AXPONA 2024 Show Coverage Part 2.

Welcome everyone to the second installment of our AXPONA 2024 coverage. Just to quickly reiterate, this was a monster of a show and while we couldn’t get to every single nook and cranny of the event, we did manage to cover a significant portion of it.

Well, stop mucking around and let’s get into it!

Aretai, Analog Audio Designs, Viablue

Aretai loudspeakers from Latvia had both their Contra 100 bookshelf speakers and Contra 200 mid-tower speakers at AXPONA. Both sounded excellent in their respective rooms.

The 100 impressed with it’s reach and power for its size and the 200 impressed with its additional refinement and control. The Contra 100 had the added benefit of having the Analog Audio Designs SP-1000 RTR tape deck as the source which sounded excellent and very engaging. Plus, catching up with Aretai’s Jānis Irbe, and Viablue Cable’s Anke Patt is always a treat.

Ruark

Tucked away in one of the Fidelity Imports rooms were the stylish, design forward offerings of another UK company called Ruark.

The company offers a wide range of components from simple and stylish Bluetooth radios, to fully active all-in-one systems that look like they could be at home in a museum of modern art. While maybe not as daring as a similar Devialet product, they certainly look inviting and appealing versus curious.

Ruark definitely nailed the styling brief with these products and the did not skimp on the sound either. I snuck a quick listen to the R810 and R410 all-in-one units and both sounded full, rich, and decidedly non-Bose-like. I also loved the look and feel of the remote control for these units, very cool.

Both the R810 and R410 have HDMI ARC, can stream from all the major services. Along with having analog inputs, Bluetooth, 32-bit/384 kHz file support, USB and MM phono support, it’s got all you really need if space and style are of equal concern as sound.

YG Acoustics

While YG Acoustics was in at least three rooms at the show I was only able to hit two of them. The first was the room they were sharing with Bel Canto Designs.

The room featured the new Bel Canto BLACK DAC system ($40,000) debuting in this room, actively demoed with the Bel Canto BLACK EX Dual Mono Amplifier ($10,500) and YG Acoustics loudspeakers from their Peaks line: the Ascent ($19,800 per pair). The system sounded lovely, with a clean and dynamic presentation. A very enjoyable listen!
The second room featured the Sonja 3.2 speakers ($99K) powered by a pair of Linn 800 monoblock power amps ($90K per pair) while being sourced and controlled by a Linn Klimax DSM streamer ($42K). I very much enjoyed the sound of this room along with the unique and streamlined equipment roster.

Totem Acoustics

It’s always good to see Vince Bruzzese doing his thing at a show, and AXPONA was no exception as Vince was conducting demos of Totem’s Element Fire V2 bookshelf speakers ($8450 per pair) and the newly released Totem Loon monitors ($1299 per pair). Controlling and Driving the Fire V2 were the Aragon Tungsten preamplifier and Titanium dual monoblock amplifier. The Loons (don’t snicker) were driven by one of Totem’s diminutive Kin amplifiers. In my experience Totem speakers have been unfailingly musical and satisfying whenever I have listened to them and that was the constant here as well. The Element Fire V2 were expectedly excellent with superb bass control and depth, but what surprised me was how much of a large slice of that performance was available in the Loon monitors. They sounded genuinely excellent driven off that little Kin amp. I would say that Vince has a lot to smile about with these speaker. Very Impressive!

Vanatoo

Vanatoo, the longtime maker of affordable and overachieving active speakers was at AXPONA again. In real life Vanatoo’s speakers make the perfect desktop monitors for a computer system, a compact HiFi system, or to supercharge a TV. Basically for use anywhere where space is at a premium. In their room, they had the latest version of their little Transparent One Encore Plus ($650.00). As their predecessors, these little guys defy logic when it comes to bass impact from something so diminutive. But it’s not just in the bass department, the Transparent One Encore is overall excellent sounding set of speakers, full stop.

