The Music at AXPONA 2022


I didn't take any notes or data sets--but....that said...

Did it seem to you like at least half of the rooms played obscure audiophile music?  What's up with wind chimes, sound effects, electronic psychedelia, and so on, being so popular at the show?  It seems to me there are TONs of well recorded offerings that could be played from many genres. 

I like the avant garde, but at a show wouldn't it make more sense to stay on the highway of golden age jazz, folk, blues, rock, hip hop, classical?  

What I struggled with is there are so many superbly produced and engineered recordings available, why veer into such a direction?  

To be fair, there were many rooms with great musical selections.  Yet, it's hard for me to imagine folks saying, "hey, what's this track involving a waterfall, chimes, and percussion?  I need to hear it at home." 

Disclaimer--I realize there is some subjectivity to this and I'm certain I've got some "weird" music in my collection.  It just seems there's a big selection of music being played that alienates people. And that's saying something as many hifi enthusiasts have diverse tastes in music.  

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Actually, there is a useful purpose in playing recordings of sound effects.  But the sound effects should be natural things that people hear every day, such as the crack of the baseball bat and catching balls in the mitt, basketball bounces, handball slaps, the crack of the golf club.  Listen to soft leaves crushed by your feet.  These are sounds you have heard since childhood, before you listened to music critically and were corrupted by audio salesmen.  You don't need official reference recordings.  Your daily experience will teach you that few of these systems sound much like these basic sounds you should know almost innately.

I'm sure Diana Krall went to Berklee College of Music solely to learn how to make records for Audio Show Demo's...

The dude in one of the Mo-fi rooms on the 3rd floor played some rap through those stacked-upside-down-on-each-other Wharfdale Lintons - sounded pretty great.

Cheapaudioman also decried the lack of rock in listening rooms in his Axpona recap video from earlier today.

I had one and a half of my requested tracks played in the Quintessenence Wilson Alexx V room. That room was my favorite room of the show (from those I spent serious time in). I did find that some rooms other than the Alexx V room were receptive to requests if you made the request general in terms of genre rather than a specific track.