Hi Pete,
While the quantity of exhibitors wasn't great, in my opinion the quality more than made up for it. There were some very nice systems set up, depending on what you are looking for. Wayne Parham took some pictures of the show, and here's a link:
http://greatplainsaudiofest.com/2005/Photos/
Near the bottom of the page of photos you'll see the "Two Pi Towers". I vote these speakers "Most Beautiful" of the show - their woodwork is absolutely exquisite. Wayne is now selling finished loudspeakers, which is very good news for those interested in high quality, high efficiency systems - your choice of very reasonable price or superb finish (at a considerably higher but still reasonable price).
I confess to being most interested in the large high efficiency loudspeaker systems, as that's the category our room was in.
For people who have corners available, Wayne's Seven Pi cornerhorns are very strong contenders. I like them very much, especially for the price. For people who want to place their speakers up against one wall (instead of in a corner), he has several other designs that work well.
The Iconic room had a very interesting loudspeaker with a 15" woofer and a 1" coaxial compression driver, the latter loaded by a short rectangular horn. The concentric configuration has some definite advantages, and the big Iconic was strong competition for the more expensive Tannoy 15" concentric systems - but you can buy the Iconic driver and build your own enclosures (something you can't do with the Tannoys).
I participated in the GedLee room, where we displayed a high efficiency two-way speaker. Dr. Geddes has paid a great deal of attention to minimizing cabinet diffraction and horn-related colorations, as well as to getting well-controlled, uniform directivity over a large portion of the spectrum. I'll refrain from what would be an all-too-predictable commentary.
Several rooms had interesting single-driver and single-driver-with-supertweeter systems using Fostex (and occasionally Lowther) drivers, such as Bob Brines' handsome and resonably priced creations.
