Axpona 2022

It was a joy to meet Ralph Karsten at audiokinesis room and atmasphere room.

I regret not being able to come back today and tomorrow because of work.

Did you hear the Atma-Sphere Class D amps?

I heard them but room was small and speakers didn't do anything for me YMMV

Sdl4 no idid not hear the Class D atmasphere, Ralph is in the room. He showed his preamp,rsf  507 even though the room is small I can hear the majestic musicality fo and feel the Nenuphar basis speakers..

Clarification, Ralph from atmosphere is on the Plexi Box Speakers room..by audiokinesis not on The Nenuphar room..Sorry I got mix up.

The scratch D amps WERE nice. Wonder about them speakers efficency though. They didn't bloom.

@fuzztone agree as I said previously in this thread they didn't do anything to impress so hard to tell what the new Atmasphere class d amps are about

Thanks for the update. It helps those not being able to attend. Did you or anyone else attending had the chance to listen to Wilson Benesch speakers? what models? what were the impressions?

Had a great time at my first show. Heard the Wilson Alex and alexia. They sounded good. I must of missed the Benesch or don’t remember them. Apologies. So much to see. The Goebel speakers on the top floor were amazing ! 

I loved the Harbeth 30.2s, I'm considering selling my kef r11s to switch to them. I also want to dig further into Salk, I really enjoyed them in a similar way. Presentation from both were wide and deep (Salk had better depth, Harbeth had better width) but neither were over precise. Oddly that was part of what I loved, they drew me into the music and were just plain fun. The Salk were new, and were given a name recently, but I can't remember it as it wasn't advertised anywhere in the room.

The Salk speaker can be found here, BePure2

 

Were ME Geithein speakers on show? Kii3? Audionet amps?

I hadn't seen the Focal Kanta No 3 in person. I really liked them, but was most impressed with the Alta Audio Adams. I 100% agree imaging and bass are it's most immediately impressive features.

I have not and will not be going to all the rooms. But the most impressive small rooms to me, in more order,were the AGD GaN room, the Playback Designs/Tannoy room, The Border Patrol DAC room, the GTT audio room with that Kronos turntable. 
 

The best big rooms so far were the Synergistic Reaearch/Magico demo room (amazing and like magic!), the Audio Experience/Estelon/Krell room, and the Quintessence big Wilson room. 
 

the Quintessence Sonus Fabet room was good. The big Boulder amp in that room certainly demonstrates excellence in dynamics and transients. Soundstage was good. But not  as good as their Wilson room in terms of detail and imaging.

The Klipsch Jubilee room was horrible unless you want your listening room to be an arena and lose your hearing. Just no concern for demonstrating any details, soundstage or imaging. Just blasting you out of the room with death metal. What are they thinking? 
 

I was disappointed that the SVS room is dedicated to home theater as I was interested to see how it would do with music and a demo in that regard with their app, which is a feature that REL doesn’t have. 
 

Special mention to Magnepan. I met Wendell and Galina again and he demos the LRS+. Again very impressive as the original LRS was 3 years ago. A big bargain by itself IF you have proper power, subwoofers and can pull them away from the wall. Using aftermarket stands and the Mike Powell silver fuse and jumper upgrade is a plus too. 

Also, met Kevin Deal from Upscale. Nice talk with him about the Russian tube situation  He told me that there is no embargo on Russian made tubes being sent over to the US and reiterated that that those factories are US company owned. So he doesn’t see (so far?) a situation when the supply of tubes made in Russia by the US based company will end .

Met Bill Parrish at GTT Audio. A pleasure to meet and talk to him!

I did go to the Atma-Sphere room. It was good. Not at the top of my list. But I may revisit that room today/Sunday. 

Today I will wrap up and go to the Avant-garde room and back to some of the big rooms again. 
 

 

Speakers: Atohm (best buy), Salk (another best buy), Mon, Rockport, Acora (bit bright). New (to U.S.) speaker made in Latvia whose name escapes me.

Electronics: Engstrom and AGD, great speakers in these rooms also. 

