Lost my reply so I will retype.

Rob, I liked the Pure Audio Project speakers as well.  I was intrigued by how they sounded better when they were louder.  Like your speakers, I love the way those big drivers pressurize a room.

I was spec'ing out a pair of these before I started on my menards special QRD7s.  I'll dig that out and keep going.  I am looking for a trio crossover spec if anyone knows of one.

I’ll mention a few highlights for me, and then followup with a few more items in a separate post or two.

Friday night I spent about 2 hours dj’ing in the Zu Audio room after the show.  It was a blast.  They just handed over the headphones, 5+ crates of vinyl and essentially said have at it.  Everything was running through a Neve mixer console and we had the volume turned up pretty high.  The Druids were rockin’ and sounded great, but something was definitely off with the Omen Def setup.  The OD’s lacked detail, fullness, tone and bass vs. the Druids.  That said, the OD’s are more capable than Axpona might suggest.  I know because my buddy owns them, and driven by the ZMA they make beautiful music.

Earlier on Friday, we stopped by the Volti/Border Patrol room and enjoyed fantastic sound.  The gentlemen running the room was laid back and you could tell he genuinely loved music.  He also seemed to have the best cared for vinyl and or setup as I don’t think I heard a single tick or pop when they played vinyl in the Volti room.  This room was one of my initial favorites.  

Back to Friday night, I remember someone stopping by the Zu room wearing  pajama pants and drinking a beer.  Turns out it was the gentleman from the Volti room.  We stopped back into the Volti room on Saturday (because it was a fav) and were enjoying some jazz.  When we got up to leave the gentleman said, hey weren’t you dj’ing in the Zu room last night?…yes…if you don’t mind staying, I’d like to play a few tracks for you…

He started with some tracks I didn’t know and I was too distracted by great sound to break out the Shazam.  We listened to some funky, bass heavy tracks that really sounded awesome (detailed/dynamic/full).  He had the system turned up pretty loud at this point and the room was rocking.  He then played some Stevie Ray Vaughn.  The guy next to me was trying to figure out where a buzz was coming from in the room.  It was SRV’s amp!  Guitar tone was great and it was pure liquid music.  No problems hearing into the music.  And yes, these horns can handle techno and rock without blinking an eye.  Loved this room and I appreciated the hospitality.  

We did have a magical moment in the Magico room and I think we happened to be in the right place at the right time.  When we sat down they were playing classical music on vinyl.  Usually I get up and walk out in this situation, but the track was finishing up.  As an aside, I’m not sure why vinyl sounds so bad in these high end rooms.  Lots of distracting ticks and pops.  I think these guys are rocking a $200K vinyl setup and they can’t get it to sound right.  WTF.  

Anyway, 3 dudes are sitting in front of us and one guy pulls out a cd.  I’m convinced the only reason they have a digital setup in these high end rooms is for times like this.  I was imagining the dude running the room thinking, ugh, another cd request, don’t you know real audiophiles listen to vinyl.  I wasn’t familiar with the track or album, but safe to say it was Shazam’d,  Amazon Primed and is on the way.  

After the track finished playing, the guy running the room looked stunned and told the guy he needed to keep the disc.   My buddy and I were also stunned.  We essentially looked at each other, looked at the speakers, looked back at each other…We were floored.  It was the closest I have ever come to being at a live performance with audio reproduction.  It was awesome.  

Drums were set about 50-60 ft back on the soundstage, which really set the rest of the stage for me.  Depth and layering were fantastic.  The images seemed lifelike in size and so convincingly real.  The background was incredibly black and the images just seemed to emerge effortlessly.  Everything sounded natural, dynamic and present.  Horns had the right amount of bite.  Lots of detail, but not hyper detailed where it sounds unnatural.  I realize after writing this that I’m not doing it justice, al all.  That experience may be burned into my mind forever.  Truly spectacular.  I really haven’t heard music reproduced like that before.  
     
That said, I can’t wait to hear this disc on my system.  The track we heard in the room was Calypso Minor.

Thanks Dave.

We were wondering why you were high on the Magico room.  Granted, the track they played when we were there was not great, but we weren't impressed.  This helps explain it.

