/Pro-Ject

Checking with the Fine Sounds America group and catching up with Jeff Coates is always a pleasure. Pro-Ject had some absolutely fantastic products and pairings both in active and static display. Of particular interest was the colorful combination of the Pro-Ject Speaker Box 5 S2 speakers, the MaiA S3 Micro HiFi amplifier, and the Debut Carbon EVO turntable. The turntable and speakers were in a striking Fir Green color. The compact setup, with 23 watts per channel, Bluetooth, and digital inputs on tap, made some great sounds with a surprising level of bass impact in room. There were also some cool new step up transformers for Moving Coil cartridges and a tube-based phono stage.

Fine Sounds America/Rotel

Joining Jeff Coates in the Fine Sounds America room was Rotel’s CTO Daren Orth. Jeff and Daren gave me a listen to the new Sonus faber Lumina Amator V being powered by Rotel electronics. The Lumina Amators had a stepped-up luxurious finished that matched that trademark Sonus faber sound that somehow always flatters the music, regardless of what is playing. Great people in a great sounding room!

Amphion Loudspeakers/Esoteric

Checking out one of the rooms sponsored by Playback Distribution, I found the Amphion Krypton loudspeakers ($24,000) on active demonstration. The speakers were paired with the Esoteric F-02 integrated amp ($18000), and the N-05XD Network DAC/Preamp ($11000). The speakers have a unique design that helps project the midrange and treble in a cardioid dispersion pattern that minimizes unwanted reflections. It helped these rather large speakers sound very impressive and disappear in this modestly sized room. Their imaging was spot on.

SVS

The gang at SVS had their new flagship Ultra Evolution tower loudspeakers firing on all cylinders here in Tampa. It was part of a larger 5.2.2 channel home theater system comprised of their current Ultra series speakers run by one of Denon’s mid-tier AVRs, but they were all too happy to showcase what the new towers could do on their own. These speakers have some serious lung capacity! The room may have been a little small to really show what they are truly capable of but the Ultra Evolution towers impressed with their sheer clean and undistorted output. The midrange clarity showed great potential and the treble, even at high output, was not fatiguing. The bass was probably more than the room could bear given placement and dimensions which bodes well for putting them in bigger rooms. We are working with SVS to get samples of the new Ultra Evolution line in for review, once production ramps up in March, but let’s just say that their first debut was more than just a little impressive! Well done SVS!!!

In this video SVS’s Nick Brown and Gary Yacoubian walk me through the new Ultra Evolution Pinnacle loudspeakers.

Metaxas & Sins/Reel Sound Distribution

Metaxas & Sins made both a visual and sonic splash in Florida. Reel Sound Distribution put together a wonderful display of several of artist/engineer Kostas Metaxas’ creations that were heard certainly for the first time by show attendees. The system being demonstrated consisted of the Tourbillon T-RX reel-to-reel tape deck ($49K), the Solitaire Integrated Amplifier ($41K), and the Siren loudspeakers ($128K). Make no mistake that these audio sculptures look like nothing else out there with their unique organic forms, hewn out of scads of aluminum. But they also sound positively amazing!
While visiting the Reel Sounds room I also took the time to listen to the Ethereal Electrostatic headphone amplifier ($32K) hooked up to a pair of STAX SR-X9000 headphones ($6200), in the quiet next room. It is essentially a match made in heaven. Just effortless dynamics with a bit more bass punch than I expected. Sitting there, in the quiet, listening to Richard Thompson’s “The Storm Won’t Come” was just borderline revelatory. Please check out Editor Emeritus John Johnson Jr’s in-depth review of the Metaxas & Sins Ethereal on our website. Very much looking forward to discovering what Kostas Metaxas does with his own upcoming electrostatic headphone design!

