AXPONA Chicago April 10-12, 2026 - Who is going??

I was there all three days.  My personal highlights and easter egg finds were Aratia Speakers.  Real natural, non-fatiguing, full range.  Standmount and tower were both great in a few different rooms.  Every Magico room was really natural and pure sounding.  Morel has stand mounts are tiny, $2500, perfect for an office or small room.  They completely charged the room with sound, including satisfying bass.  Fiio products continue to impress at real world prices.  I may be in the minority, but the Brunoco room sounded great.  Korean brand.  They have 300B integrated amps with good looking design and build quality for $3500.  Hard to beat.  I really liked the sound of the Brunoco speakers as well.  Bag End were interesting with a 2 way standmount speakers with a beautiful wood that looked like they were made out of whiskey barrels. Manly looking speakers.  Bag End sounded great but had a unique connections that may turn some away. I'm told they can make the speaker with whatever connections you want. Gotta love smal companies that can make what you want.  SPL is a German company with amp, dac, and preamps that may cater to the detail, studio sound fans, but looked serious and sounded good with Falcon Speakers.  I have hundreds of pictures and opinions.  Also, the ATC flagship was bonkers amazing. Benchmark impressed.  Totem's small tower speakers created vivid images with no detail lacking.  Dynaudio Confidence 20A blew my mind.  Just add a streamer or source and you have everything you need.  I tried to get to all the rooms but failed.  I spent too much time in the headphone area.  Found some gems there too.   

+1 On the positive comments. I was an audio tourist, which led me to becoming a Enthusiast and Buyer. It’s sometimes easier to be cool when you’re putting stuff down, tho. Cheap trick…

Didn’t make it up this year. Did anyone go to the LTA/Sound Lab room? Heard a lot about LTA amps. 

@hilde45    +1 When an audio dealer avoids the largest audio show in North America(whether imposed or self-imposed) discrediting the event and the attendees is your only defense.

My wife and I were there on Friday (no way was I going to get her to go all 3 days).   I thought the Pure Audio Project Duets in various forms were all quite good.   The Altecs were amazing as were the Perlistens.

one demo I found fascinating was RD Acoustics demo of their EVO3 isolation pucks under a streamer/DAC.   They were playing a number of different tunes and all were much better with the pucks under the DAC.   The sound difference was not subtle.   On a Phil Collins tune in particular the sound with the pucks was much denser, clearer, more articulate, improved attack and decay, and more air.   I couldn’t really get into a location to properly hear the soundstage attributes, but others in the room were quite impressed.   I’ll be ordering a set of these to experiment in my rig.

@dayglow Agreed. That video's demeaning of audio enthusiasts and buyers was a demonstration of the kind of nastiness which teaches me, at least, "never buy from this man." Supercilious, arrogant, and just plain mean. I don't care if he carries good stuff, including things I've liked and am still considering (like AGD) – he's shown who he is and he's off my list as a dealer.