My two cents on AXPONA 2018:
On the cab ride out from the airport, which was 1.5x the meter price, I wasn't digging it. When I got to the hotel and got a feel for the vast number of rooms, I quickly recovered my enthusiasm.
BEST ROOMS AT THE SHOW (IMO)
1. Joseph Audio/Rowland/Cardas---Pearl S3s driven by the Rowland Daemon Integrated. Source was a Marka tape deck with a Doshi pre. Nothing beat this little room. It was audio magic at 3pm on Sunday. Met Jeff Rowland; nice man. Hard to find any fault in this room except its diminutive size.
2. YG Acoustics/Audionet--Powerful! I find the YG Acoustics sound to be too detailed in the treble for me generally. But the Audionet gear transformed the YG treble into something simultaneously detailed and smooth. I heard YGs in two other rooms and they weren't close to the sound synergy happening in this room. The Audionet amps had ample headroom while driving a whole lot of speaker playing dynamic symphonic passages. If you have a massive audio cavern, this setup should be on a short list to fill the space.
3. Constellation/Martin Logan room was blues butter when I was in there. Felt like the singer was standing right in front me. The room was simple; the sound infectious.
Others to mention:
Border Patrol DAC with Volti speakers. Nice room. If you are looking for a DAC and don't want to spend more than $2K, you should seriously consider the SE unit. Very impressive for the money.
Prana Fidelity--I had never heard these products. The manufacturer was in the room; energetic young guy who clearly loves his work. I was taken by the sound I heard. This appears to me to be another high value proposition.
Thrax Audio--a confusing room with lots of gear up front not plugged in. Turns out they had every bell and whistle present but were only running the entry level set up. Once I knew that, it explained why I wasn't hearing a massive sound from massive gear. They were in a huge room--they should have plugged it all in and pushed a lot of air through the space. Nagra/Organic room--I think I would have liked it; but two guys kept talking about carbon fiber. The music was at 60db. Their conversation was at 65db. One of the guys was the salesman. Can't sell audio if we can't hear the music. I'm not bemoaning the music listening level. I'm saying people should talk less and listen more at an audio expo.
On the cab ride out from the airport, which was 1.5x the meter price, I wasn't digging it. When I got to the hotel and got a feel for the vast number of rooms, I quickly recovered my enthusiasm.
BEST ROOMS AT THE SHOW (IMO)
1. Joseph Audio/Rowland/Cardas---Pearl S3s driven by the Rowland Daemon Integrated. Source was a Marka tape deck with a Doshi pre. Nothing beat this little room. It was audio magic at 3pm on Sunday. Met Jeff Rowland; nice man. Hard to find any fault in this room except its diminutive size.
2. YG Acoustics/Audionet--Powerful! I find the YG Acoustics sound to be too detailed in the treble for me generally. But the Audionet gear transformed the YG treble into something simultaneously detailed and smooth. I heard YGs in two other rooms and they weren't close to the sound synergy happening in this room. The Audionet amps had ample headroom while driving a whole lot of speaker playing dynamic symphonic passages. If you have a massive audio cavern, this setup should be on a short list to fill the space.
3. Constellation/Martin Logan room was blues butter when I was in there. Felt like the singer was standing right in front me. The room was simple; the sound infectious.
Others to mention:
Border Patrol DAC with Volti speakers. Nice room. If you are looking for a DAC and don't want to spend more than $2K, you should seriously consider the SE unit. Very impressive for the money.
Prana Fidelity--I had never heard these products. The manufacturer was in the room; energetic young guy who clearly loves his work. I was taken by the sound I heard. This appears to me to be another high value proposition.
Thrax Audio--a confusing room with lots of gear up front not plugged in. Turns out they had every bell and whistle present but were only running the entry level set up. Once I knew that, it explained why I wasn't hearing a massive sound from massive gear. They were in a huge room--they should have plugged it all in and pushed a lot of air through the space. Nagra/Organic room--I think I would have liked it; but two guys kept talking about carbon fiber. The music was at 60db. Their conversation was at 65db. One of the guys was the salesman. Can't sell audio if we can't hear the music. I'm not bemoaning the music listening level. I'm saying people should talk less and listen more at an audio expo.