New Beginnings, New Challenges
This year's FIAE show (February 21-23, 2025) relocated to a new venue and sported a rather different touch and feel from previous show iterations. The new venue, the Sheraton Tampa Brandon, situated in a quieter suburban setting, largely delivered on the show organizer's promise of a vibrant, family-friendly experience, though not without a few hick-ups. The mild Florida weather teased show attendees from colder climes as it always does. And the Baby Boomer-fueled show spirit of tempered raucous rebellion and revelry lingered, though toned down a notch or two as all boomer attendees continued their irreversible march toward antiquity.
Courtesy of Marriott International
The impressive-looking building, a structure that I would describe as a 1980s-era concrete brutalist work and not at all unattractive, was, overall, well-suited to the increasingly popular FIAE. The Sheraton Tampa Brandon certainly boasts more than enough space for exhibitors and attendees alike, and the unavoidable elevator backlogs seemed no worse than I encountered at plenty of past audio shows across the country. I enjoyed the open, bright, and airy public spaces and felt right at home with the quirky floorplan layout.
The cost-conscious sandwich lunch service on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday also stood out. The hamburger/hot dog/turkey lunchtime food options were excellent, and very reasonably priced. My partner in crime, Greg Weaver, and I enjoyed leisurely lunches at the hotel bar area on all three days of the show. The big, meaty, grilled burgers were particularly tasty and only $6.00.
But all was not wine and roses. For starters, the parking setup caused more than a few early concerns. The hotel grounds, despite the suburban setting, couldn't accommodate all the car and van traffic (a good sign attendance-wise). The overflow corporate lot located next to the hotel grounds ultimately solved the problem, but I did not discover signage directing show-goers to the overflow location until day 2, nor did others. To their credit, once the organizers sorted out the mechanics of the overflow arrangement and then communicated same to showgoers, the parking situation worked out just fine.
Staff-wise, the Sheraton team simply seemed caught out with their pants down. For example, by mid-weekend, first floor public bathrooms offered attendees clogged sinks overflowing with soapy water, rubbish bins bursting with paper towels and empty water bottles, and an understaffed bar straining to fill the beer mugs of tired, thirsty patrons.
Looking forward, most of the issues mentioned above can be fixed with better hotel training, more robust staffing, tighter logistics, and the venue owner's willingness to spend a little cash to address suboptimal mechanical issues. Let's hope that all relevant stakeholders respond and make the needed changes. On most other counts, this was a lovely regional show and a worthy addition to the growing FIAE legacy.
The Show Must Go On
Unlike my previous show reports, typically chunky tomes that tried to cover every visited room, my reporting this year focuses on those exhibits that I feel offered visitors the best sounds at FIAE 2025. There is, I should note, one key exception to this "best of show" theme, something about which I'll have more to say below.
The superb 4th floor Margules Audio/Deep Dive Audio (DDA) room (451) featuring an almost "stern to stem" MA electronics suite and speakers floored me. The Margules Orpheo Century Intermezzo compact floor-standing speakers ($30K the pair), these sharply toed out for an impossibly large sound stage, hit all the right notes powered by a suite of and Margules and Zesto electronics. My show report iPhone notes highlighted superb system tone and timbre with spot-on imaging and staging. Janis Ian's rousing "Tattoo" (from a superb Impex re-issue of the singer/songwriter's seminal Breaking Silence LP) filled the room with airy detailed sounds.
Soprano sax master Jane Ira Bloom's "The Man with The Glasses" (from her debut Enja LP Mighty Lights) sounded fantastic with just a touch of lightness in the bass and a hint of forwardness from her soprano (subtle flavorings from the recording that I've noticed over the years). The Margules setup recreated a jazz hall in all its intimacy and inner detailing intact. World class sound, I concluded in my show notes.
The primary gear: Margules U-280 SC 30th Anniversary LTD Tube AMP ($12K), Margules SF-220 30th Anniversary Tube Preamp ($8K), J. Sikora Initial SE Turntable ($17,250), J. Sikora KV12TVA 12" tonearm ($8995), Zesto Andros Deluxe II Phonostage, Aidas True-Stone Gold Web (wtf?) MC Cartridge ($5995), Margules Magenta MS-01 Music Server and DAC ($3500).
