[Photon46]

I'm starting my third day at Axpona and my reaction to the show is quite a bit different from Studiotech's opinion. I make major allowances for the fact that people hear differently, have different needs, budgets, and priorities. I've heard most of the rooms here and with the exception of one high dollar room, find uniformly high standards even if they don't reflect my priorities and modest budget. It's very inspiring to me that so many people who could have put their engineering, artistic, and business acumen into any line of product development decided to invest their energies in something as risky as high end audio. There's always a great deal of teeth gnashing and vitriol over "snake oil" and too high profit margins at these events. I just figure we live in an economy where the market is going to decide the merits of any given approach to audio reproduction and the validity of the business model. A prime example is the Joseph Audio room. Many people on audio forums decry the high $7k price for a pair of small two way monitors. I spent a half hour there listening and the sound was sublime to my ears. Yes they are high priced, but the factory has a wall of them waiting to be shipped out to Asian customers (where the bulk of high end business is these days.) Jeff Joseph has found a balance of product, pricing, and markets that works for him and his customers. More power to him I say.

[vettett15]

All rested from a day at Axpona on Saturday.... Downtown Jacksonville is not a fun place to navigate to say the least.

 Stopped by AJ's room, it was a little busy so I didn't ask for something to be played.  He had the larger speakers playing, look very cool, didn't know the song playing but what i was hearing sounded good.

 Heard the Scaena's too, they were actually requesting people to play their own music (seemed rare at this show).  Thought they sounded pretty good with my tracks, nothing special.  The large subs were pretty cool visually, don't think my tracks made them work very hard but they didn't seem to stick out which I thought was good. 

Loved the Legacy room, went there twice to hear both ends.  The larger ones (XD's?) were nothing short of awesome, gotta love the dynamics of these things.  When I went back to hear the other ends they were playing SRV Tin Pan Alley, so I rushed in.  Was sounding good, not at "tactile" feeling as the larger ones of course, then right when it was about to get to the good part, the system shuts down.  Wasn't sure if someone pressed a button or if the preamp shut down (Emotiva UMC-1). 

The MBL's were my favorite, I heard both the smaller and larger versions they had in there and actually got to hear some music I know.  This was probably the most crowded room there (for good reason), didn't seem to matter where you stood there was just sound everywhere.  The performers were just there in the room with you, no doubt about it the best at the show for me.  I agree the Bob Carver arrays weren't anything special, I would take them home, just not for 20k.. 

The large ML arrays (CLX) were in the audible images room (in Melbourne, FL right around the corner from me).  I happen to come in right when they started the Dire Straits Brother in Arms SACD, very cool presentation.  Unfortunately they only played one track and then started going on about the tape machine, so I left. 

Another one of my favorites were the speakers from M Audio, for a couple reasons.  For one, the model they were showing (Accuton tweeter with 2 Accuton ~6" woofers with a 12" down firing sub) are "all inclusive".  The amps are built into the speakers and even better than that, you can stream your music straight to the speakers.  Literally the guys was streaming music from his iphone/ipad to the speakers and that's it.  Of course they were playing music I have never heard before, still impressive sounding.  He wanted to show off the dynamics so he played this drum track (need to find out who made this) and it was crazy good.  The speakers were slamming with this music, I was very impressed what those Accutons could put out.  Looks like they are 30-50k speakers, again way more than I can afford (see the trend here). 

Went to the Joseph Audio room, but they weren't playing music... Just talking, so I left.  The speakers look really good, but I bet the companies I listed above could beat it in terms of sound and probably equal it in looks.  They weren't playing music, so I couldn't tell you.

Wish there were more "AJ" style companies there (Salk/Selah/GR research/Vapor), but oh well still worth the trip. 

[tdangelo]

I'd say my favorite room was the Tidal/Audio Power/Memory player room. I spent probably 30min in there and enjoyed it very much - those Audio Power amps are HUGE - they use the 833 tube - $175K ouch. They were using Paul Kaplan's cables. The other room we enjoyed was the Beauty of Sound room with the Bastanis open baffle speakers driven by a pair of 8 watt Tube Guru 300b amps - very nice sound especially for the $$$.  The AMR room also sounded good with the Rossi Fiorentino Sienna speakers but not as good as when they were in Atlanta. All in all a good but small show. It was nice to meet Bill Baker and AJ.

Tony

[studiotech]

I'm starting my third day at Axpona and my reaction to the show is quite a bit different from Studiotech's opinion. I make major allowances for the fact that people hear differently, have different needs, budgets, and priorities. I've heard most of the rooms here and with the exception of one high dollar room, find uniformly high standards even if they don't reflect my priorities and modest budget. It's very inspiring to me that so many people who could have put their engineering, artistic, and business acumen into any line of product development decided to invest their energies in something as risky as high end audio. There's always a great deal of teeth gnashing and vitriol over "snake oil" and too high profit margins at these events. I just figure we live in an economy where the market is going to decide the merits of any given approach to audio reproduction and the validity of the business model. A prime example is the Joseph Audio room. Many people on audio forums decry the high $7k price for a pair of small two way monitors. I spent a half hour there listening and the sound was sublime to my ears. Yes they are high priced, but the factory has a wall of them waiting to be shipped out to Asian customers (where the bulk of high end business is these days.) Jeff Joseph has found a balance of product, pricing, and markets that works for him and his customers. More power to him I say.

