[gammajo]

Friday works for me - and probably preferred to Saturday and Thursday which I can make as well
Joe

[jab]

thx Joe... I'm able to do Friday or Saturday... Will let this hang awhile and see what works best for everyone! 

[Delacroix]

Any updates on the show? I am reading a few posts on various forums where people seemed to like the Von/VAC combo but anyone here get to listen?

[gammajo]

The Von Schweikert/ VAC room was clearly best of show. One reviewer with decades of experience posted it was the best sound he ever heard at any show. It was all there - micro and marcodynamics, naturalness, nuance, aliveness and beauty to the sound. I watched them set up as they struggled with a nearly square room, and they were able to get great imaging from listening position but imagining was reduced a tad in other positions. They have set up these speakers to image wonderfully across a range of positions in other rooms, just not able in this room in this short a period of set up time. The VSA team was very receptive and gracious to their customers that attended the show and made us feel like family and it was great to meet some of the people I have been in Circle connection with for years. VSA even took us to dinner and picked up the tab, then we went back after hours and had a custom listening session from about 9:30 in the evening to 1 in the morning - great fun and I did not see anyone leave for hours. You could listen for hours with no fatigue, rather excitement so high that I could not sleep that night.

Also liked Tidal, Revel - they were showing the smaller MBL and they do indeed disappear as a source but have a bit vague center image, Sonos Faber and Nola sounded OK. Magic Q5 presented well. For me a distant second place was I really liked the Legacy speakers with Raven tube amps. Wilson better than I have heard them but still prefer VSA and others.

[leif8660]

I just wanted to say thank you to all our friends who came and visited us at Axpona.  You guys are awesome!!!

[es347]

The Von Schweikert/ VAC room was clearly best of show. One reviewer with decades of experience posted it was the best sound he ever heard at any show. It was all there - micro and marcodynamics, naturalness, nuance, aliveness and beauty to the sound. I watched them set up as they struggled with a nearly square room, and they were able to get great imaging from listening position but imagining was reduced a tad in other positions. They have set up these speakers to image wonderfully across a range of positions in other rooms, just not able in this room in this short a period of set up time. The VSA team was very receptive and gracious to their customers that attended the show and made us feel like family and it was great to meet some of the people I have been in Circle connection with for years. VSA even took us to dinner and picked up the tab, then we went back after hours and had a custom listening session from about 9:30 in the evening to 1 in the morning - great fun and I did not see anyone leave for hours. You could listen for hours with no fatigue, rather excitement so high that I could not sleep that night.

Also liked Tidal, Revel - they were showing the smaller MBL and they do indeed disappear as a source but have a bit vague center image, Sonos Faber and Nola sounded OK. Magic Q5 presented well. For me a distant second place was I really liked the Legacy speakers with Raven tube amps. Wilson better than I have heard them but still prefer VSA and others.

..well said Joe I agree with everything you said.  Granted I haven't listened to everything out there but this system regardless of the room anomalies was the best reproduction of sound I've ever heard.  The speakers could very well be the best available and there's little argument that the sources and the electronics were as good as it gets.  My hat's off to Albert, Damon and Leif for designing and building these incredible 11 Ultras...way to go guys!  And thanks for a wonderful Friday evening.  Pam and I had a wonderful time and now truly feel like members of the VSA family..

[gammajo]

From Stereophile tonight
"Key to the impressively neutral and liquid sound of the imposing Von Schweikert Audio Ultra 11 loudspeakers ($295,000/pair) were VAC's Statement 450 iQ monoblock power amplifiers ($120,000/pair), Statement phono stage ($80,000), and Statement line stage ($75,000). With enough ASC Tube Traps ($26,000 total) to trap an elephant, and a Von Schweikert Shockwave V12 subwoofer ($11,500/each) playing out of phase in an attempt to further reduce bass in a room desperately in need of room correction, the sound on Lyn Stanley's latest LP, The Moonlight Sessions Vol. I, was natural and gorgeous. There was a special breathability to the sound, for which the Kronos Pro turntable ($38,000) with SCPS-1 power supply ($13,500), Andre Theriault Black Beauty tonearm ($8500), and ZYX Audio Ultimate 4D cartridge ($4400), along with Exoteryc and Aire Platform racks and platforms and MasterBuilt Audio Ultra Line cabling also deserve credit. No, the bass wasn't totally in control, but the system made beautiful and involving sound regardless. Of course, the gifted Ms. Stanley and her outstanding Bernie Grundman-mastered recording share more than a bit of the responsibility for the room's success."

[branislav]

A picture anybody...?

[gammajo]

From Johnathan Valin, The Absolute Sound
"On the first floor, Von Schweikert Audio intro’d its gigantic thirteen-driver (two 15” powered subwoofers, four 9” ceramic mid/bass drivers, two 7” ceramic midranges, two beryllium tweeters, two 5” aluminum-ribbon super-tweeters) Ultra 11 floorstander augmented with VSA’s Shockwave V12 subwoofers and driven by top-line VAC electronics (Statement 450 iQ monoblocks, Statement Line Stage, Statement Phono Stage) and sourced on the digital side by a Golden Gate Lampizator DAC with YFS Ref 3 server and on the analog side by a Kronos Pro ’table with ZYX Audio Ultimate 4D cartridge and a rebuilt J-Corder Technics 1520 reel-to-reel deck. All interconnects, power cords, and speaker cables were from MasterBuilt Audio. The system sounded the way it looked: big, powerful, utterly unflappable, granitic. In its soundstaging width, depth, and height, its image size and focus (which varied accordion-like from LP to LP, as it should have), and its large-scale dynamics—just superb on the famous Wilson recording of Debussy’s violin sonata—it was in a class of its own. In tone color it had just the right touch of natural warmth (courtesy of VAC). Superb on my Taj Mahal LP (best of show, actually, for realism), and very very good on Johnny Hartman, it exceeded the just-as-pricey Tidal system in sheer musical scale, but was not, I think, quite its equal in low-level resolution of timbre, texture, and dynamics, or bottom-octave grip and definition. I have a theory about why this might have been the case: It sounded to me as if the built-in subwoofers (augmented apparently by outboard subs) were being dialed in a bit too high in frequency, which may have slightly veiled the upper bass/lower midrange, robbing the system of some (not all, heaven knows) of the lithe transparency I’m sure it must have galore. Having said this, there is no way that the VSA Ultra 11 was anything but a top-of-the-heap Best of Show contender—and a flat-out Best of Show winner in large-scale dynamics, soundstaging, and (on the Taj and Wilson discs particularly) sheer realism."

[gammajo]

Ultra 11 and VAC

during setup day.

[gammajo]

Another Best in Show review in Enjoy the music this morning with pictures at
http://www.enjoythemusic.com/AXPONA_2017/Part1/page2.htm

[leif8660]

Another Best in Show review in Enjoy the music this morning with pictures at
http://www.enjoythemusic.com/AXPONA_2017/Part1/page2.htm

Another The Absolute Sound show report

http://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/axpona-2017-speakers-below-20k/

[Audiophile]

Congratulations VSA team!! I wish I could have been there. Maybe next show!! 

[GeminOhio]

I haven't been to this site in a while. I did go to AXPONA 2017 and I felt it was the best one that I have been to. I agree that the VSA room was easily the best sound of the show. I was fortunate to be in the room when Lyn Stanley was there. They were playing some of her music. I felt there were more top sounding systems than in years past.