The AGD L1 room (Room 455) rocked the FIAE house with a system clocking in at around $15k for the entire system. The compact Børresen L1 speakers ($3800 with stands), these powered by the AXXESS Forte 1 amp/streamer/DAC combo player ($5500), an Ansuz X-TC3 PowerSwitch distribution system ($2600), plus a gaggle of AXXESS cabling sang sweetly when playing Annette Ashvik's Liberty, the track streamed to remarkably analog-sounding effect. My show notes celebrated an open, airy sound-field full of marvelous musical detail. Superb imagining and 3D staging held everything together and of a piece sonically. A real BOS contender.
As I moved figuratively and literally across the AGD line, both on the hotel 4th floor and in the AGD signature room on the first, I heard more resolved musical detail, greater presentation weight and system scaling, and enhanced dynamic clout as prices increased. Amazingly, the lower-priced systems managed to deliver so much of the performance heft of their pricier counterparts that one would not be incorrect to raise legitimate marginal "rate of audio dollar return" type questions.
The Lone Mountain Audio team (room 486) demoed ATC speakers and electronics to remarkable effect. The active system on display delivered superbly natural, balanced, and sweet sound via ATC's Classic Series SCM50ASL Active Loudspeakers ($22,499 the pair) and CDA2 MkII CD/Preamp/DAC combo player ($4999). Voices and woodwinds retained their dimensionality, bite, tonality, and energy. Compellingly, I never heard anything that I would describe as overtly flashy or caving to current audio fashion, just an old-fashioned emphasis on engaging and natural sound.
Old School crooner Boz Scaggs soared on his lovely rendition of the jazz standard "I Wish I Knew" (from his stellar Speak Low CD, the disc mastered using Pass Labs electronics). Boz's version charms my socks off with every listen, and the ATC system deftly delivered. The track's utter immediacy and transparency stood out as did the natural warmth and air captured by the Pass Labs mastering gear.
Young Lucca Chesky's LC1 speakers ($999 the pair - Chesky Audio), these mated to $2200 in Cambridge Audio electronics sounded simply swell streaming a broad selection of digital music files in room 415. Open, coherent, and composed sound that I described in my notes as delivering "clean as a whistle" purity across their range enchanted. My FIAE 2025 partner in crime, Greg Weaver, also liked what he heard. Lucca's speaker cabinets use a unique bracing and damping strategy to banish resonant nasties to the ether. Well done, Mr. Chesky the younger.
The Aretai Audio room down on the 3rd floor sounded wonderful, even sans the much-anticipated Revox R2R player. The always swell-sounding Contra 100S stand-mount compacts at $9900 the pair delivered the sonic goods, sounding much bigger than their petite dimensions might suggest. Yes, the mid frequencies sounded a touch forward and hard on a couple of brightly recorded tracks, but this system energized the room like nobody's business. Fine staging and dynamic expression were highlights.
Brazilian singer extraordinaire Elis Regina and Tom Jobim's Pois e (translated as "I told you so") hit all the right notes in this tidy, sweet-sounding room, including all the craggy spaces between half notes. Outstanding performance for a fair price, I thought of the Contra 100S speakers. Speaker setup utilizing the "Golden Mean" equidistant triangle arrangement highlighted staging and imaging performance.
A great sounding room by any sensible measure.
Volti Audio's new flagship, the reimagined, re-engineered, and totally re-designed Vittora at about $50k (with matching powered subs) hit hard and fast, playing with real authority and conviction. Imaging and staging were a bit too "in the box" on some tracks, but the speed, dynamic expression, inter-driver cohesion and "of a piece" overall sound impressed.
The system captured to a tee Mark Knofler's husky baritone, leaving none of the singer-guitarist's smoke-tinged and gravelly vocals unresolved. This was an impressive speaker introduction for the Volti team by any measure. This high efficiency-horn speaker would sing in a larger room.
Source: Innous ZENith digital file server ($6999); DAC: Mojo audio Mystique SE ($8499); Integrated amp: Cary Audio SLI -80 ($4999); Triode Wire Labs cabling.