Good call on the Joseph Audio monitors.  They were sounding excellent when I was in there.  $7000 for small speakers.....ouch.

Of course everyone has different taste when it comes to their hearing and/or different items they are willing to trade off.  But, I usually focus my comments and efforts on expensive, full range designs.  Ideally these should be minimal compromise in terms of frequency extension and dynamic capabilities.  I want to hear the best that a company can do.  The issues I noted were not subtle, minor issues that it might take a while to hear.  They were obvious, glaring problems.  If I play my demo and immediately on the first cut, don'y hear full range extension, then that ticks a box.  I don't know, maybe I'm more picky than most(and definitely have strong opinions on good sound), but I am listening to my system right now and it has all of the low end it should, pitch definition on the bass , dynamics and sparkling, non-fatiguing highs.  This was not the case with most large speaker systems I heard at the show.  Maybe I'm unrealistic, but for the kind of money that can purchase a house, I want my 20Hz....

Another room that I did not mention was interesting.  A fellow right before me played a song that I am familiar with the recording.  It has a lot of really bright reverb and generally sounds very harsh and unnatural.  Well, on this system, it didn't sound too bright at all.  It did sound thin, like there was no low end, but definitely not bright.  I played mine next and whoa, where's the treble.  It was so bad I got out of my seat and put my ear next to the tweeter to make it was even playing.  It was.  There was no low end and no dynamics.  I really thought there must be something wrong with the system.  How could this be?  Large 3 way with nice drivers, dual 10" per cabinet. 

[Photon46]

My wife & I just got back from three days at the show, quite an interesting experience (as it was my first audio expo.) If there's one thing that made the biggest impression, it's this: almost everyone plays their demos TOO DAMN LOUD!!!!! By the end of yesterday, my ears and head were hurting from the assault. I think my all round favorite balance of compromises was in the Avatar/Abbingdon Research/Rosso Fiorentino room. I wish they'd had their smaller single woofer Volterra to audition as well. The Tidal/Audio Power Labs room was very impressive to me as well. Those 200 watt class A behemoths were truly breathtaking in their ability to provide delicate spatial clues, ambiance, soundstaging, and delineate the orchestra's players. Plus, with 1600 watts of heat pouring out of each monblock, they'd make great room heaters on a cold winter day.:lol:I guess if you've got $175,000 for amps, you don't care about the inefficiency. Interestingly, they said all their amps had been sold in the Asian market. The Tidal speakers were perhaps a tiny bit bright, but they did many things very well. In a more down-to-earth budget range, the $6300 Legacy Audio Signature SE was quite notable IMO. I thought the other Legacy speakers just looked too visually obtrusive for a domestic environment. The MBL room was very impressive as well. In terms of an audio system filling a room with high pressure, omnidirectional sound that was a reasonable simulacra of live music, they nailed it. My wife was awestruck by their sound, I've never seen her so impressed by recorded music before. I also got to spend a while chatting with Peter Ledderman about his research and development (in collaboration with Frank Schroeder) of the new "Hyperion" moving iron cartridge that uses a cactus needle as the cantilever. It was a very pure, nuanced, and low distortion cartridge, extremely fine sounding. His Dragonfly speakers were excellent sounding monitors, little to criticize other than the, of course, lack of deep bass.

[AJinFLA]

AJ,

Just got home from the day in Jax.  As I said at the show, you had an excellent sounding system today!  One of the best rooms for sure.  Clean dynamics, well balanced tonality.  All that with modest components and affordable speakers.  Bravo!  Can't wait to hear the smaller monitors now. Hit me private when you get a chance for some more in-depth comments.

Hi Greg,

Nice meeting you, the other AC members..and lurkers . Thanks for the compliments. That was an interesting demo piece you had there, to say the least. It's one of those unfortunate things, that I didn't have a chance to sneak out and listen to some of the other systems (though I have heard many before), especially rooms of similar size, which tend to be most problematic for loudspeakers. I'd love to be able to demo mine in a 20' x 30' room, but alas... .
I did get to meet Bob Carver, as some of the Carver guys (and Joe from Purity) liked my room and dragged him down there. I was honored that he didn't run for the door when I cranked them up .
Going to be very busy shortly, I'll shoot you that PM.
Thanks again for all who stopped in, I won't even pretend to remember all the names, as there was a decent amount of traffic through the room.

cheers,

AJ

p.s. hey Greg, I let you know when I'm earning enough, so that a $5k preamp and >$1k cables, are "modest"

[enjoythemusic]

Sounds like everyone had a great time and have been gearing good things about AXPONA. Mr. Colin already sent me part 1 of his report and i just posted it. Alas, could not attend it myself yet will be at the NYC show. Mr. Flood's AXPONA 2012 report is at www.enjoythemusic.com/axpona_2012/ . He has a normal job so hopefully will get part 2 this evening.