Axpona 2023


 

Axpona Show Recap Sunday April 16th 2023- O'Hare Airport



 

Clarisys Audio-Why these difficult names??

$35k. Easy on the ears at higher volumes.

"Apogee" is what they look like only prettier.

 

The new T+A $50k speaker model was also excellent. They make smaller models

I plan to look into.

 

The $43k Joseph Audio is a perennial winner.

 

The $200k+ Borresen Speakers may still be my all time favorite. Lars was there

but Michael B. was burned out from an Asian tour.

 

The Vimberg stand mount Speaker they demo'd is a magical speaker. 

Last year they showed Lime Green speaker and sold it at the show.

Makers please note. Focal failed to bring even one "Hot" colored speaker.

And they must have had 25 speakers there. Poor merchandising. 

 

Did anyone else partake in one of Wendel's 1/2 hour new subwoofer sessions? (Magnepan)

Wendel's contention is that 12  6.25" drivers mounted in a dipole configuration

beats anyone's subwoofer. Not sure about his science on that but he puts on an

impressive demo! 

 

I am still waiting delivery of my LRS+ speakers ordered Dec 4th. 

I did get to listen to the new LRS+ speakers finally. Interesting back story about

something Sandy Gross had to say in the Bacche room. He thinks the LRS+ are "special".

 

Mike Fremer debuted his new LP. I won't try to review it but will advise against over paying

for an early copy.

 

Met some fun people at Cambridge Audio Saturday night!  Their business is good.

 

Dined with the Black Ice people at the Weber Grill.  Jared has a very

interesting past if you ever meet him. They sold 40 units of one headphone amp

on Friday at the show!

 

I finally met Fredrik Lejonklou from Sweden. He does things in an all out assault mode.

Also has the best laid out website I've seen. Product history info is wonderful. Other makers note.

 

I spoke with the Chris Brunhaver, PS Audio Speaker designer, (son of one of the speakerlab founders)

and heard his mid sized $20k speakers. I like the look and the sound is pretty good

for a first effort. I decided against asking him if he missed Darren Meyers the PS audio designer

who was recently hired away by the new Parasound owner. Darren is a very talented guy who will 

benefit greatly from his new association with John Curl. I have to think Parasound will be announcing 

a new Class D amp soon enough.

 

Rumor has it that PS Audio is shopping for a new software man to fix some long standing glitches. 

When the mute button turns on the TV it is time for a fix.

 

Andrew Jones was demoing his new Point 8 speaker. $3k. the Point 10 is $4k. 

He had some great demo music I will be including in my next Track du Jour email.

The 8's sounded as good or better than the 10's in that setup.

 

A fun show overall!!

 

128x128jeffseight

The best value proposition in loudspeakers is the DIY approach.

If you spend $2,000 on drivers, tweeters and XO parts and another

$1,000 on materials, provide your time and labor free, your $3,000 speakers

will be on a par with $10-12k manufactured brand speakers. If you are inept 

at manual pursuits then hire people to do the assembly. You job becomes

discovering which speaker to build. Companies like Madison, Troes Graven, and

others have box plans designed by experts for you to consider. Look online.

 

The next best way is to find a smaller company but with great ideas.

This is where John "Fritz" Heilor fits in. You can price his drivers and tweeters,

XO parts and box materials & labor. It will add up to about $2k as I recall. A typical

MFG runs a 5x factor in markup. That comes to $10K. Fritz's  MSRP is $3.5k. 

What the originator of this thread just said above is what I am trying to bring to the market place. That’s why I started Blueprint Acoustic. If you’re not good at building cabinets or assembly, we’ve tried to simplify it. Then if you don’t like it, you can change it and you’re not stuck with an entire speaker that you feel that you have to force yourself to like or sell And get your money back and start over. I’m trying to create a standard with the size of the cabinets that we call modules. You can assemble them in any order, put any kind of finish on the meat you want and use whatever drivers you want or the ones that we recommend. I don’t know how much easier you could make it ? Short of me, bringing my equipment to your house and setting it up in your garage and fabricating the speakers in front of you, L O L. We do all the work box it up and send it to you. You can assemble it, or will assemble it for you. If you don’t like it will buy back or help you change it , you really don’t need to go spend 10 or $15,000. You can spend between two and five and get some thing that’s awesome. If you put them side-by-side like I’ve done with many different speakers might’ve either sounded the same and in some cases it sounded better , please take a look at my website.blueprintacoustic.com. I am an advertiser on this site and on US audio. If you’re in the market for some new speakers, I would love to have a conversation with you. Thanks for reading this, Ray. 

"If Qualio Audio IQ’s or Ocean Way Eureka’s weren’t represented you didn’t hear the best there is!"

 

Which one sounds better/you like more? How are their sounds differ from one another?