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Axpona 2018

Went again this year and found the show to be larger, higher quality sounding rooms than previous shows. I have been to many brick and mortar stores which have good sounding rooms, but at Axpona this year many rooms were better sounding than their store show rooms!

My best sounding large room was the VAC/Von Schweikert Audio/Esoteric, room. The Wilson room with the DCS stack was also very good. My best small room, and there were many, was the Gershman Accoustics room, their new speakers were sounding great with top end electronics. Also, I was impressed with NOLA room again.

 

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Showing 2 responses by arch2

arch2
308 posts
 
laserjock1963
I listened to the Revel F228be but I can’t give you too much info other than really liking them. Though not huge speakers I was sort of expecting them to overpower the room when I first walked in (why I thought that I have no idea) but they sounded poised and refined with some driving music. My buddy and I left the room with the intention of giving them a more serious listen, but completely forgot to follow up and only remembered that when I saw your post. We walked out of that room saying they were really, really good. Man, wish I had remembered to follow up with those.


arch2
308 posts
 
This was my second year at Axpona and my buddy and I had a great time. Some of the brands I didn’t care for last year I thought sounded great this year. For example, last year I did not care for the MBL room but I was blown away this year. It sounded best in the sweet spot but the sweet spot was huge. Plus the music they were playing was fun; Blood Sweat and Tears (Spinning Wheels), Michael Jackson. I voted it the room most likely to break out into a party. Loved it.

Other rooms I thought were great:
- The big Von Schweikert room was awesome just like last year.
- Legacy Room.
- Harbeth 40.2 speakers.
- I totally agree with the statement about Aerial 7t but I was probably more impressed with the 5t’s in the same room. Very full, natural and spacious sound from a small speaker. Those might be my next speakers.
- Martin Logan Impressions with Benchmark electronics in a relatively small room were holographic. OK maybe those are my next speakers.
- Dynaudio Special 40s with Octave tube integrated were surprising with the bass response from such a small speaker. In fact, I’m really surprised with the overall sound quality and bass response from small speakers in general. (BTW thanks to the Octave rep for playing my requests.)
- Raidho monitors were fantastic. But boy the price.
- The Neat speakers were, well, neat. Tiny little things making really good bass but I wanted to play with placement. I felt like they were too close to the wall.
- I too liked the ELAC Adantes, maybe just a tad too sharp sounding but for 2500 bucks I thought these had great promise.
- Primaluna room was big and vivid with the Golden Ear Triton References. I’ve heard the Golden Ears at my local dealer and there I wasn’t impressed at all. But at the show with Primaluna they were great. Go figure.
- Jeff Joseph room with the reel to reel had a presence to the sound that was unmatched. 
- Plus a bunch of others that I just don’t remember.

In my opinion, musical bliss is not reliant on price. There was a lot of great stuff that was relatively affordable and there was some mega expensive stuff that just didn’t do much for me. My one criticism would be the music being played in many of the rooms but this isn’t new. A little too polite mellow jazzy kind of stuff. Don’t get me wrong I like that too but I would prefer to hear more of a range. But again it was great fun, plus getting to talk to all kinds of folks about this stuff. Hope to do it again next year.


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