AXPONA 2025

I signed up to cover several Fidelity Imports rooms at AXPONA, expecting to find components that overdeliver on performance and value. I wasn’t wrong.

At the same time that Ryan O’Connor, president of Revox North America, was pitching the reel-to-reel revival to dealers, Revox Deutschland—the brand’s German distributor—unveiled a slate of new products, including two that are Alice Cooper–branded. No, seriously. Swear on my eyeliner budget.

Refined Audio’s room 688 featured an almost entirely new system, with the exception of Dave Slagle’s familiar EM/IA gear. (Slagle, co-founder of EM/IA and a specialist in transformer-based designs, is known for his minimalist, high-purity audio components.)

New York–based dealer New Life Audio teamed up with California distributor Hear This—representing WestminsterLab and Von Schweikert Audio—to build a system around those two brands. On a Bach Violin Concerto, played with characteristic sweetness—if not period authenticity—by Belgian violinist Arthur Grumiaux, both tone and texture came through with striking fidelity.

Justin Weber of Ampsandsound greeted AXPONA with the world premieres of two products hand-built in his Aliso Viejo, California, factory: the Black Pearl XL SE 300B amplifier and the horn-loaded Sasquatch three-way speakers.

Sierra Sound’s Michael Fajen assembled a system that stopped more than a few showgoers in their tracks—built around not one but two turntables.

On the 14th floor of the Schaumburg Renaissance hotel, Kii Audio CEO Chris Reichardt had a question about hifi’s future. “How many 30‑year‑olds say, ‘I need these seven components that will cost 50k?’” Reichardt asked, reasonably. “People are tired of wires.”