I too call it Apoxna....we are dyslexic brothers.
Larry
APOXNA 2019--My Friday Morning Show Review
SANDERS SOUND SYSTEMS (Room 1429): This was the first room I visited at the show. Roger was showcasing his Model 10e Speaker System with his loudspeaker management system and Magtech Amplifier. The Model 10e is a flat panel ESL. The sound was reminiscent of my experience with Martin-Logan Aries and Quest speakers. The soundstage and imaging was outstanding and utterly transparent without any apparent sonic impression of the presence of speakers in the room.
AGD PRODUCTIONS, INC. (Room 1418): I finally met Alberto War, designer of the AGD Productions, Inc. GaN-FET Class D monoblock amps. He showcased two versions of the amps that differed only in the top acrylic panel, wherein the original transparent, “see through” acrylic panel and an alternative, opaque “piano black” acrylic panel were offered. Both Vivace amps were rated with an input impedance of 40 k-Ohm, which is considerably more consumer-audio friendly than the original “pro” version having an input impedance of 600 Ohms. The sound quality from the system, featuring Ocean Way Audio Monterey Loudspeakers, was effortless and very engaging.
EVOLUTION ACOUSTICS (Room 1440): I own a set of these speakers from this company, so I was curious was they had to offer. I also wanted to meet the importer, Jonathan Tinn whom I had communicated with for years. The set-up include primarily an Ohio owner’s audio setup that included an analog front end with a Durand Tonearm, darTZeel preamps and amps and Wave Kinetics gear. The Evolution Acoustic speakers appeared to be a novel variation of the Micro 2 speakers having external crossovers in separate enclosures. The owner even had a high-end reel to reel setup ready to go for taped sessions. Impressive! The sound field was amazing for the space.
LINEAR TUBE AUDIO (Rooms 606, 696): I was truly interested in seeing this company’s implementation of David Berning’s OTL-preamp design. Room 606 was locked all of Friday morning. LTA was present in the Anticables room though I only stayed there for a couple minutes before moving to other room. LTA was also present in the “Ear Gear” Room (8415), which I never got to during my visit. It’s too bad the Principals for LTA weren’t around Friday morning.
BENCHMARK MEDIA SYSTEMS (Room 670): This was a revelatory experience for me, but not for the typical reasons related to sound: Their DAC’s and new AHB2 amps are so diminutive that it shocks the conscious! Truly compact designs that can accommodate the most constrained spaces. And yes, the sound presentation was excellent for such a small room.
TEO AUDIO (Room 594): This was the last room I went to before leaving, as I discovered Teo Audio was not a main exhibitor this year but was nevertheless present. Teo Audio IC’s and speaker cables were showcased in the High Water Sound Room (Room 594), along with TW-Acustic Phono gear ($22,000 setup featuring the $10,000 GT2 Turntable along with 2x12” Tonearms at $6,000 each) with each tonearm tipped with either an Ortofon Winfeld Ti cartridge ($4,390) or a Miyajima Labs Zero Mono cartridge ($2,150), New Audio Frontiers electronics (Stradivari Phono Stage ($12,000), Stradivari Evolution Line Stage ($12,000) and Ultimate 211 SE Monoblocks ($34,000)) Horning Hybrid Systems Eufrodite Ellipse MK.III speakers ($28,000).
While the sound was clean and listenable, I was shocked by some of the comments from the exhibitor regarding the Teo Audio cables. He said that Taras of Teo Audio liked the lower priced IC’s for their tonality but felt that those cables did not fair well in systems having multiple driver loudspeakers. I asked him to clarify whether he was referring to Teo Audio speaker cables rather than Teo Audio IC’s. My understanding is that Teo Audio IC’s have a rather broad bandwidth, that is, in the GigaHz range. How then could it be that the IC’s having such a broad bandwidth can be so limited on multi-driver loudspeaker systems? The exhibitor maintained his story.
Clearly something was garbled in the CA-US English translation!
The Yggy DAC was engaged in the system, along with other SCHIIT gear (Freya preamp and their new Aegir amp, among others). And contrary to reports on the A’gon Forum threads of having a hot plate-like, heated top surface, the top surface of the Yggy was cool to touch.