Only had 1 day was sick on Friday so missed the opening day languishing in my hotel room.

 

What do you mean "what is Klipsch thinking"? I think they know very precisely what a good chunk of their audience wants and expects. You have to play to your greatest strength. 

Kingbarbuda agree the magico/synergistic room is good but I did not feel the music like the nenuphar room.The demo guy on this room only play Diana Krall evil may care over and over again, I think they are promoting their new conditioners too much.The Sonus Faber Boulder combo sound good and dynamic they are playing it too loud , you hear sound instead of music.

Listening to Axpona youtubes. Of what been posted so far, the real standout was the Krell/Estelon room.

Honorable mention to Perlisten and Atohm.

Bang-for-the-buck to Polk.

 

 

@audition__audio wow..... I listened to the Acora speakers and only heard some brightness when in the recording otherwise very neutral and even sounding top to bottom IMO. 

Alta Audio Adams sounding very nice except there was a guy putting down other equipment saying how much better his evo? was than a nucleus. Why put down other manufacturers just explain the benefits of what you're promoting. Because of things like that I look elsewhere.

@audition__audio @roxy54 of course these immense Jubilees can play loud. Just look at them. But can they soundstage, image and have detail. You can’t tell any of that from what and how they are demoing them. Personally, I wish they had a smaller room with a pair of Forte IVs in them. 
 

@jayctoy Yes. I agree they are playing the Sonus Faber/Boulder combo too loud. I went in the Wilson Alexa V/Audio Research room and spent a good deal of time there. That is my favorite room so far. That setup to me, does everything well for my taste. The Sasha DAW/Moon room is nice. But can’t compare of course to the Alexa V, which is obvious. I still have to hit the Avant-garde room. 
 

I did really like the Synergistic Research room yesterday. I made a joke to them to take this show to Vegas because what they do with their gear is almost like magic. I can definitely hear the differences. I am impressed. 

The trio  avant-garde are sounding unbelievable, though the room is way to small.

@jayctoy I just came from the avant-garde room. Not my favorite room. I agree. The room is way too small. This was near field listening with a behemoth of a system. If this were in a bigger room like the Wilson Alexa V or better yet the Estelon room it would be great. The music was too loud. The soundstage was just unrealistically too big in the room they have it in on the 16th floor. They really should book a big room next year. So I am pretty much done with AXPONA now and I can say that IMO of the rooms I have been in for any significant time, the Wilson Alexa V/Audio Research room was my favorite. 

@

Does anyone know what the stand mount speakers are that are being used in the AGD room 722?  On you tube via my desktop set up the room sounds fantastic, along with others mentioned above.

Thanks for the teaser.  I so much wanted to attend this year and am very sad I didn’t!

JD😢

Thanks to all those who posted observations, comments, etc., from AXPONA.

@jetter Ocean Way Eurekas.

https://oceanwayaudio.com/eureka/

 

What is up with everyone playing the same style of music mostly. Are all shows like this? Had a great time but the music got old. 

Ocean Way Audio Eureka speakers in the AGD room were fantastic! High Water room with Cessaro speakers was my favorite.  
 

 

And out come the militant Klipsch contingent proving once again that they are the audiophile equivalent to Harleys enthusiasts.  Just one persons opinion of a speaker of all things. Relax, enjoy your Klipsch and be happy. Relax, heavily modify your Klipsch and be really happy.

 

Was there yesterday and noted several things.  One observation was that I did not see any class D amplifiers.  Maybe I missed them but Class A/B big amps seemed to rule the day.  Two, I heard some really nice speakers - Paradigm 120s and some small monitors, I think, made by Audio Thesis.  Finally, no physical media played beyond vinyl.

I continue to think the Estelons are the best speaker I've heard, but my purchases have to be no taller than my wife or fatter than my wallet.

I always want to discount KEF as polite but the Ref 5's sounded very, very satisfying top-to-bottom in multiple rooms.

The new B&W's sound less shouty than previous encounters but there is still a lot of forward upper frequency even to my aging ears.