Anthem/Paradigm/Clarus Cable

Our friends at Anthem Paradigm had one of the simplest and better sounding displays at the show this year. The room which was hosted by Maximum Audio/Video featured the Anthem AVM 90 preamp/processor ($7500) with an Anthem STR power amplifier ($6500). These were running a pair of Paradigm Founder 120H loudspeakers ($9000/pair) with the active bass section. Kaleidescape and Hifi Rose provided the content via one of their players and all cables and power conditioning were courtesy of Clarus Cable. The sound in this room from various music and concert selections was excellent. The bass was tight and deep with midrange clarity and overall imaging being as good as anything I heard at the show. I’ve always said the Paradigm 120H are some of the best tower speakers that are attainable to the average person. And while it’s wonderful to have the AVM90’s control capability and the STR power amp’s horsepower to drive them, you don’t necessarily need them with the 120H. They are fairly easy to drive and the built-in active bass section with ARC Genesis room correction embedded inside helps take care of the most problematic part of blending the speakers to your room. IMHO, they sound better than most speakers with higher end pretensions at almost three times the Paradigm’s cost. The sound in this room simply further cemented that opinion.

You never know who you might run into at an audio show. Here we have, the man, the myth, and the legend, Joe Perfito from Clarus Cable. Always a pleasure to catch up with Joe.

Aretai

Dropping in on Latvia’s Aretai Loudspeakers, I caught up with Jānis Irbe and he had some very interesting things happening here in Florida. Firstly, I got to listen again to the lovely-sounding Aretai Contra 100 loudspeakers ($9000/pair). These have to qualify as the “Yoda” of loudspeakers. Remember that line “Judge me by my size do you?” These little speakers sound so good and so much bigger than their stature would have you believe. Secondly, Yoda’s bigger brother, the Contra 200 loudspeakers arrived on Saturday for their North American debut so I swung back around to give them a listen. Sporting a dedicated midrange driver sunken behind an integrated waveguide, and dual 8-inch woofers, the Contra 200 ($26,500/pair) is an order of magnitude more intense than the 100. Detailed images were drawn just as well as with the 100 but the canvas just seemed bigger and wider with more information to relay. And for a moderately sized cabinet, the bass hit hard and felt like it could easily reach down to the 20 Hz range in the right room. I look forward to spending a little time with the Contra 200 as they should be on their way to “Casa Lo Raso” for an in-depth review.
The control and amplification were seen to by Convergent Audio Technology, the digital front end was from Aurender, and the trademark “Cobra” sheathed cabling was courtesy of German cable brand, Viablue.

One other “little thing” of note in the Aretai room was a new (built from the ground up with modern parts as opposed to refurbished) reel-to-reel tape deck from a company called Analog Audio Designs. The TP-1000 RTR tape player (a recording unit is in development) was playing various types of music on tape over the Aretai loudspeakers. The unit plays at both 7.5 and 15 ips tape speeds, has fully balanced inputs and outputs, switchable NAB or IEC equalization, is available with a wireless IR remote control, and has a super slick touchscreen interface. Not to be outdone by the likes of Ballfinger and Metaxas & Sins, Brian Tucker the US distributor demonstrated the quality and accuracy of the player’s features and ultimately the sound quality. It was warm, tangible, and very appealing to listen to. If you are a passionate reel-to-reel tape fan and you just happen to have $20K burning a hole in your pocket, contact Brian Tucker and he will gladly take your order.

PMC/Advance Paris

Distributor Playback Distribution hosted a few great rooms at the Florida Audio Expo.
One room featured the handsome PMC Twenty5 26i loudspeakers powered by (a brand that’s new to me) electronics by Advance Paris. Designed in France and assembled in China, Advance Paris components look striking and aim to provide a high-value experience to the consumer. Shown here are the AP X700 Preamp ($1999) and X-A160 EVO stereo amplifier ($1999). Sources consisted of the TEAC NT-505-X USB DAC/Network player ($2249), the TEAC TN-5BB Turntable ($1800), and the PE-505 Phono preamp($2100). The equipment rack was courtesy of Quadraspire and audio cables were provided by Esprit Cables. Great sounding room and I particularly liked Advance Paris’ amplifier display at the back of the room.

Vienna Acoustics/Advance Paris

In another room sponsored by Playback Distribution I found an Advance Paris A10 Hybrid integrated amplifier ($2499) powering a lovely little pair of Vienna Acoustics Hayden Bookshelf speakers ($3495/pair). It made for a very sweet sounding compact system with the added Advance Paris WTX Network Player/Streamer ($599), and a TEAC TN-4D-SE Turntable. Again, racks from Quadraspire and cables by Esprit Cable. A perfect example of legit high-end sound for not a lot of coin.

