Anybody going?  

I have spent zero time looking at who will be there.  Anybody see anything exciting on the docket?

I was less enthusiastic about going this year, but $15 and a 20 min car ride isn't a huge investment.  Plus I get out of the house for a day.

There were some gems last year and I would like to hear some OBs to compare to mine.

Another reason I go is for new music.  I shazam everything I like.  Yes, there are the same tired tracks but I always get 10 or more leads on new stuff.

Hey Donnie, I have checked them out in the past and their room was horrible.  Both attitude and sound.  

I will check them out again though.  Anyone can have a bad day.   I like the look of their speakers though.

They may be aligned with PS Audio again and I would like to hear their new "more affordable" Jr dac.

Nice list Beo.   I downloaded the exhibiter list and looked through it.

Volti is a perennial favorite.  If I had unlimited money and unlimited room, their speakers would be on the short list.  

Vinni Rossi won the palomino best of show award last year (for whatever that's worth ).  His capacitor based amp with the Harbeths delivered a very engaging sound.

I did not see Voxativ my first run through the list.  Thanks for pointing them out.  If I had the coin, those would be single drivers I would definitely check out.

I am pretty sure I heard Spatial last year, but don't recall my impressions so I will definitely visit again.

I didn't see Pure Audio project and I'm disappointed.  I really wanted to here their OBs.

@ Pal ... agree with everything you said!  

- Volti - drool worthy craftsmanship ... they are in my top dream speakers list.  And the fact that they are so beautiful just puts icing on the cake.

- Vinnie Rossi - his rooms are always ranked excellent.  This year he has just finished a SET amp that will be integrated into the LIO.  So I'm really curious what speakers he is going to pair that with since the Harbeth would probably need more juice than the typical SET amp can put out.


- Voxativ - are also in my top dream speakers list.  Supposedly they are coming out with a new "entryl" level model called the Zeth, so I'm curious if it will be done in time to make its debut at AXPONA or perhaps more likely to be at THE Show in Newport.  Of course ... entry level for Voxativ could be 10K .  Anyway you put it they are fanatical in their driver build quality and they have a new Hybrid Field Coil driver made from Neodymium and Permadur with goat leather suspension, wood cones and 24.000 Gauss (supposedly the strongest magnet motor ever built for a consumer based speaker driver) ~ if all that's true and makes a difference I don't know, but I at least have to hear them once in my life (the drivers are ridiculously priced at 65K though!!!)


- Spatial - has had some really good reviews on their Hologram M4 and John Darko recently gave them his top award KO.  Darko Review.  Never heard them myself, but since these guys are so reasonably priced I think it would be worth a critical listen if you get the chance.

I was kind of disappointed to see that Pure Audio Project was not going to be at AXPONA as they would rank highly on my interest list.  I'm going to try to get to T.H.E. Show in Newport CA on June 3-5, since that's only a 2 hour drive for me.  I've never been to a hi-fi show like that so I got to make it to one someday.  Pure Audio Project is on the exhibitor list along with Volti and Voxativ for that event so I'm going to try to catch them if I can.

Dan, now that my Listening Room is all set, including NOS Tubes, I want the common ground (I need for my Polk 1.2's) Fet Valve 600R for my Solid State Rig. Savings plan for the summer of 2017 purchase has now commenced.

http://polksda.com/pdfs/SDASRS1-2.pdf

http://avahifi.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=263&Itemid=2...

I'd love to hear those mono's too! 1.2's can handle up to 1000 watts. Damn the square wave odd order clipping.....full speed ahead. However, the 600R Fet Valve ought to combat that some, and will fit my needs quite nicely.

Going to probably need an improvement of my Preamp too. Even though this Rotel is a champ...with Meridian split foil caps....makes a great 3 input Preamplifier for Solid State. (Solid State Rig, not to be confused with Listening Room Rig.....obviously).