This is the 2nd Axpona where I thought Highwater Sound had the most natural, least electronic sound on voice, even when using different speakers.  Impressed.

The Alta Adam speakers impressively filled the room with music, and the designer knows his stuff ( from a conversation with him.)  With the modest amp, I missed some vocal crispness on familiar tracks, but they benefitted greatly from better amps.

Never been a big Wilson fan, but the tutorial of Patricia Barber recording was spectacular on the bigger Wilson's.

Doshi/Joseph always seems the sane high-end system if you've got the bucks. 

Too much chatting in most listening rooms. I'm fading out on shows.

Came away shifting to high-end headphones.

 

My best rooms included both Wilson rooms. Legacy is always great. Atohm/Atoll room is fantastic. Mon speakers were fantastic. I can't find them online anywhere. If someone knows where to fin that let me know. Muraudio was fantastic. Martin Logan 15a powered by Luxman was great. Revel powered by MarK Levinson was awesome too. Many more but these were some that stuck out to me. Stenheim too. 

I thought the Linkwitz speakers sounded better than most, especially when you consider the price. They really made me want to hear more open baffle systems.

jan mc  the Linkwitz they sound good but they are not musically involving for my taste, they are 65k according to the demo guy.

To the best of knowledge Mon are new to the U.S., but I am sure you could contact them directly if truly interested. His top tier speakers struck me as a real bargain. Dont forget those stands which may be critical are going to be expensive. 

jayctoy

 

Thank You for this thread. I have been watching Coverage on Youtube.

It will be a good thing to attend Audio Shows again,

Happy Listening!

Yeah it doesnt make sense to take CDs to these shows any longer. So I just take vinyl. If you think you will continue with CDs in the near future get ready for some really good deals on exotic transports.

I was going to go, but then had a scratchy throat, did a home test, guess what…confirmed by PCR.  It’s a pretty mild case.  You all can thank me for testing.  At any rate AXPONA refunded my credit card after I showed them the PCR results, which is first rate on their part, which is the main reason that I am posting this

Mahler123, I deeply appreciate your very caring responsible decision, Iam sure many are happy you stayed home. Thank you.since I enjoyed this Axpona 2022, I will attend 3all three days next year.

Jafant you are very welcome.Its good to attend the show.

I tested 3 times with rapid to confirm that I didnt have covid before going to the show and you dont have to thank me for doing the right thing. I hope we have moved passed these type of platitudes.

I find this hobby so interesting.  Reviewers on YouTube are saying the two large Wilson rooms sounded fantastic and impressive. My wife and I could not enjoy the music in these rooms.  Not at all engaging and rather reproduced and electronic sounding to our ears. 
 

In fact most of the big dollar rooms sounded this way to us. We felt many of the smaller speakers and systems sounded best at the show. Examples include Ocean Wave Audio in the AGD room, Valorem stand mount speakers and Alta Audio Adam speakers in three different rooms sounded wonderful.  
 

 

I couldnt agree with you more. 

The Borresen and Atohm rooms were focused on displaying these speaker’s huge and explosive sound in a small package. Sort off showing off sonic feats of strength. Yes, impressive in how they seemed to defy the laws of physics with their small drivers. Did they engage us musically? No. All head, no heart and soul to us.

Many others loved them! No right or wrong as this just shows how subjective this hobby is.

Most of the rooms were simply too loud to enjoy forcing us out! This needs to be addressed in my opinion. When lowered by 3-6db all would be far better.  

@jaymark Both AGD and Atmasphere were there with class D amps.  Don't know about others.

Could anyone elaborate more on how the Stenheim speakers sounded?

One pair of smaller Stenheim speakers ($ 72K) sounded excellent with tubed electronics from Sweden or one of those other cold places. The very big Stenheims sounded very boxy in one of the larger rooms with, I believe, S.S. electronics. 

With the speakers used in the Atma-sphere room I couldnt gather any impression about the amps and associated electronics. The AGD room was superb, although I wouldnt call their amps Class D.