Monitor Audio

Monitor Audio makes some extremely stylish, and excellent sounding loudspeakers, as evidenced by the Platinum 100 3G bookshelf speakers ($6,900 per pair) that were playing in the room sponsored by Saturday Audio Exchange. These very pretty piano ebony speakers were mated with a Monitor Audio Anthra W10 powered subwoofer ($2,600 each). Both were powered and controlled by a Roksan Attessa Integrated amp. A solid and very classy little setup that sounded much bigger that it looked. I was also pleased to present our 2023 Thumbs Up Award for bookshelf speakers for the Monitor Audio Silver 100 7G to the company’s Adrian Santana.

Cambridge Audio

And while we were passing out awards, I stopped by Cambridge Audio to present them with a Thumbs Up award for their Alva TT V2 Turntable. While there, they were showing off their new EVO 150 DeLorean Edition All-In-One player ($3,200). This sharp-looking unit is limited to 1000 units worldwide.

Anthem, Paradigm, MartinLogan

I was very pleased to catch up with our friends at Paradigm, Anthem, and MartinLogan as they each secured one of our 2023 Best Of Awards. Anthem won for the Best Mid Price AVR (MRX 740), Paradigm for the Founder 120H-based home theater system we reviewed, and MartinLogan won for their Statement 40XW in-wall loudspeakers. We found these all to be exceptional products and thanks to MJ Davis for accepting our award on behalf of MartinLogan and Jeff Lodwig for doing the honors for Anthem/Paradigm.

MoFi Electronics and Distribution

MoFi has almost as comparable a presence at these audio shows as Focal-Naim does just without a spectacle piece as Focal has with the Grand Utopia EVO speakers in the middle of a room. But product-wise they have a fabulous assortment of brands along with what they create under their own label. MoFi distributes Wharfedale (which has an EVO of it’s own, so to speak) and it was for that reason that I dropped in to present MoFi’s Lenny Mayeux with our 2023 award for Best Bookshelf Loudspeaker to the Wharfedale EVO 4.2. Congratulations!
In another MoFi room was speaker designer Andrew Jones with his latest creation for the brand. The new SourcePoint 888 Floor-standing loudspeaker consists of an 8-inch concentric driver up top followed by twin 8-inch bass drivers below it. The concentric unit has a treated paper midrange cone with a soft dome tweeter situated in the driver’s throat. The two bass drivers are said to have huge twin neodymium magnet structures to help the drivers create and control a substantial amount of bass. Each driver is also said to have its own separate enclosure which also helps keep the overall cabinet resonance free. These speakers very much sound like what we’ve come to expect from Andrew Jones designs, and that is a very appealing and balanced sound signature with surprisingly deep and powerful bass. And that is exactly what everyone got in spades. And judging by how busy the room was, even on Sunday, I would say many shared the same sentiment.

T+A

Walking into the showroom for German brand T+A is a little like walking into a fine precision watch shop. The initial look and feel one gets from their products just screams quality and high end. The tremendous Solitaire S 530 line array speakers were playing when I came in but I was most curious about the new Criterion S230 Transmission Line loudspeakers that were unveiled. At almost $12K for the pair they could challenge some pretty accomplished competition at that level.

AV RoomService

I checked in with Norman Varney and Dale Stultz from AV RoomService who were talking isolation, absorption, diffusion, and all manner of room treatment topics with show goers. I enjoy keeping up with what they are working on because Norm and Dale are fountains of good information, the work they do is based on science and measurements, and many of the solutions they offer will not put you in the poor house.

Amped America/ADCOM

Boris Meltsner from Amped America (who also distributes ADCOM) had a room full of each company’s respective gear. They also had an assortment of loudspeakers from Czech manufacturer Acoustique Quality which sounded quite enjoyable.

Perfect 8 Technologies

Swedish company Perfect 8 Technologies has a penchant for making speaker enclosures out of glass. These “The Cube T” loudspeakers (here driven by Ypsilon electronics) appear to be a multipolar design that by all manner of conventional thinking, shouldn’t sound as good as they do. But sometimes when you turn conventional thinking on its head, really great things can happen. Now if only the same could be done with the speaker’s $60K price tag!

