2023 AXPONA Show Report

First off - most rooms do not know how to set-up speakers.  That is the main reason they sound OK.  So how did I determine this?  Easy, we know dealers who have manufacturers come in to try to get them to purchase their speaker line.  None of them know how to set their speakers up in the showroom to sound good.  Second, they partner with other manufacturers to help with the cost of the room so they are not the best match for equipment.  When we won best of should at CAF back in the day, not one reviewer noted the equipment used or the cables but they all review them.  We won best of show with an old Adcom copper interconnect used as our digital cable.  So go figure that one.

Happy Listening.

I went to Axpona last year.  I won't go this year.  From my perspective, it was an exercise in excess.  Most vendors were displaying gear that was way past my budget. Plenty of vendors had setups that cost as much as an automobile and fill an entire room.  All power to the people that can afford systems like that, but I don't feel the need to listen to the monster systems.

A big issue at Axpona for me was the noise.  The noise from people and from demo systems made it tough to have conversations, much less listening to a stereo systems at the volume levels that I listen to music.  I am careful not to expose my ears to excessive noise levels and if I were to go to Axpona again, I would bring ear plugs to protect my hearing.

I live in the Chicago area around 20 minutes away from where Axpona is held.   Within the Chicago area  we are lucky to have a decent number of audio/stereo stores where it is possible to listen to gear carefully.  If I am interested in buying new (or used gear), I prefer to go to one of the the local stores.

Flyfish77 I take it as a blessings I don’t need to fly and stay in the hotel ? Iam also from IL , 30 minutes from the venue. I took 4 days off to be able to appreciate it.Though we are bless to have audio stores here? Axpona is very different.Its once a year only.

@erik_squires I personally would like to hear back from those visiting the ScansSpeak room. They are demonstrating their Ellipticor midrange domes and I’d like to know if in fact it is the best midrange you’ve ever heard or not.

Thank you. :)

Yep. The entire Ellipticor family of drivers are nice. There is nothing to wonder

about. Just buy them, hahah. I use several different ScanSpeak drivers in my past few sets of custom speakers, subs. Those mids are pretty cool. Would like to see the whole setup, components used, and what other drivers they use with those mids.

The new mid woofers with the SD AirCirc magnet system are interesting. Would like to see which midwoofers they pair up with the mids.

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Yes, please, take photos, whoever goes in the ScanSpeak room at ’23 Axpona!

@decooney I am a Scanspeak fan, yet I remain skeptical the new Ellipticor mids are a significant step above the Illuminator mids they have already. They are about 8x more expensive than the already pricey Illuminators and commercially will probably not appear in any speaker less than $50k.

The delta in performance between the two really needs to be extraordinary.