FOCAL/NAIM

Jacksonville Florida dealer, House of Stereo hosted a room with thee major FOCAL/NAIM setups. Product specialist Chris Shaw was kind enough to walk me through each of them.

Acoustic Energy/Unison Research

Fidelity Imports sponsored multiple rooms at the Florida show this year. This particular one showcased the Acoustic Energy AE509 loudspeakers ($3,499/pair), being driven by the Unison Research Unico Nuovo Integrated amp ($2,999) and sourced by Unison Research CD Uno CD Player/DAC ($2,999). The rack is courtesy of Neo High-End, the cables are from QED, and the power cords are from Titan. This room is another great example of how much good sound can be had for not a ton of money.

Q-Acoustics/Gold Note

Fidelity Imports brings us another English/Italian musical match-up combining the Q-Acoustics 5040 loudspeakers electronics from Gold Note. The components in question are the Gold Note IS-10 integrated amp/streamer ($3,499), the PH-10 Phono preamp ($1,999), the PSU-10 power supply ($1,199), the PST-10 Power Supply ($1,199), the Valore 425 Turntable ($2,199), and the Vasari Gold Phono Cartridge ($499). The rack is courtesy of Neo High-End, the cables are from QED, and the power cords are from Titan. Yet another high-quality, high-value room for those who care about music.

Diptyque/Audia Flight/Michell Audio

And now for a little French/Italian/English connection, Fidelity Imports presented for our consideration, the Diptyque DP-140 flat panel speakers ($16,999/pair) powered by the Audia Flight FLS10 Integrated amplifier ($16,999 with phono and DAC boards). The sourcing was courtesy of the Michell Audio Gyro SE Turntable ($6,499) with CUSIS E Cartridge ($1,299). The rack is courtesy of Neo High-End, the cables are from QED, and the power cords are from Titan. The sound of the entire ensemble was delightful and completely enveloping in the best possible way.

Opera Loudspeakers/Soulnote

Ready for a little Italian/Asian fusion? Well, Fidelity Imports did not disappoint, combining the Opera Callas Diva Loudspeakers ($11,999/pair), with the Soulnote A-3 Integrated Amp ($24,999), the Soulnote D-3 DAC ($24,999), and the Soulnote E-2 Phono Preamp ($8,999). A Michell Audio Tecnodec Turntable ($2,199) rounds out the ensemble. The overall sound was refined and appealing. I could have sat there for a very long time and just let the music soak in. Some Limoncello, please!

Black Ice Audio

Black Ice Audio had a wonderful room full of “tubular goodness” here in Tampa. When I dropped in, they had their F85A Integrated Amp ($8K), an ARIES Headphone amp/DAC ($2,499), and an F159 phono stage ($1,875) playing through a pair of Magnepan LRS+ speakers ($995/pair). The sourcing was provided by a Pure Fidelity Harmony V2 Turntable ($8K) with a matching Stratos cartridge ($1,995) and a Bel Canto Design Stream 2 Digital Transport ($2K).

The Black Ice Audio/Maggie combination worked very well together and made for a very appealing and enjoyable listening session. But what was even more fun for me was the headphone listening station in the adjoining room. Here we had an ARIES, a Glass FX DAC ($899), and a Foz SSX soundstage Expander ($799) all working through a Black Ice Audio F65 Integrated amp which was directly driving Mod House Audio Tungsten Planar headphones ($1,499). The sound I experienced in this personal listening station was just a little slice of tweakable heaven!

Synergistic Research

Popping by the Synergistic Research room, I spied owner Ted Denny giving one of his trademark cable demonstrations using an exquisite system anchored by a striking pair of Estelon loudspeakers.

PASS Labs/ FOCAL

Here is a lovely, high-quality system based on the PASS Labs INT-60 Integrated Amplifier ($9,450) powering a pair of new FOCAL Aria EVO X No.3 loudspeakers ($5,198/pair). A top-notch digital front end in the form of an Aurender N20 Streaming Music Server ($12,500) mated to a dCS Bartok DAC ($22,950) completes the picture.