Stone, I went into the room expecting single driver agony, but it was pretty smooth.  Didn't seem rolled off to me, but I can't hear too high.

I spec'd it out and I think I could clone the Trio for about $1200.  Still looking for some of the Mundorf Xover parts.  Seems they are more readily available in Europe.

I think a Trio may be too much speaker for my room.  The Duo might be a better choice.  With this modular design, you could always add another 15A.

In general, I thought attendance was up vs. last year.  Saturday was particularly crowded.  Good for the industry, but it did make navigating the show and securing the sweet spot a bit more difficult.  I was more annoyed this year with people talking in the rooms while we were trying to listen.  There were a couple of times I had hold myself back from saying something, although it was probably warranted.  Instead we just walked out.  While Saturday was really crowded, Sunday was surprisingly empty and it was easy to grab the sweet spot in almost any room.  

On Sunday we were wandering around the marketplace and ended up talking briefly to the folks at the Nordost table.  They encouraged us to check out the Nordost room for some demos, which we did.  We endured an annoying experience with The Absolute sound folks who were really in the room to hear the Sony ES speakers for a “Best of $10K or Less Room”.  It was entertaining because they kept asking the Nordost guy questions about the speakers and he kept saying, "I’m the cable guy, I don't know all the details about the speakers".   Not surprisingly they didn’t seem to care.  

The Sort Cone and Interconnect demos were insightful.  After the interconnect demo (Generic—>Blue Heaven—>Heimdall—>Tyr) I believe my buddies exact words were “Cock, I didn’t think cables would make that much of a difference”.  I have been trying to tell him, but I suppose he needed to hear it for himself.  

For those who are interested, the Blue Heaven cables really opened up the compressed and congested sound of the generic interconnect.  Said differently, detail, separation, air and soundstage increased significantly.  Moving up the Nordost line resulted in an increasingly more musical, natural and analog sound.  None of the Nordost cables sounded bright or lacking in bass.  

I do have a douchebag story to share and in fact, I’m giving out an award to the Care Audio room for “Axpona Douchery 2015”.  They had an SET system driving Mosaic Acoustics speakers and some Scaena subs.  At first they weren’t playing any music, at least at a level that was listenable.  I was just about to leave when they turned up the volume and starting playing an interesting track, so I sat down.  When I sat down, the ‘gentleman’ (and I do use that term loosely) who was standing, yes standing, on the chair next to me taking pictures said “I was going to sit there”.  I ignored him because he wasn’t sitting there and I was.  He went on to tell me again “I was going to sit there”.  I looked up at him briefly, said nothing, and just continued to listen to the music.  

Then, unbelievably, the dude running the room came over to me and said “he wants to sit there”.  I politely said, “I am sitting here, he can sit here when I leave”.  So, I sat there, closed my eyes and enjoyed the music.  My buddy was like, dude, WTF was that.  I might file this one away as a story/lesson for my son some day.  Some people are just assholes, and you need to hold your ground.  I am looking forward to someone topping that next year.

More to come...

@ Dave ~ I guess that guy never heard the term "you snooze, you lose"

Thanks for your comments I enjoyed reading them as well.  Did you by chance get to hear the Harbeth and Audio Note UK rooms?  If so what were your impressions?  I have read on another forum that Harbeths were very impressive and the AN speakers were veiled in comparison.

I'm half-tempted to box up my Blue Zu and leave them with you for a week or two, and take the El Camino back.

The Blue Zu aren't part of my Raven's Traveling Audio Circus, but I know you're curious about them, and I'd honestly like to hear them in your room. I just can't throw these in the back of the Scion in moving blankets like I do the more robust MG944. I'd have to box them up like I'm shipping them.

A little more...

Ryan Audio / Auralic   
 
I really enjoyed the sound here.  One of the Ryan brothers was running the room when we got there and he was playing DSD tracks.  The system sounded very good from the back of the room, but I was able to secure the sweet spot and the sound was excellent.  It may have helped that all of the music we listened to in this room was DSD.
 
