2023 Florida Audio Expo Show Report

@mikelavigne I did not see any presentations or demonstrations of a tonearm or TT that had not previously been displayed at the show.  Many rooms had an analog source they did  employ, but digital seemed to be the dominate music source.

@drrsutliff 

many thanks for the feedback. just sold one tt and on the hunt to replace it. looking for ideas.

I spend a few hours there Friday.  Almost all the stuff is way out of my price range, but it's wonderful to hear the big bucks stuff for reference purposes.  I have a few impressions to share.

I loved the MBLs again.  The Raidho/Margules room was very impressive.  

The room (can't remember the name) with the cartridges of vanishingly low imperdence (0.2 ohms and lower!) was very *interesting* for sure: but why use them if you are going to run everything through a digital processor anyway?

On the affordable side, I was for the nth time very pleased with the Wharfedale Linton Anniversary speakers: classic looks and what i thought was excellent sound for the money.  I keep flirting with buying them, and may just do that.

On other notes, one impression I had was that I was in a lot of rooms in which a) I really would have liked to hear more good (by my lights) music (especially classical and piano) and less stuff selected for audiophile purposes; b) there were a good number of turntables and almost none of them being used; c) and my strongest impression, I was in alot of rooms that seemed way overloaded - just too small for the gear in them, at least played at that volume.  I imagine that's just the nature of little hotel rooms, but it does make you wonder what the systems actually sound like.

Still, lots of fun!

Richard

@laynes thanks for the shout-out. The company name is Orchard Audio, not Apple Orchard.

The All new Acora Acoustics VRC Flagship Speakers are the very best speakers at this show at only $218K a pair if you hit that Lottery 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbWh5xRJ3n8