Fine Sounds

In the Fine Sounds room I found a “fine” selection of Rotel MICHI and Pro-Ject equipment sourcing and driving a lovely pair of Sonus faber Olympica Nova V loudspeakers with cables courtesy of Cardas. On another note Pro-Ject seems to be getting serious about providing true balanced connections from a number of their turntables as they are now offering a couple of different types of wire harnesses for that exact purpose. Should you own one of Pro-Ject’s tables or another manufacturer’s with the correct DIN plug output, you now have wiring options. And I was very pleased to present our 2023 Thumb’s Up Award for the Pro-Ject Phono Box S3 B phono preamp to a rather beaming Jeff Coates. Background Man in stylish hat, no extra charge!

ELAC

ELAC’s Chris Walker was demonstrating a truly diminutive pair of speakers on stands. The ELAC Elegant BS 312.2 all aluminum loudspeakers ($2K per pair) were teamed up with a stack of ELAC’s Alchemy electronics for a very streamlined system. These little guys can rock the house as Chris demonstrated with some jazzy acoustic bass and EDM tracks. The little ELACs may look small but they are chock full of technology to help them sound so big. If you have an apartment, these could be just the ticket.

Benchmark

Benchmark Media Systems had once again paired up with Porzilli Audio and their antenna-like “The Note” speakers. Add a pair of SVS 3000 Micro subwoofers, the Benchmark DAC3 B, and two AHB2 power amplifiers, and control it all with a new DEQX Pre-8 preamplifier/digital crossover and you have a very unique system that can pull a serious dimensional head-fake on you. As I reported last year with a similar system, I experienced a fantastic stereo image from this setup both when sitting in front of it and standing up in between the speakers. It even held up walking around much of the room. While not cheap by any stretch, the system was legitimately astonishing to listen to. Nice to see new DEQX equipment again.

Legacy Audio

Bill Dudleston’s Legacy Audio had their usual ballroom at AXPONA and it was chock full the latest and greatest gear from the company. A full video walk-through of the room will be coming shortly but I was very pleased to present Bill with our 2023 Best Floor-Standing loudspeaker award for his Legacy Audio Focus XD speakers. I’ve been around long enough to have heard a few iterations of these loudspeakers and they just keep getting better and better.

Joseph Audio

Jeff Joseph was premiering his 3-way Pearl Graphene Ultra loudspeakers ($52K) paired with his standby Doshi tube amps, a custom Doshi phono preamp, a J. Sikora turntable, Doshi tube preamp, and an Aurender music streamer. All I will say is that I have never heard a bad Joseph Audio room, but should Providence smile upon me where I could comfortably choose, these would be the Joseph Audio speakers that I would want. They simply did it all and they look bad-ass doing it! Nice!

Luxman

I am shamelessly a Luxman fan from long ago and I always enjoy sampling any of their new products, especially when they were playing over those beautiful blue Magicos. It was also a distinct pleasure to meet the Luxman team from Japan.

ATC

ATC’s Ben Lilly was in town to help US distributor Lone Mountain Audio in their room where in one half they had the active SCM50 ASL loudspeakers with ATC’s CDA MK II preamp/DAC/CD player. It was a tidy little combo with sound quality that punched well above what one might expect. A nice taste of the SCM100 ASLT that I reviewed but in a less back-breaking size. The other half of the room ATC had a special 50th Anniversary Limited Edition of their SCM 20, the active SCM 20 ASL ($14K per pair). The speakers were finished in a lovely deep piano blue lacquer and had hand finished dark blue leather on the front baffle. The speakers will be limited to 150 pairs and there will be a matching subwoofer. The C4 Sub Mk II ($10K each) will have a limited matching run of 20 units. In the demo that Ben ran, the combo of speakers and sub blended very well and the sound was excellent. A fitting 50th Anniversary marker!

Credo, EMM Labs, Meitner, Van den Hul

This room was sponsored by Audioshield Distribution and had a similar makeup as last year with the big Credo Cinema LTM line arrays ($200K per pair) along with the more “normal” EV1202 Reference speakers ($17K). The raft of electronics were from EMM Labs, Meitner, Vanden Hul, and Dr. Feikert. The big line arrays were, of course, impressive but I really liked the Smaller EV1202 Reference. They had a sense of completeness to their sound.

