I had a good time at the show, although I really did not see anything "new" that piqued my interest. Overall, most of the rooms delivered decent sound, which is unlike many shows where some rooms sound truly awful. I think this is probably the case because it was the second year at this venue and most of the exhibitors were there for the second time.
The best sound at the show, to me, was delivered by the Deja Vu room with the "new" open baffle speaker system with vintage drivers and a newly built crossover made with vintage parts (it looked like a sealed system but it was open baffle). The system had two speakers, but, was configured as a mono system because the amplifier used is a one-of-a-kind prototype (uses WE 271 output tubes and mercury vapor rectifiers). This system provided an amazing demonstration of mono delivering a big, open, soundstage.
I was also impressed by the monitor speaker being shown in the Gershman room. It delivered an incredibly layered and deep soundstage when playing a phono source (I did not know the music). When the demonstration followed with Richard Thompson's "Quality Shoe" from a digital source, the sound was less terrific (I own the vinyl and it is a good recording, but, I don't know how well it was mastered in digital). Still, this is a very promising speaker.
The Audio Note room was again doing its stealth thing--the system was very musical and enjoyable without having those aggressive qualities that a lot of people seem to like at shows (but I am guessing that kind of sound would grow tiresome in the long run).
I say two rooms with Voxactiv speakers in them and I liked what I heard--very clear and dynamic sound, minus the shrill and peaky quality that is often heard with wide-range drivers. The big Voxactiv speaker at the show had to be listened to at quite some distance to not sound shrill and peaky, but, when thus accommodated, it was very nice sounding.