While he was playing a track from the latest Vanessa Fernandez album I got up and asked him if he had any Opus DSD, specifically Eric Bibb.  He seemed genuinely excited and wanted to change the track right away (he mentioned to another guy in the room that he never had someone request Opus DSD before).  I didn’t want to disturb the room and asked him to let the VF track play out.  I was surprised I didn’t hear more of this album at the show.  It is really well recorded.  
 


IMHO, this system sounded better than most at the show and it didn’t cost a fortune.  The Ryan r630 speakers are $5K and sounded detailed yet very musical.  I also thought SS depth was very good for such a small room.  I could have listened to this system for hours.  The speakers are only 88dB, but they would be on my audition list. 
 
I have read good things about Auralic gear and if this is any indication, they seem to be doing something right. The Auralic Aries streamer has probably gotten more buzz than any recent product, aside from maybe the PS Audio DirectStream.  There were no issues streaming double rate DSD on the Aries.  Nice.
 
I agree with the CDAPS crew on the below 2 rooms…
 
Pure Audio Project / Grant Fidelity
 
These speakers sounded great on a wide variety of music (jazz, vocals, electronic).  Detailed yet highly musical.  The bass was really clean and fast in this room (I am beginning to think that I might not be a fan of traditional ported speakers).  I suspect some of the musicality was from the 845 tubes in the Grant Fidelity SET integrated.  This is the second amp I have heard with these tubes and I am a fan.  This was another room that sounded better than most at the show and as a bonus, you wouldn’t completely destroy your bank account. 
 
Harbeth / Vinnie Rossi
 
Excellent sound in this room as well.  I wish we would have stayed a bit longer and listened to a wider variety of music, but these speakers sounded great with jazz and vocals.  I appreciate the modular approach Vinnie has taken with his new brand (add & upgrade components as needed) and the dual super capacitor bank means one bank is charging while the other is playing (and you don’t have to worry about dirty electricity mucking up your sound).  Pretty innovative if you ask me.
 
Audio Kinesis
 
I was hoping these speakers were going to be something special (relatively high efficiency, unique design).  In addition to the direct drivers, there is another full range speaker built into the base that fires up towards the ceiling.  The gentleman in the room talked a lot about the technology, but didn’t really state what the benefit would be aside from saying the speaker would work with the room, not against it. 
 
Anyway, they really didn’t do anything for me.  I also think there was something wrong with their computer audio/streamer setup, because switching from CD to the streamer resulted in a significant decrease in sound quality.  Eric Bibb sounded so bad I had to get up and leave.  Bummer.
 
Vapor Audio
 
They had their new flagship model at the show, the Perfect Storm White.  From what I have read, their speakers are supposed to be giant killers.  This was my first time hearing any speaker from this brand.  They were detailed and musical, but I kept wanting to turn down the volume a little.  I think they were slightly too hot on the top end and also slightly sibilant (I think they use RAAL tweeters in most/all of their models).  That said, they make two versions of every speaker, White & Black.  My understanding is that the Black versions are supposed to be slightly more laid back.  I would like to hear more speakers from this brand.  I think they have potential and many of their models are relatively high in efficiency.
 
Scaena / Audio Research
 
This was my first time hearing Scaena speakers.  To me, they sounded hyper-detailed, almost to the point where it was slightly unnerving.  If my audio memory serves me correctly, these are the most detailed speakers I have ever heard.  They didn’t sound “bright”, but I would have to listen a lot longer than I did to determine if fatigue would be an issue.

@Beowulf...Unfortunately, we did not make it to the Audio Note UK room

Beowulf...thanks for the additional information on Vapor.  I haven't read anything about them on the forums. That does sound like a pretty bad situation for the customer, and that is a LOT of money.  Thanks again for the heads up.  I am not looking to steer anyone in the wrong direction.

Best,
David

You should check out the 6Moons review of Vapor Audio speakers that fell through.  The preview was published but the speakers were never received.  Srajan even calls out Vapor's poor communication and runaround.  "Caveat Emptor", he says.

http://theaudiotraveler.com/2015/05/04/axpona-2015-volti-audio-and-borderpatrol/...

These guys had a very negative review of the Vapor Audio room, but appear to have taken it down.  I think the broader community would be better served by honest opinions (good or bad), like we have here on the Decware forum...