Solid State Rig:

Pro-Ject Debut Carbon III
Pro-Ject Phono Box II
Audio Quest Diamond from Phono Box to Rotel
Sony Bravia XBR 4k
Panasonic BluRay
Kimber Hero WBT to Rotel from Panasonic
Dish Network HD
Kimber KCAG from Dish DVR to Rotel
Rotel 1062 as Preamp
Kimber Timbre to XPA-2
Emotiva XPA-2
Kimber Kable PK10 PALLADIAN Power Cable to XPA-2
Kimber 8TC to Polk's
Polk SRS SDA 1.2
{IN FULL STEREO DIMENSIONAL ARRAY ~ GLORY}

HSU Research
MBM-12 MK2  ....behind Couch




Listening Room:


Room Treatments from Michael Green & Home Brew

Sony as Transport (DVP-NS57P)/Sandwich weighted for Isolation

Illuminati D-60 Digital Coax IC

Shunyata Research Ztron Alpha Digital Power Cord to ZDSD
{Extremely Significant}

Decware ZDSD DAC / Recorder
***************************************************************
W/Steve's Output Transformer's/kicking to the curb quite a few superb DAC'S!
***************************************************************
(@ -20 Ref Level, 0.0 Input volume and @ 16/192)

WBT-0102Ag RCA Kimber Select KS1030

Decware CSP3 w/Jupiter Caps
(NOS/Platinum/Telefunken 6922/E88CC for Input Tube~NOS/Platinum/E188CC 7308 Cryogenic Mullard's for Output Tubes & 5U4G-C Rectifier)
****************************************************
10 of 10 for Input tube & *9* of 10 voltage for Output tubes
Volume adjustment usage at 25% to 55% from 0
****************************************************

WBT-0102Ag RCA Kimber Select KS1030

Decware Zen Mystery Amplifier
~BIASED at *60* mA~
(NOS/Platinum/E188CC 7308 Cryogenic Mullard's in my A12 an B12 positions~Ediswan CV2492/6922's for Inverter Tubes~JAN Sylvania 0A3's & New Quad of Tube Depot Stealth/Tung-Sol KT66's)
ZMA adjusted at 20%, 25 to 30% max, from 0

***************************************************
Kimber Select KS6063 Speaker Cable 8ft WBT-0681-Ag Spades
***************************************************

Acoustic Zen Adagio - Black Pearl (Modified)
.....from 8ohm Taps




Acoustic Zen Adagio's x-over's Modified/Full Range with Mundorf MCap Supremes-single Cap to each Tweeter/4.5k cross
(Gutted: 3kHz/18dB/Octave, Linkwitz/Riley Crossovers....with all crappy parts = gone)


XLO Pro Power Cords to CSP3 an ZMA
PS Audio P3 Power Plant / Pangea AC-9SE from wall to P3
(Transport, ZDSD an CSP3, Regenerated/*122*~ Multiwave off...ZMA on High Current Output)
****************************************************************************

AC 1.6 (what is used by PAP) is $1995 US for a matched pair.  I stopped looking beyond that.

Reminds me of the time I went to the Silverline factory/showroom in CA.  The guy asked my budget and would only demo speakers within a range.  "I wouldn't do that to you" was his response when I asked why.

Grant fidelity is right.  That room was also one of my favs thus my OB build.  

Ok feeling pressure on the axpona report.  I will do my best.

Well I did a full on day of Axpona.  From 10:00 to 4:30.  I hit most rooms.  Some were simply a short stop to see if I could pick up a good song or two.  I Shazam'd everything and ended up with some nice cuts.

I worked it is pretty much this order: OBs, horns, then everything else.  I spent the least time in the mondo system rooms.  I tried to keep an eye out for stuff that would have good Decware synergy.

Some overall impressions:  

More tubes than I think I have seen in past years.  Everybody's doin it.  

The most popular dacs at the show were Lampizators (from Poland with love) and from the degree that I could tell, they did sound pretty good. Not one PS Audio Dac which I found odd.  The only PS Audio presence was a guy selling Sprout in the marketplace.

Several of the vendors were running some kind of USB device if they were running off a Mac.  I saw one Regen for sure.

Not as much new stuff, but some new configurations/pairings of equipment which I thought paid off.  Most notable was Vinnie Rossi and Volti.

More room treatments in more rooms.  Diffusers but some absorbers and bass traps.  There were also a couple of room treatment companies that were showing.

The crowd seemed smaller this year.  There were only a few jammed rooms and the hallways seemed a little light.

I took notes, pictures and even video.  Seems a little overwhelming to put together.  Let me know if you have specific questions and I will answer them the best I can.

I'll write posts as I have time.  I'm not a reviewer and I don't possess the audiophile vocab, but I can tell you what I liked and thought was musical.

I went to the Capital Audio fest last year and the one room that stands out in my memory was the LIO/Harbeth combo. The best I heard at the show, jaw dropping. Ironically the other room that I remember amongst the multi thousand dollar systems was Randy's OB's.

