i've been to a bunch of these audio shows and i am convinced that salk's secret weapon is mary 
I just flew in from Axpona, where the little white active monitors were confounding everyone into thinking the Exotica's were playing. As for Mary, the secret is out. For me, it has been for 12 years.
As for Axpona in general, I'm an economist, and we're supposed to believe that you get what you pay for. But I gotta tell you, in most instances the more you paid at that show, the less you got sound-wise.