Orchard Audio/Soundfield Audio

Leo Ayzenshtat of Orchard Audio, maker of some very fine Class-D amplifiers, teamed up with independent speaker maker Soundfield Audio and Triode Wire Labs to put together a tremendously good-sounding room. Soundfield Audio contributed a very eye-catching pair of custom open baffle speakers called the 1212 ($7,500/pair, base price). Featuring a 12” coaxial driver, front and rear firing planar tweeters and two active 12” woofers in a cardioid damped U baffle, it looked to be an intriguing, and intelligently designed speaker system. Orchard Labs provided the amplification in the form of two Starkrimson Mono Premium GaN (gallium nitride) power amplifiers ($2,500/pair), and a single Starkrimson Stereo Ultra 2.0 power amplifier ($2,649. 95 each). Sourcing was courtesy of Orchard Audio’s new PecanPi+ Streamer Premium ($1,499.95). Triode Wire Labs provided all the cables.

The sound gelled together very well here with the bass being tight and powerful. Imaging was pretty terrific, with music cues being exactly where I expected, and the overall balance was very appealing with no holes or overemphasis in any range that I could pick up.

I love seeing the spirit and ingenuity of the independent manufacturer in a system like this. A system that shows how outstanding sound can be had with intelligent, custom-made components that will not put a music fan in the poorhouse. Bravo!

Soundfield Audio

And speaking of Soundfield Audio, the company owner and chief designer, AJ, had these almost-floor-to-ceiling custom active line arrays playing in another room. Called the Titans, these 76” tall totems are essentially horn-loaded planar line arrays with a dozen (total) 12” woofers in a cardioid bass configuration. The whole shebang is powered by onboard Hypex Fusion amplification with a full suite of DSP resources. Complete with a remote control and analog and digital inputs the speakers cost $22K for the pair and will be available in May. These are the sort of speakers that can just about bend the room to their will, and they sounded completely effortless because of it. Is a product like this part genius or part madness? I don’t know but AJ looks like he is having fun and personally, I love that stuff like this exists!

ELAC

Pulling a quote from Disney’s Aladdin, “Phenomenal cosmic powers, itty-bitty living space.” This must have been on the minds of the organizers of the ELAC room because they were demonstrating two little bookshelf speakers that sounded far bigger than they had any right to. First, were the two-way Vela BS404.2 bookshelf loudspeakers ($3,500/pair), and the second, were the three-way Concentro S503 bookshelf loudspeakers ($6,998.98/pair). The speakers were controlled and powered by a full ELAC Alchemy electronics stack with a pair of stereo amps running in mono.

Both sets of speakers impressed with a substantial bottom end and an excellent sense of detail with the Concentros shining a bit more in the imaging department.

Unique Home Audio/Dutch and Dutch

The well-regarded Dutch and Dutch 8C loudspeakers ($15K per Pair) which sounded as good as I’ve ever heard them, were paired with a BACCH-SP Mk3 stereo purifier ($26,800). While the purifier is normally hooked to a webcam which is designed to initially scan and then track the head of the listener in the sweet spot which affects the aural processing, Dutch and Dutch released a special BACCH plug-in for their speakers that eliminates the need for that. Switching the BACCH-SP processing on and off mid-music did have a modest change in spaciousness of the 8C but not as much as I’ve heard when the BACCH-SP was used with other types of speakers at previous shows. Regardless, the 8C sounded plenty good on their own.

House of Stereo/Stenheim

I had not had a chance to hear these larger Stenheim Alumine 5 SE before, so I had been looking forward to checking them out here in Tampa, and I was not disappointed. I’ve very much liked the smaller Alumine Two.Five when I’ve heard them, but this 5 SE is on a whole other level. They have a lovely sense of transparency with some explosive dynamics. Paired with the T+A SD 3100 Streaming DAC, the Wolf Audio Red Wolf 2 SX Music Server, the VIVA Audio Solista Integrated Amplifier, the DS Audio Grand Master EX Phono system, a VPI Avenger Direct turntable, and cabling from Synergistic Research, we have an extremely elite, high-quality system.

