Most of you probably recall that I attended the 2022 Florida Audio Expo (FAE) in February in Tampa; I've covered the last two consecutive shows there for Positive Feedback. And you may also recall that I raved about The Audio Company's room this year, which once again occupied the largest space at the entire show, and featured two exciting Von Schweikert Audio loudspeaker reveals. Most prominently featuring the new Ultra 7, which occupies the upper-middle tier of VSA's loudspeaker lineup and retails for $180k. The room also highlighted the Endeavor SE loudspeakers ($25k/pair) that were recently chosen as product of the year by Hong Kong's prestigious HiFi Review Magazine. I ultimately ended up awarding the Endeavor SE's my best of show for FAE 2022; that actually makes a lot of sense for me personally, as they occupy a price point that falls more securely within the demographic I generally represent in high end audio. While they obviously cannot go head-to-head with the Ultra 7, they do offer a compelling degree of that loudspeaker's excellent DNA in a more compact package and at a fraction of the price.
The equipment complement at The Audio Company's large room very closely matched their show equipment at FAE 2020 in Tampa.
I mentioned in my 2020 show coverage that there's a little boutique audio shop, The Audio Company, that's located in nearby Marietta, Georgia. Which is inside a small antique and record store, Sweet Melissa Records, about 20 minutes south of where I live in the northern suburbs of Atlanta; it's been there for at least a decade. Imagine my surprise when I showed up at FAE 2020 to discover that The Audio Company, in collaboration with Von Schweikert Audio and Valve Amplification Company (VAC), had the largest and most impressive sounding room at the entire show! I soon found out that The Audio Company actually occupies the two-story building adjacent to the small shop where they display most of their higher-end equipment, including the Von Schweikert loudspeakers and VAC equipment, among other exotic brands. I was dumbfounded, to say the least!
FAE's show itinerary was scheduled to feature an after-hours event in The Audio Company's room with none other than Positive Feedback's own Greg Weaver, who would be deejaying a special presentation of the Von Schweikert Ultra 7. Greg owns VSA Ultra 9, Vortex VR-33 and VR-1, and has reviewed multiple pairs of VSA loudspeakers on various audiophile platforms over the years, giving him an unmatched knowledge of Von Schweikert's loudspeaker designs. While his current principal role is as The Audio Analyst, he's also a senior reviewer and editor with Enjoy The Music, and has just been named the new Hyper-Audio editor at Tone Audio. He's also an assistant editor here at Positive Feedback, as well as a former senior writer with The Absolute Sound. Talk about an impressive resume! Anyway, the weekend of the show, the weather was absolutely gorgeous in Tampa, with daily high temperatures in the 80s. However, a winter storm had virtually crippled many airports in the northern US, making it impossible for Greg to reach Tampa for the show.
Because of mother nature's—and the airline industry's—failure to cooperate in February, Keith Sequeria and Gordon Waters (both principals with The Audio Company), decided to host a Von Schweikert event in Marietta on Saturday, April 2nd. The event was held in combination with the Atlanta Audiophile Society, and was designed to offer Greg another opportunity to help showcase the VSA Ultra 7's with not only his impressive musical selections, but also his unparalleled knowledge of Von Schweikert loudspeaker technology. Since The Audio Company is Von Schweikert's premier dealer, Greg kindly agreed to make the trip south to delight and thrill the attendees with a well-curated collection of LPs and his quick-witted and entertaining repartee.
The Audio Company's large listening room is an excellent evaluation space!
In an era where high end audio showrooms are becoming the exception rather than the norm, the large space at The Audio Company offers a decidedly well-appointed listening environment for equipment evaluation. Where every manner of consideration has been given to the acoustical properties of the room. And the associated amplification, digital equipment, cables, and racks employed in The Audio Company's main room very closely matched the setup in use at the Florida Audio Expo. With the same complement of VAC equipment, including a quad of Statement 452 iQ Musicbloc power amplifiers (the Ultra 7 were bi-amplified) and a VAC Statement preamplifier. Digital sources were provided by Esoteric and Aurender, but Greg's entire presentation was purely analog, so digital playback was only in use with the Ultra 7 setup prior to the start of the actual event. Cables were provided by Master Built Audio, and racks and stands were from Critical Mass Systems. The analog source was the only component that clearly differed from the Tampa setup. It featured a Clearaudio Master Innovation turntable system that was mounted with a Clearaudio 12-inch carbon fiber tonearm; an Ortofon MC Anna Diamond cartridge was fitted to the arm.
The Clearaudio Master Innovation turntable system with the Ortofon MC Anna Diamond cartridge made for a compelling analog front end for the demonstration.
The show was scheduled to begin at 2:30 PM on Saturday afternoon, and I fortunately arrived about a half-hour early. Upon opening the door to The Audio Company, I walked in to find Greg Weaver standing right there! We talked for a few moments, but with Greg being the man of the hour, his time was demanded by many, so I spent the half-hour prior to the show's start checking out the equipment in the multiple rooms. Which also included a prominently displayed pair of Von Schweikert Audio's Endeavor SE; apparently there would also be an impromptu demonstration of them following the Ultra 7 presentation. I wandered into the main showroom, which was already packed, and a digital file from Alan Parsons Project's I Robot was playing over the Ultra 7—and I have to tell you, it was pretty sublime! Of course, half of the music I heard over the system in Tampa a few weeks earlier was from digital sources, so it shouldn't have come as much of a surprise!
