AXPONA 2016 Show Coverage Final Thoughts

This was my first time attending the Audio Expo North America (AXPONA) which is now in its eighth year. AXPONA is open to the public and offers the opportunity to experience a lot of audio equipment in one location. Like the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest (RMAF), the show is hosted in a single hotel which makes it easy to get around except for the inevitable wait for elevators and the occasional crowded hallway. While there were plenty of international exhibitors, the show had a much more regional feel to me compared to RMAF. There were a lot of dealers sponsoring equipment rooms, but in many cases there were no manufacturer representatives on hand to talk about products despite being listed in the show guide.

While vinyl ruled RMAF last year, at AXPONA I saw far more digital media being used as source material. Since CES is not open to the public, AXPONA was a great opportunity for manufacturers to showcase products for the first time to the general public. While the show certainly had its share of high priced gear, it was great to see manufacturers like Emotiva and ELAC Americas continue to innovate with new products that provide great quality at affordable prices. Their demo rooms were also the most crowded with lots of enthusiastic people interacting and enjoying the product demos.

The Ear Gear Expo was by far the life of the show with lots of people and camaraderie. The opportunity to explore personal audio gear is a blast and what better way to do it than to use one’s own music. If you didn’t have any of your own music handy, many of the booths in the Ear Gear Expo were using the TIDAL streaming service to allow visitors to browse for their favorite tunes. The Ear Gear Expo wasn’t as large as the CanJam at RMAF, but it did represent a wide range of product offerings and price points.

That’s it for our coverage of AXPONA 2016. It was a fun show and we look forward to bringing you reviews of many of the products we saw at the show in the coming months.