T+A

T+A had a most excellent sounding room featuring their Solitare S loudspeakers backed by an array of their typically Fort Knox-bank vault quality components that sound as good as they look. T+A is one of those companies that just gets it. They design their gear to both look and feel as desirable as they sound, and it feels like it could last a lifetime.

Qobuz

Also got a chance to catch up with David Solomon who most of us know as the North American “el hombre mui grande” of Qobuz. Qobuz is the official music streaming partner of the Florida show, but beyond that, it is always good fun to hear what he’s been up to.

Just Audio/Mission/Spendor

If you have champagne tastes but are on more of a craft beer budget, then the fine folks at Just Audio can fix you right up. One of their rooms featured this great-sounding selection of gear from Audiolab and Cyrus mated to some classic-looking Mission and Spendor loudspeakers.

Falcon Acoustics

The fine chaps from Falcon Acoustics were demonstrating their M30 stand-mounted speakers ($6,795/pair), connected to an Audio Research I/50 integrated amplifier. A classy and tidy-looking and sounding little system.

Falcon also had a gorgeous-looking 50-pair limited edition LS3/5A speaker on static display. Each set comes with a custom-made leather travel case and has some of the most gorgeous Burl Elm veneers that I’ve ever seen. The execution screams “premium everything” and costs just shy of $10K for a pair. Get them while they last!

Margules/AV Luxury Group/Viablue

Mexican audio company Margules has an over 90-year history in making hand-crafted audio components. Besides producing desirable tube amplifiers and integrated amplifiers, Julian Margules has been working on a new line of speakers. Here in Tampa, he unveiled the Overture Century monitor ($19K), it is the company’s first use of an AMT tweeter and features a unique papyrus mid-woofer driver, along with the novel use of concrete in the enclosure. The sound was at once both spacious and detailed with an impressive bass punch. Pricing is TBD but Julian did say that a matching floor-stander is being worked on as we speak. All the distinctive “cobra” cabling used was courtesy of Viablue Cables.

AXISS/Solution/Gauder Akoustik

AXISS Audio distributes many elite audio brands including Accuphase, Air-Tight, Franco Serblin, and Transrotor to name a few. In this room, they featured a Swiss brand I was unfamiliar with called Solution. Minimalist in appearance but highly engineered with particular emphasis on the power supplies and power distribution within each component. The base system consisted of a Solution 727 preamp with a phono module, a Solution 560 DAC, twin Solution 511 monoblock amplifiers, and a Solution 590 USB re-clocking bridge. There was also a Transrotor turntable with twin REED tonearms, one with an Air-Tight cartridge and the other with an Accuphase cartridge. This was connected to a pair of imposing “Darth Vader-ish” Gauder Akustik DARC 250 Mk2 loudspeakers. It was a hell of a great-sounding room. And for a half-million dollars worth of equipment, I would expect nothing less!

Grandinote

Italian manufacturer Grandinote displayed a unique 60-watt solid-state Stereo Class A integrated amplifier with the slickest-looking configurable touchscreen interface that I’ve seen.

Called the Solo ($20k), this handmade in Italy, fully balanced integrated is a heck of a thing! The design claims to use no negative feedback and a combination of ladder resistors and reed relays for extremely accurate volume control. It was connected to a pair of Grandinote line array speakers called the Mach 8XL ($30K/pair). Lead designer and engineer Massimiliano Magri explained how the Mach 8XL is essentially crossover-less save for a single filter on the tweeter. The eight woofers per cabinet are full-range drivers working in unison to keep distortion to a minimum. Another very enjoyable room to just sit and listen while enjoying some Italian style. Just a beautiful sound all around!

Sparkos Labs

Andrew Sparks and his team made a name for themselves by creating discreet op-amps that DIY enthusiasts and gear modders found sounded better than the existing (and often cheap) chip op-amps in their favorite components. At the time I first stumbled onto the Sparkos website a few years ago, I only knew of Burson doing this same sort of thing in Australia. Now here was a plucky little outfit stateside helping service the DIY community domestically. Nice!

