Robin Wyatt's Robyatt room wins my early, best sound of show. Playing recordings I thought I knew well, as well as those I'd never heard, his exacting, tonally true, vivid, physical, natural and extremely transparent system left my jaw on the floor and other's mouths agape.
The MoFi Distribution classic gear fun continued in Suite 346, with two pairs of Wharfedale Heritage Linton speakers ($1799/pair), stacked, with the one on top inverted so that the two tweeters were in the middle. One Wharfedale Linton stand ($399/pair) supported each side's stack.
Dealer/distributor Verdant Audio's room included a few important debuts, including the new Wilson Benesch Geometry Discovery IIIZ standmount loudspeaker ($31,000).
Exciting. Engrossing. Exhausting. Enjoyable. Nothing but e-words from me.
I could go on, but not without breaking out the thesaurus. —Rogier van Bakel, Stereophile's newest Contributing Editor
A large, almost loft-style suite on the 16th floor housed a big, all-out system presented by Bending Wave USA, the Florida-based distributor/dealer for Germany's Göbel Audio (among other brands); their name nods to Göbel Audio's bending wave drivers.
T+A elektroakustik GmbH & Co. brought the A-team to the 2022 AXPONA, including American rep Senior Vice President of Sales and Operations David Schultz, Chief Operations Officer (and heir apparent) Conradin Amft, and Founder and CEO Siegfried Amft. During a light Saturday breakfast in the big T+A room, the elder Amft briefed the Stereophile team on T+A's status and plans; expect some big announcements at High End Munich later this month.
Audio shows are great for hearing new components and systems—of course they are. But they can also be good for encountering new ideas. Over two days at AXPONA, I encountered the same curious idea from two manufacturers.
In addition to exhibiting a plethora of "classic" hi-fi gear, MoFi Distribution introduced a modern lifestyle system in Suite 340: the new Piega Ace Wireless series.
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).
Lenbrook of Canada has several modern hi-fi brands under its "umbrella," and I had the chance to check out some of the latest wares from DALI, NAD, and Bluesound in room 729 at AXPONA.
American Sound presented a second demo in the suite's smaller room: Avantgarde Acoustics' Uno XDs, a smaller model soon to be upgraded to G3 status, driven by Japan's Phasemation amplification.
When I heard Usher's "Yeah!" being blasted out from the, uh, Serenity Room, I wondered whether to go in or hang back from the crunk. Not hating on the song, but it was awfully early in the day for this. (It turns out there was someone shooting a video in there.) But the real surprise was that the bumping, club-worthy music wasn't coming from outsized tower speakers, but from a pair of stand-mounted two-ways with some innovative porting.
Toronto-based American Sound of Canada, with Angie Lisi at the helm, had a striking showing at AXPONA: Huge horns. If you saw and heard them, you'd remember them. It was a popular room, so I made an early first stop on Sunday when it wasn't crowded.
Fidelity Imports' second room showed on passive display the latest speaker from Perlisten, the three-way S5t tower, a smaller sibling to the Perlisten S7t in the active setup (and that Kal Rubinson reviewed in December 2021, bottom photo). A (forthcoming) new Aurender A15 music server/streamer with DAC (top photo) decoding full MQA served as the source.
Tucked away in a corner of the 6th floor were two Fidelity Imports rooms showing a few new gems. Fidelity Imports focused one (room 604) on its imports from the UK.