It was my first Axpona, and I was impressed. Most rooms sounded good. Some downstairs rooms seemed cavernous. The full-up Avantguard system in a room suite seemed ridiculous.
Always amazed at the breadth of tastes and hearing. Here were my impressions...
Most realistic sound - Horning Hybrid with an SET amp. 98db efficient. This to me seemed the system for the true connoisseur of fine recordings. Never heard of them before but got a tip from some guys at the hotel. I'm not sure how dynamic they are, but it seemed like all noise and fog had been stripped away leaving only the singer's voice and the musical instruments.
The most modern sound - Gayle Sanders Eiken system. This system was all digital-like amps in the speakers and DSP's on steroids, and sounded extremely good. We're entering a new age of sound processing, and in the end, digital will win. It eventually can mimic, tailor, correct, and surpass the current big iron and glow tubes. It's a replay of Kodachrome vs. digital cameras.
The "it" sound -- Doshi Audio. I by chance had dinner with an industry insider who said some of the top companies use Doshi in-house as their reference. Nick Doshi is the real deal. But the units are rather industrial looking.
Most surprising sound - at the high-end, the full Einstein system. For their size and depth, their speakers were robust, and the bass from that shallow box surprised me. At the low-end, Elac $1000 system including their 60 watt integrated and two stand-mounted speakers. Can't recall the name...Debut 2?
I was considering the Revel F228 be, but a woman's voice seemed a little shouty. Maybe it was a bad recording or I'm just afraid of Beryllium. I wanted to hear the Elac AF-61, but couldn't find them. One room had Elac on the door, but were playing JBL's.
I drifted into the Sonist room playing their new Concerto 4 Gen2 and my foot started tapping. I looked at the brochure and they seemed so reasonably priced that I asked if the price was for each. It was for the pair. Then the owner said he didn't want to drag them home and had a good discount on the show pair. I listened to a song or two and bought them. I had some restrictions on height and "not ugly" and these seemed to fill all my audio and WAF needs (we'll see.) They were using the new VAC integrated but the speakers are 97db, and don't need many watts.
Also liked Joseph Audio, thought the Golden Ear Reference was cleaner than expected, and thought the Lumin White speakers had one of the clearest windows onto the performance. I missed a lot but can't recall any real duds.