Soon after I heard that they developed their own solid-state headphone amp/preamp called the Aries ($2,995) which received many rave reviews and here in Tampa they were featuring their new Gemini tube ($995) headphone amplifier. I took some time to experience both, and the Aries is definitely the statement piece with its overbuilt chassis, touchscreen controls, and relay-driven volume control, it sounded as transparent as could be, leaving me with simply the pure characteristics of whatever headphone I was listening to. The Gemini was a bit more of a playtime user-defined experience as I could dial in the amount of “tube” influence on the headphone’s sound via the gain setting and volume control. Plus, the Gemini allows one to tube roll which opens up a whole other rabbit hole to go down. Whatever your choice the gear looks intelligently designed and feels of high quality. All are priced to avoid having to sell a vital organ to enjoy.  It’s easy to see why the Sparkos and Geshelli gangs have teamed up on some projects. It’s hard not to respect and appreciate what little, independent companies like these bring to the table to push our little hobby forward and bring in new converts to great sound.  Keep on keeping on!

MBL

Ah, the obligatory MBL room! This year’s installation featured the MBL 101 E MkII loudspeakers ($91K/pair), a couple of MBL 9011 monoblock amplifiers ($64K each), and the new MBL C41 Network player ($11K). Not factoring in all the high-end Wireworld cables and the UHA Ultima Apollo RTR Tape deck in the room, one could have this system for about $250K, give or take. Chump change compared to some of the other MBL installations from the previous show, but I would gladly take this one over any of those. For my (creditor’s) money, this has to be one of the nicest sounding MBL setups I have come across and it most effectively illustrated to me what the whole “MBL sound” is about. Sometimes, bigger is not necessarily better.

Suncoast Audio/Clarysis

Suncoast Audio had two rooms featuring different installations of Clarysis ribbon loudspeakers. Clarysis essentially makes what many consider a perfected Apogee loudspeaker with features like double-sided bass ribbons and Neodymium magnet structures. The speakers are manufactured in Vietnam to, by all accounts, very high standards.

On the ninth floor, there was a smaller system featuring the Clarysis Minuet Loudspeakers ($46K/pair). They were driven by a Hegel 600 Integrated amp ($12.5K) and sourced with a Hegel Viking CD player ($5K) along with a Lumin P1 Network Player and L2 Music Library. Cabling was courtesy of Shunyata Research.

In one of the larger ballrooms, the very large Clarysis Auditorium loudspeakers ($146K/pair) held court. These were driven by what seemed like a small outfield of VAC tube amplification, along with the commensurate MSB digital front-end, an Aurender N20 streamer, Stromtank 2500 Quantum MkII, and 5000 battery units, along with a VPI turntable for good measure.

Both these Clarysis systems had a speed and effortlessness to their sound that is something truly special and with a surprising level of bass reach that one might not expect. Both my wife and I agreed that the smaller system connected better with us. There was something a little more cohesive in how the smaller system was set up and the sound just gelled better for us. If you are a ribbon speaker fan, it would do you well to seek these out for a listen.

In Closing

Among some of the industry folks and friends that I interact with, Sue Toscano is one of my favorites. She works with show organizer Bart Andeer and is involved with PR for the Florida Audio Expo. It was through her that I was first introduced to the show years ago. Beyond being one of the genuinely nicest people that I know of, the lady has boundless levels of energy, I mean boss-level, insane amounts of getup-and-go! I don’t know how she does it but if I could find a way to bottle all that spunk and sell it for unseemly large sums of money, I’d put together a business plan!

In all seriousness though, I do want to give Sue, and the whole Florida show team, a shout-out for another excellent show experience from the media side of things. The show seems to be steadily growing and this year there was a noticeably larger array of younger show goers, couples, women, and even a lady pushing a dachshund around in a stroller in attendance! Cultivating and growing an audience for a niche event is not an easy thing to do, but this team seems to find a way to do it consistently, and it bodes well for next year’s show. So a tip of the hat to Sue, Bart and the rest of the gang!

Until next time!