Philip O'Hanlon's On a Higher Note (OAHN) provided a welcome respite from a sea of generally sterile sounding rooms. Real sounding instruments, holographic staging, and a cohesive sonic wavefront impressed invitingly. Award-winning composer Jeff Russo's inventively snappy homage to Kind of Blue, the hipster-slick For All Jazz-Kind (from the For All Mankind Apple TV sci-fi series and downloaded by the OAHN team just for me) sounded utterly real and palpable in the small listening room. I could almost smell smoke and hear the soothing chime of brandy snifters. One of the best recreations of recorded piano at the show, that is until Duke O'Hanlon marched in put on some obscure crap halfway through the Russo track, spoiling the moment.
The OAHN gear lineup included: Bayz Audio Curante 2.0 speakers: $48-70K the pair depending on finish and system configuration; Accustic Arts POWER III (integrated amp with on-board DAC and phono stage): $20,490; Aurender N20 Streamer at $12.5K; Berkley Audio Design USB 2: $2,495; Berkley Audio Design Reference 3 DAC: $28K; Shunyata cable loom.
The Supreme Acoustics room on the first floor (Brandon 2) teased delicately with a pallet of tube goodies that included Western Electric tube mono blocks and matching preamp and phono stages. YG Acoustic speakers worked synergistically with the WE tubed gear, much to surprise. In the past, I had only heard YG speakers paired with very powerful solid-state electronics. Refreshingly, the WE valve gear never smoothed over the YG sound but instead infused every note with light, life, and the breathless expectancy one gets in the presence of real musicians performing right in front of you.
Brandon 2 room pricing: WE 97A mono blocks - $240K for the pair; WE 95A preamp - TBD; WE 116C phono preamp - TBD; Bergman Galder turntable and Odin arm - $49.9K; YG Acoustics XV3 Signature 4 Towers - $498K; Taiko Olympus DAC/Streamer - $73K; Taiko Olympus I/O Power Upgrade - $24.5K; Taiko Extreme Router - $7.5K; Taiko Extreme Switch - $5.3K; Taiko Extreme DC Distributor - $2.7K.
Top marks go to speaker designer Jeff Jospeh and tube maven Nick Doshi who demoed their tails off in the Bradon 3 room located on the first floor. The Doshi Audio/Joseph Audio pairing delivered superbly natural sounds, coming across as relaxed, confidently composed, and musically propulsive at the same time.
My notes observed that the combined efforts of these two industry masters delivered music-making excellence of the first order.
A series of tape-sourced jazz tracks highlighted the system's effortless musicality and remarkable naturalness. A BOS contender. The gear: Joseph Audio Pearl Graphene Ultra speaker: $52K the pair; Studer A810 R2R player with extended response heads: NFS; Doshi Evolution Series Line and Tape preamps at $22K each; Doshi Evolution Mono blocks: $45K the pair; Berkley Audio Design USB 2: $2495; Berkley Audio Design Reference 3 DAC: $28K.
The Gershman Acoustics room, also down on the first floor, kicked ass and took names in the same understated fashion that it's show rooms always do. Big-boned, full blooded sound put this VAC Amp-powered system in good company amongst the other generally excellent sounding first-floor spaces. Dynamically engaging, with macro dynamic expression edging out micro dynamic nuance on the exhibit system versus Gershman systems that I've praised in years past, this room still delivered good sound overall. Perhaps the huge room was at work here. Still, this was, on balance, excellent stuff. My apologies to the Gershman team for failing to snag the component price list.
Back on the 4th floor (454) the Reel Sound Distribution room (headed by Jeff Garshon) featured Metaxas & Sins gear (Greek designed/Dutch made) paired with Silversmith Audio Fidelium speaker and interconnect cables by Jeff Smith. The system gifted a headphone-like listening experience in a tiny room utilizing four-tower ELS Czar speakers from M&S. Several classic jazz tracks, these R2R tape sourced, maximized what the exhibitors could accomplish in such a minuscule space. Louis Armstrong's gravel-voiced interpretation of Duke's Mood Indigo sounded swingingly swell given the close-mic perspective.
The Czar ESLs played as transparently as all get out, with lovely highs, laser quick transients, but a touch of bass weight lightness down low. The nearfield listening perspective took out most of the room and left only the speakers. Design-wise, I suspect that the Czars ESLs eat watts like a fat kid downstairs cheeseburgers - 60 at a time, but I could be wrong. Halfway through the exhibit, Silversmith Audio's Jeff Smith re-wired the system to present the partnering amp with a much easier speaker load. Immediately, the system exhibited enhanced dynamic expression, greatly improved headroom, and more open and engaging sound.
