Axpona 2019

In no particular order.
Tri-Art-audio
Sanders 10e
Bricasti 

Here is my opinion, the good and bad.

I was disappointed with the Sanders room. Sounded anemic to me. The Carvers room was just ok but Frank the room presenter talked Wayyyy too much!
The Gryphon room demo was ok, but we were listening to about $1M worth of equipment! So for that amount money I was not impressed.

I DID NOT like the choice of music in most of the rooms. It was music to fall asleep to with mostly midrange recordings. Most of the recordings I never heard nor ever care to hear them again. Only 3 exhibits would play some of my HR music files that I brought on a usb. I wanted to hear how the speakers/system handled dynamic rock music!
Playing only preplanned canned music makes me wonder are they hiding something? How would these systems perform at my home with my choice of music?

1. What I did like was the GT Audio works GTA 3R speakers. They had some great dynamics and they even domo’ed playing them with some Led Zeppelin!

2. I also liked the Fonica Flag L Isodynamic System these are some very thin planer speakers and were quite impressive.

3. T&A Solitaire Anniversary edition electrostatic speakers sounded very good! I would like to here these more.

Honorable mention to the Laufer Teknik "The Note" speakers. Sounded pretty good , but I have to wonder where the $40,000 cost comes from?

P.S. The bathroom availability on floors 4-16 was non existent. Probably a health code violation.
And the parking situation was terrible!


ozzy

I was at AXPONA all three days this year.
My favorite room--the Finest Fidelity Room--they spun records on a Steve Dobbins restored Garrard 301, Reed 2P tonearm ($13,500 together), $12,000 van den Hul catridge and a $25,0000 van den Hul phono pre. Accustic Arts pre and mono-amps driving Magico S3 MkII speakers. I have heard these speakers quite a few times and this was the first time they sounded really great to me. The analog rig was the star. When I had the guys in charge play me the same track digitally immediately after hearing it on the analog rig, the magic in the room quickly faded. If you missed this room playing records, then you missed a treat.
The four rooms that surprised me:
(1) The MSB room--underwhelming. An $85K DAC that did not impress. I stopped by twice to make sure I was hearing it correctly;
(2) The ELAC room with the small monitors--a huge value proposition IMO. This room showed you don't need an armor truck or gigantic room to get quality sound--oh, the tracks Peter played while I was in the room were great--I will be buying both those CDs; 
(3) The Laufer Teknik room--Kind of weird and wonderful. "The Note" speakers in the room were very tall and very thin but produced  more quality sound than I imagined possible when I walked into the room (with the substantial help of a large subwoofer). The 64/16 Memory Player with the built in DAC was impressive; and finally
(4) The Technics room--Every time I walked in these guys were playing digital files while the Technics SL-1000-R loaded (with an Ortofon MC Winfeld Ti cartridge) sat idly by. I found that strange. I got them to play it; and it sounded pretty good with the Harbeth speakers in a ridiculously small room. If I just launched a new product that had a bunch of buzz, I would have been showcasing that product in a bigger room. Seemed like a missed opportunity to me.
   

IF anybody from audiogon guys listen Block Audio room ??

Most satisfying: the Acora Acoustics room with their $28k granite speakers playing the analog remaster of Gary Karr 1981 Albinoni Adagio in G minor was wonderful.