Man, would I love to be at Axpona. Alright, who's going to Newport?

Beo,

Spatial was the first room I visited and the first mini-review I wanted to do, but I’m having a hard time capturing my impressions.  I actually visited the room three times over the course of the day.  So here goes.

I was kind of psyched to hear them.  High efficiency, check.  OBs, check.  Reasonable price, check.  All seem to be a good Decware match.  But my first listen, I was not overly impressed.  

He was running a stock macbook straight into a very nice Lampi DAC (said he tried the Regen BTW and thought it sounded horrible) and then into Red Dragon amp (class D?).  Fairly simple setup.

Anyway, I was the only one in the room since it was early so I have plenty of sweet spot listening.  They sounded dull and not very dynamic.  I took some pictures and some video and left.

So, I decided to come back and when I did, about an hour later, they sounded better.  The highs were there so they sounded less dull.  Midrange was fine, but no punch to the bass.

I thought that was interesting, so I came back a third time right before I left.  Could have been the track playing, but now they were sounding pretty good and I liked them a lot more.  I even asked the guy how long he’d had the amp and Lampi going when I first stopped in.  He said about an hour.  So I don’t know what was going on, but they sounded much, much better the third time around for sure.

It could be that the rig got warmed up or it could be that I got conditioned to listening to speakers in  those little hotel rooms, but they sounded better and more engaging.

From a soundstage point of view, it was big, but not deep.  I don’t think I heard a deep soundstage in any of the small rooms.  Only the big rigs up on 12.  Vinnie’s room might have been an exception because he ran his room lengthwise and the Harbeths were out away from the wall.

I was impressed with the mids and highs.  Smooth is the word that comes to mind.  I don’t typically associate compression drivers with smooth, but these were.  Musical as well.

Where I ultimately came away disappointed through – throughout my three visits – was in the bass.  It was soft to me and not that dynamic.  Keep in mind that at home, I am running Augies, not the stock 15a and I am bi-amping with a class D, so this could be an unfair comparison.  But it could also be why Pure Audio Project runs two 15a’s in their base configuration for more bass output.

So they didn't make my wow list.  They were good, but I'd want a listen before buying.  Also, he said 5-6 watts was needed to drive them, so I don't think the Zen would be a good fit.  He did say it was somewhat dependent on output transformers, so maybe the UFOs would make a difference.

The baffles were impressive in that they were 2.5" thick and nicely finished.  He said they were two 1.25" ultra dense MDF.  Got me thinking about my whimpy 3/4" baffles...

What a cool piece to gear! The Vinni Rossi LIO.

"While one bank of ultracaps is delivering pure DC to the LIO's audio circuits, the other bank is charging. The LIO's audio circuitry is never connected to the charging capacitor bank, and is therefore always 100% isolated from the AC mains and its sometimes devilish discontents.
Read more at http://www.stereophile.com/content/vinnie-rossi-lio-modular-integrated-amplifier..."

I'm sticking with my ZMA though.......great power supply here too! Show's off the difference in 6922 tubes with ease. Plus, your Speaker's and Cables need to be up to the task....to hear the difference. Hope to put my ears on an VR LIO locally soon!

Thanks Pal...for your time to do this....... .

Quote:


I'm using the Isoacoustic stands under my Omega Alnico Monitors. As you will see my monitors are closer to the floor and tilted up towards the listener (tilt is a feature of Isoacoustics). I purchased these stands to see if placing my Monitors closer to the floor would reinforce the bass and it did by a very noticeable margin. I have a large listening room.

So in my case I don't have the expense of steel monitor stands. The Isoacoustic are very reasonably priced compared to a good pair of steel stands. These stands adjust to two different heights. Shown here in their highest position.

Not blown away by the Spatial huh?  Probably his choice of amplification is not the best IMO. If it were me and I was looking for a set of OBs I think I would still go for the PPA's rather than Spatial's offerings ... I'm just not sure about coaxial designs and prefer widebanders.

Did you get to see the Audio Note room at all?  If so, how was it?  They do have some seriously expensive gear but also somewhat reasonably priced stuff as well, but TBH they are always a miss for me for some reason.

One note on room treatments.  GIK had a booth and I checked out their stuff.  Lots of options and very reasonable prices.

Awesome report brother!

And WTF do you mean CDApS members slowing you down!!    ::)

Thanks for the additional links and the music recommendations! I'm going to see if I can find any of the tracks on Tidal, etc.