Loading...

Last year on Christmas Eve, while I was in the midst of preparing our annual prime rib feast, I got a message from a friend telling me that T.H.E. Show was moving to Long Beach, CA in 2019. What? At long last an audio show in my back yard? Too good to be true! As... Read More »

Here is the final installment of my Audio Oasis! Awards from AXPONA 2019. A major event; a major set of articles reflecting upon the awards that I gave. Daedalus Audio/Vacuum Tube Amplification/LampizatOr/WyWires In the Daedalus Audio/VAC/LampizatOr/WyWires room…great beauty here! Lou Hinkley, Fred Ainsley, Kevin Hayes, and Alex Svetinsky were making beautiful music in Room 496,... Read More »

Continuing my long march through AXPONA 2019, here's Part the Fourth of my Audio Oasis! Awards. The Audio Company/Von Schweikert Audio/Valve Amplification Company/MasterBuilt Audio/Critical Mass Systems/Aurender/Esoteric Lukasz Fikus of LampizatOr taking it easy with the VSA Ultra 11 and VAC amplification:  a portrait Once again at AXPONA 2019, Von Schweikert Audio linked up with VAC,... Read More »

Continuing my Audio Oasis! Awards, reflections on AXPONA 2019, and my photographs... Merging Technologies/Evolution Acoustics/Wave Kinetics/darTZeel/Durand Tonearms/ATR/Analog Audio  In the Blue Light Audio room…world-class components, all! Another big-time non-surprise:  The Blue Light Audio et al. room was gassed, stoked, and ready-to-go! once again. Jonathan Tinn, Kevin Malmgren, and Joel Durand hosted a really seductive room,... Read More »

Continuing with my Audio Oasis! Awards series from AXPONA 2019... Synergistic Research/Scott Walker Audio In the Synergistic Research/Scott Walker room Ted! I spent time in the SR/Scott Walker room, checking out Ted's latest innovations at Synergistic Research. There is always something interesting going on with Ted and company, and I've had nearly 25 years of... Read More »

With assistance on room lists from PF Senior Editor Myles Astor David W. Robinson, Munich 2018 (photograph by Wojtek Pacula) A glance backwards, and AXPONA 2019 fades into history. It's already being overlaid by Munich 2019, which occurs too quickly after the event in Chicago. Then again, the calendar for high-end audio events has been... Read More »

This year's European AES show was in Dublin, which seemed a bit of an odd choice for a location because there is not a huge audio production community there. So the show was small, but it was interesting because the people who did show up were dedicated folks. Room Treatment Usually at the US shows... Read More »

Continuing on with our coverage of AXPONA 2019. All images by Dave Clark, along with some added commentary. Pure Audio electronics Interesting turntable in the Marketplace, where there were lots of interesting things to see! DH Labs. Great people and great product! Besflores Nievera with a panel in the Marketplace discussing streaming services. Schiit Audio... Read More »

Continuing on with our coverage of AXPONA 2019. All images by Dave Clark, along with some added commentary. Distinctive Stereo, German Physiks, Mojo Audio. A lineup of AVM Audio USA products. First turntable for AVM called the Rotation. Very cool, it lights up blue and shines through the platter. ELAC had two rooms, both equally... Read More »

Continuing on with our coverage of AXPONA 2019. All images by Dave Clark, along with some added commentary. Another engaging room, Bel Canto e1X DAC / Control preamplifier, $6500, and e1X amplifier, $6000. Audiovector SR 3 Avantgarde Arreté, $9999. AudioQuest Niagara 1000 power filter. HRS Audio stand. High Water Sound. Horning Hybrid Systems Eufrodite Ellipse... Read More »

Continuing on with our coverage of AXPONA 2019. All images by Dave Clark, along with some added commentary. Source Systems Limited, Esprit Audio, fidata IO Data Devices, Lumin Music by Pixel Magic Systems. M2TECH. Jim Clark Stereo, located in central Illinois, interesting to us as Dave's brother is named Jim. They featured Bob Carver, Mytek,... Read More »

Dateline: April, 2019 Renaissance Schaumburg Hotel and Convention Center. Schaumburg, Illinois Welcome back my Friends, to the show that (hopefully) never ends! (Apologies ELP.) I arrived at the 10th annual AXPONA on Thursday afternoon. The Renaissance Convention Center was a buzzing audio-hive of controlled chaos. Crates and boxes were everywhere. Audio systems taking shape, tweaking started.... Read More »

AXPONA is a big show. Big as in massive. Big as in I don't know how someone can cover almost 200 rooms in three days. I'm sure one could find many places online that offer in-depth reviews of individual rooms, but you won't find that here, for the most part. Here you will find a... Read More »

Bottom line. AXPONA 2019 was a blast! I have not seen any numbers just yet, but I feel like AXPONA 2019 was very well attended and will be considered another big success story. I was only able to participate on Friday and Saturday, but many friends and contacts in the Industry seemed very pleased by... Read More »

From Tents and Pods to a Remodeled Hotel Two years ago, I made the trek to Denver's Marriott Tech Center Hotel to attend the 2016 edition of the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest (RMAF). It was an unusual event as the hotel was under construction and much of the show was held in tents and pods... Read More »

"Ladies and gentlemen, Elvis has left the building!" Perhaps an odd opening title bar anywhere but here in Las Vegas. For the last 20 years I have attended CES almost every year save for a couple of misses along the way. In all those years it was a struggle to get out of work to... Read More »

At Rocky Mountain Audio Fest 2018, I was asked to participate in a panel titled Why We Listen: Music Changes Lives. I didn't realize what they meant is that they wanted me to moderate the panel. To ease the stress of moderating my first audio show panel, I was given the opportunity to choose the... Read More »

The following video is from RMAF 2018 where we discussed ways to increase the diversity in the audiophile community. Not only shows, but consumers as well. A lot to digest, to distill, and to build upon. Look for an article summarizing what we discussed soon, but till then.... stop denigrating people (age, gender, etc.) for their... Read More »

"Well, you can take a crosstown bus if it's cold or if it's raining, And the animals will love it if you do."        - The Zoo, Simon and Garfunkel The Audio Engineering Society convention is a strange two-lobed thing with a scientific conference downstairs and a trade show upstairs. In the past few years they... Read More »