IsoAcoustics

Dave Morrison from IsoAcoustics had a little AB comparison setup happening in the Focal-Naim room. Two pairs of Focal Vestia No3 loudspeakers, one with a set of IsoAcoustics Gaia isolation feet and one without. Was there a difference when Dave switched between the two?

Gryphon Audio

In this ballroom, Gryphon had a static display of all their amazing equipment including a set of their four enclosure Kodo loudspeakers. While I would have loved to hear what they sound like, they did impress on aesthetics alone! And the build quality feels like it would stand the test of time.

Dynaudio

Dynaudio had their Confidence 60 speakers at the show paired with Octave amplification. They held exceptional command of a very large space. Very lively and exciting sound to be sure.

Technics

I met up with Bill Voss from Technics to present him with our 2023 award for Best Integrated Amplifier in the Technics SU-R1000. I also loved that Technics brought out their big Reference Class loudspeakers at the show. Absolute beasts!

RBH

RBH has a reputation for designing high output, high efficiency, low distortion loudspeakers, often intelligently married with DSP. When I dropped in to their display room, the Unrivaled SVTR/AX active speaker system was playing and it sounded clean and dynamic but you just knew it was loafing, expending only a tiny percentage of it’s capability to fill that modest room.

PMC, Esoteric

PMC brought their Fact Finestria loudspeakers for their Stateside debut and they were beautiful looking and sounding things, especially with all the electronics from Esoteric controlling and driving them! The Esoteric gear is just so maniacally overbuilt. Mr. Hiroyuki Michida from Esoteric was showing us a sample of the SACD drive mechanism and sled from the K1X-SE SACD player and the thing is constructed like a miniature bank vault! A glorious display of audio excess! I’ll take one of each, please!

Amphion, Esoteric, TEAC

The act of picking the “Best Sound” at an audio show is a Mug’s game at best simply because an exhibitor is typically dealing with too many variables in a show situation to have their equipment perform optimally. With that caveat in mind, most displays at shows sound decent with only a few genuinely sounding poor. When the thought of what speakers at AXPONA were the ones I’d want to take home and listen to in my studio, there were only a handful, and near the top were the Amphion Krypton 3X. There was just something about the sound of this speaker and how (for lack of a better expression) it bent the room to it’s will just fascinated me. At $12K for a pair it seems like a very compelling proposition. The beautiful Esoteric gear only made this setup more desirable!

And almost as if they were saying “If you want a large slice of this performance but on a smaller scale and budget…” the adjoining Playback Distribution room had a lovely pair of Walnut Amphion Argon 7LS ($7200 per pair) and a full TEAC HiFi electronics stack to satisfy those more down to earth desires.

Advance Paris, Vienna Acoustics, PMC

Advance Paris seems to be the hitting a sweet spot for performance, features, and value. Every time I get to experience their components I come away impressed with the sound quality and their flexibility. Advance Paris electronics made a nice companion to the passive Vienna Acoustics and PMC speakers in this room. And while active speakers are not new for PMC they are for Vienna Acoustics as they were premiering their all-in-one Mozart Infinity active loudspeakers. All you need to add to these speakers is an analog or digital source and you are all set.

Lowther, Triode

Beautiful craftsmanship from both brands as evidenced in this short video.

Accuphase

I love Accuphase and thats all I have to say.

Diptyque

The French planar speaker manufacturer was premiering their replacement speaker for the popular DP 107, the new DP 115. The new speaker no longer pivots like its predecessor but its said that the design is significantly updated along with the aesthetics being more striking. Bass was a touch limited in the room but the imaging and sound-staging was top-shelf.

Vivid Audio

The Vivid Audio Giya G1 Spirit ($105K per pair) along with supporting gear from Audionet, Mola Mola, Kronos, Grimm, My Sonic Lab, and Kubala-Sosna were in a good sized room sponsored by GTT Audio. What can I say about this room but, Wow! It sounded genuinely great and those speakers make for one hell of a conversation starter!