What a lovely surprise of a room.
M&S Tourbillon R2R - $52K (with external PSU); Tourbillon custom stand - $8K; Preambulator turntable and Combobulator arm ($29K/$9k - who comes up with these names? Must be a Greek thing - the M&S folks are Greek); Czar ESL speaker - $37K the pair; Prinz ESL speakers - $24K; Solitaire integrated amp - $41K; Icarus integrated amp - $29K. Silversmith Audio Fidelium speaker and interconnect cables - $999 for each run.
Best Individual Show Effort
Sue Toscano who magically appeared to be anywhere and everywhere at once, all the time, all weekend.
Most Outrageous Show Encounter
Greg Weaver and I stopped by a large exhibit room to hear a newish high-end speaker priced in the plus-500K range (pre-tariff pricing). To our initial surprise, show attendees entering the room quickly departed after spending only one-or-two minutes listening to music. Some left sooner. Not a good sign! Undeterred, Greg and I took our seats, after which I politely requested that the exhibitor play a track from my Jane Ira Bloom LP. Please note that Greg and I were the only attendees in the room at this time.
To my utter amazement, the exhibitor queried whether the LP was, to paraphrase, "the absolute greatest sounding disc in the universe" or some such nonsense. Greg and I responded that the LP sounded very good with great performances. The exhibitor said nothing. A minute later, Greg whispered to me that the exhibitor had no intention of playing my LP, something I also concluded. Greg and I looked at each other, got up, and walked out.
The surrealistic absurdity of this painful encounter cannot be overstated. The exhibitor had a captive audience consisting of two seasoned reviewers, no other attendees present, and a simple request by one reviewer to play a single LP track. The exhibitor refused and then proceeded to play some uninspired dross that obviously appealed only to him. I'll be the first to concede that exhibitors have the absolute right to decline playback requests from the audience, including from reviewers. They paid for their room after all and can play back tracks that they think presents their system in the best light.
Still, when attendees are pouring out of your room faster than cheap beer out of a bottle and two reviews indicate their willingness to give your system a fair shake, one would think that the exhibitor would have enough common sense to accommodate such a small and seemingly reasonable request. Sadly, the boneheaded dismissiveness that Greg and I experienced is rife within the industry. Exhibitors mistakenly believe that everyone else in the room will hear things as they hear them, hence their reluctance to entertain track requests from the audience and from reviewers. One wonders just how many potential sales have vanished into thin air because of this sort of exhibitor intransigence.
Best Show Value-Added Proposition
Greg Weaver's vinyl spinning one-man Saturday night show in the VAC Amps/Acora Acoustics room (the Palm Suite) celebrated the joys of vinyl music replay in the digital file sharing and streaming era. Greg's curated selection of classic and progressive rock LPs revealed his deep knowledge of the art form, his excellent ear, and his superb command of an enthusiastic audience. The associated VAC Statement gear and $300K Acora statement speakers sounded simply fantastic, everything fed by a top-flight VPI direct drive turntable and Hana Umami Red MC cartridge.
Greg sang the praises of the VPI table, noting to me its superb pitch stability and ergonomic cleverness. The $4K Hana Umami Red MC cartridge sang like nobody's business. I should know; I own one. Unfortunately, I missed Mike Fremer's guest appearance later in the evening. Co-host and conversationist extraordinaire Sheree Cora plied me with so much yummy Macallan Rare Cask Single Malt Scoth Whiskey (around $300 the bottle I'm told) that I had to leave early or risk passing out. Unfortunately, this means that I missed Mike Fremer's late night appearance at the spin session and the witty back-and-forth between Greg and Mikey that ensued.
Next Best Value-Added Event
Sue Toscano requested that I attend a musical performance given Saturday morning by a group of school-age Tampa violinists and their stalwart instructor. The kids played their hearts out on a wide selection of works edited to appeal to younger players. Parents and family supporters glowed with pride. I was transported back to my early days as a fledgling saxophonist. My parents attended every one of my concerts. Committed musicians aren't just born. They are supported, funded, nurtured, and encouraged by those who love them.
Cheers and good listening!
