The Audio Archon & Audio Note (UK) System
Trends come and go. Manufacturers lose their shirts and pull up stake. This year's hot design trend becomes tomorrow's price knockdown. Amid the hype and ballyhoo often found in high end audio, Audio Note (UK) remains an oasis of beauty, purity, and simplicity, and at affordable prices. A legacy brand that doesn't feel the need to change designs, when, after all they make music, Audio Note (UK) offered lucidity and great music at AXPONA.
The Bowers & Wilkins 801 D4 Loudspeakers
When you're a critic, you get paid to quibble, so here's mine: Bowers & Wilkins' iconic 801 D4 speaker ($35,000/pair) is pretty enough in gloss black, but gorgeous in satin walnut. In the company's AXPONA room, I encountered only the black version.
The Eikon room at AXPONA
Outside the Eikon room at AXPONA, sharply projected onto the hallway carpet, floated the company's logo in bright white. I like to think I wasn't the only one who reacted to it like a little kid from Hamelin, powerlessly compelled to follow the music that was now within earshot.
Inside, I was invited to audition the just-launched Image .5 standmounts ($12,000/pair).
The Innuos Statement Next-Gen PSU Upgrade and YG Vantage Live loudspeakers
Having reviewed the top-of-the-line Innuos two-piece Statement music server, I was eager to hear an A/B demo of the version I reviewed with an Innuos Statement that contains its forthcoming Next-Gen power supply upgrade. Thanks to two extremely helpful and enthusiastic Innuos staff people, Director of Sales Steven Gomes and North American Director of Sales, Kevin Jackson, it was easy to hear the improvements.
The MartinLogan Rooms at AXPONA
When a brand that's rightly famous for world-class electrostatic panels wants to design a line of in-wall speakers, things can get pretty daunting. After all, electrostats are dipolessound flows from both the front and back. Installing a dipole in a wall is as useless as hanging a stained-glass window in a dark closet.
The McIntosh C12000 Preamplifier
"Cover McIntosh," Jim Austin wrote by text. "Sure," I replied. "But I don't see them listed in the show guide." "They're behind the escalator," Jim replied.
And there they were. Against a wall, with comfortable couches facing the system, McIntosh's Ken Zelin had set up a lovely system headlined by the new, two-piece McIntosh C12000 preamplifier ($16,000).
The Other Sound Organisation Room: Chord Electronics, Spendor, and Aurender
The Rega room was one of two rooms the Sound Organisation, a distributor of several brands from the UK, had at the show. Their other exhibit in room 662 consisted of some recent gear from Chord Electronics, such as stacked racks of the Chord Qutest DAC, Huei phono preamplifier, etc. on static display. The active system was rather old-meets-new: It had BBC School Spendor Classic 2/3 speakers ($6100/pair, just over $7000/pair with stands) and a 180Wpc Chord Ultima 6 ($9200) stereo power amplifier.
The Sound Organisation: Rega System One
It's a good sign that at least some AXPONA exhibitors showed systems that were more budget-friendly than most. On the door to room 666 (perfect, right?) was a piece of paper affixed with blue painter's tape. Handwritten in all-capital letters, it read: "WARNING! DO NOT ENTER IF YOU WANT TO SPEND A FORTUNE ON YOUR HIFI."
Behind that door I encountered a simple but really good-sounding system that didn't call for apologists to stumble over themselves 'splaining.
Unrolling the TigerFox Immerse 360
"New Patented Product Replaces Stereo Systems, Headphones and $100,000 Listening Rooms" declared the press release in red bold letters. "Introducing to the public for the first time a transformational new pure acoustic audio technology and the TigerFox® Immerse 360® Pure Acoustic Sound Poda disruptive new high-performance audio product that delivers immersive sound quality without the pain points of modern electronic sound systems."
Upscale Distribution, Cabasse, Feliks Audio, Kiseki, Pathos Acoustics, PrimaLuna, Sbooster, Tannoy
Upscale Distribution's Kevin Deal brought his posse to AXPONA (leftright: Randy Bingham, Kevin Deal, Craig Hoffman, Alex Brinkman). Though Deal's room was static, he also sponsored legacy French brand, Cabasse, in an adjacent room, where Cabasse representative Jean-Michel Polit demoed the thrilling flagship Pearl Pelegrina loudspeakers ($20,999/pair).