Steeve Gooding of the Atlanta Audiophile Society makes the opening introductions.
The music stopped, then Steve Gooding, president of the Atlanta Audiophile Society, took the floor and thanked the standing-room-only crowd for being there, then introduced Jim Kumpe of The Audio Company. Who in turn introduced Greg Weaver to a hearty round of applause; Greg went straight into his presentation, and the music started with a couple of tracks from Rickie Lee Jones' Girl At Her Volcano EP. Greg raved about its sound quality, then played the track "Letters From the 9th Ward/Walk Away René," which was followed by "Under the Boardwalk." Greg explained the provenance of the EP, and how it was pressed on Quiex II vinyl, a high-purity, translucent formulation which was colored with dye rather than carbon black. And how that combination allowed for greatly improved sound quality compared to conventionally pressed LPs. He then held the EP up to a window in the room to show that the pressing was indeed translucent; regardless, the sound quality was dynamic and exceptionally nuanced, to say the least!
Greg Weaver makes his opening remarks to the standing-room-only crowd.
Greg played a track from a jazz trio LP he'd heard playing the day before next door at that hole-in-the-wall antique and record shop I mentioned earlier, Sweet Melissa Records. The record was En attendant, a release from the Marcin Wasilewski Trio on the ECM label. Greg asked us all to try and guess the name of the song playing by trying to hone in on the melody. Astonishingly, it was one of the coolest improvisational takes on The Doors' classic "Riders On the Storm" I'd ever heard, and the sound quality over the VAC/Von Schweikert system was nothing less than remarkable! The Ultra 7's play with convincing realism and cast an enormous soundstage; even though my place standing in the rear of the room was far off-axis from the typical sweet spot, I still had no difficulty localizing the image position of the three players in this outstanding jazz trio.
Greg's encyclopedic knowledge of the albums he played never failed to impress the enthusiastic crowd.
Greg played a couple of tracks each from audiophile pressings of Steely Dan's Aja and Gaucho; midway through, he stopped to ask if his music choices were boring anyone, and also asked for a show of hands if the room would like him to continue. Virtually everyone in the room (including myself!) raised their hands enthusiastically! Greg has an intense familiarity with multiple versions of classic LP pressings; he has an enormous personal collection, and he's analyzed them all extensively on state-of-the-art equipment (including his personal array of Von Schweikert loudspeakers!). All helping him ultimately arrive at the one pressing that leaves the others in the dirt, and his presentation of those best-of-the-best LPs over the VAC/Von Schweikert Ultra 7 system made a compelling case for his conclusions! Every LP Greg played over the course of the afternoon on Saturday was given an exceptionally lifelike performance by the Clearaudio/Ortofon system. And while it was obvious that not all the LPs spun by Greg were in absolutely pristine condition, the superior musicality I experienced reminded me that, warts and all, analog is still a very persuasive playback medium!
A surprisingly diverse crowd showed up for The Audio Company/Von Schweikert event.
Greg has a somewhat irreverent presentation style, and he quickly had those guys from the Atlanta Audiophile Society (and everyone else present!) literally eating from his hands. And hey, this is not to imply that The Audio Company's Von Schweikert event was a complete sausage fest, the crowd was surprisingly diverse; one of the women present filmed the entire proceedings throughout the presentation. Lee Scoggins of The Absolute Sound was also present, live-streaming segments of the event to the TAS website and social media. After the Ultra 7 event ended, I chatted with Lee and some of the members of the Atlanta Audiophile Society at length, then moved into the next room to take another listen to the Endeavor SE loudspeakers that were now playing. The Endeavor SE were set up in more of a near-field arrangement than I'd heard them in Tampa, but still displayed the same goodness of sound that so impressed me a few weeks ago at FAE 2022. Of course, at FAE, the Endeavor SE's shared the same off-the-chain, near-million-dollar VAC/Esoteric/Aurender/Master Built Cable system as the Ultra 7's, so Saturday's presentation really wasn't apples-to-apples, but it's definitely clear that with regard to sharing the musicality of their seriously over-engineered (and much more expensive!) siblings, the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree!
Lee Scoggins of The Absolute Sound was live streaming portions of the event on social media.
I looked around the different rooms for Greg to say goodbye, but couldn't find him anywhere, so I headed for the door. Outside the door, several patrons of a nearby restaurant were posing for an extended selfie; Greg had gone out for some air, and was patiently waiting there for them to finish. I paused to let him know how very much I enjoyed the afternoon, and we ended up talking about just about everything in the music and audio spectrum for the better part of a half-hour! Greg is knowledgeable and truly interesting, and is quite fun to be around—we definitely need to hang at the earliest opportunity and toss down a couple of single-malts!
The Von Schweikert Endeavor SE loudspeakers clearly showed the DNA of their larger siblings.
Hearing the two very different—but also, very much the same—VSA loudspeakers in such a contrasting environment from the large room at FAE was enlightening and enjoyable, and Greg was as entertaining as ever! Many thanks to Keith Sequeria and Gordon Waters for extending the invitation to the Von Schweikert event at The Audio Company, and thanks to Greg Weaver for making it so much fun—it was an absolute blast!
All photos courtesy of the author.
