SOUTHWEST AUDIOFEST 2024

Greg Weaver posted a few pictures.  The picture of the marketplace got to me.  Very little merchandise in that huge space.  Last time I was at RMAF in 2017, the marketplace was huge with tons of merchandise for sale.

I was there in a professional capacity to network and discuss business, but I also had plenty of time to visit every room at least once and many twice or three times.

This show was considerably smaller than a number of audio shows I’ve been to in the past. Maybe half the size of Florida expo and 1/4th or 1/5th the size of AXPONA. Despite the lower number of exhibitors, there was an equally lower number of attendees, so it never really felt too crowded. Never once did I have to wait long in any room to be able to sit in the sweet spot. As a first year, I understand the organizers likely had a hard time acquiring exhibitors and attendees, but I am hopeful it will scale in subsequent years.

Usually in most shows, I hear 3-4 systems that really knock my socks off. The rest are a mix of pretty good to not great, likely due to poor setup or gear that’s not broken in. For this show, I thought most rooms sounded better than previous show averages, and it was nice to spend time in many rooms. It might be that the rooms in Dallas are slightly bigger (Texas sized!), or exhibitors generally put more effort in the setup. There were still some rooms that had challenges, though. 

Some highlights include:

Audio Group Denmark room with the Borresen M1 on the 12th floor. I continue to be impressed with the dynamics and performance of these $100K monitors, with the help of the newer Ansuz electronics. It’s the third show I’ve heard them since FLAX 2023 and they never fail to disappoint. 

Synergistic Research in the Presidential Suite was quite impressive. It’s a bigger room than they typically have, and the new Magico S3 sounded absolutely huge in there despite its smaller footprint. It was my first time hearing the new Voodoo servers, and as an SR dealer I even had the honor to demo and A/B some of the features of the server for a handful of folks one day.

Acora and VAC were up to their usual business, taking up a massive room and filling it quite well. This room won for the deepest soundstage past the speakers. I wish the lower frequencies were just a tad more impactful, but the ceilings were crazy high (30ft perhaps), but the new Acora VRC speakers were impressive to say the least. 

The room with YG and Constellation also sounded really good, and well set up where the system was set up diagonally to a room. The synergy of Constellation and YG was a great one, and the Vicoustic treatments were also very well done. 

Bella Sound amps were worth drooling over and presented just beautifully, but I felt they were being conservative with the volume levels and the Clarysis speakers used (not the largest ones) didn’t quite fill the space enough. 

One qualm I had was that besides the Acora and VAC room, I didn’t hear many setups that had a very deep soundstage that went well beyond the speakers (I mean more than a few feet beyond). Otherwise, mostly everything was enjoyable. 

There were lots of great industry people there, too, and it was wonderful to meet so many people I’d either seen or known about through reputation but never had a chance to meet in person. 

@calvinj Do you know if Infigo Audio amps are based on the prototype amp that was used for the Resonessence Labs DAC demos at the Los Angeles audio show around 2016?