AXPONA 2016: End of Line and Best In Show
My first AXPONA was five years ago in Atlanta. It was about as far from 2016 as you can get. Then, there was something like 20 rooms. Five years later, and the difference is [...]
AXPONA 2016
AXPONA 2016: Best Sound, Best Products, and Audiophile tribes in Beat City
Tribes. We all belong to, or identify with one whether we know it or not. Some of us are very cognizant of our tribe, and let our freak flag fly. Others are more guarded [...]
AXPONA 2016: John Stancavage’s Best of Show
Best Sound Cost-no-object system: Wilson Alexx, driven by Doshi tube amps (Paragon/Wilson Audio room). Neutral, effortless and jaw-dropping sound, combined with realistic [...]
AXPONA 2016: Ear Gear eXpo (Plus) Roundup
The Ear Gear eXpo at AXPONA followed quickly on the heels of the all-headphone extravaganza of Head-Fi’s CanJam SoCal, which made double-coverage tricky and somewhat [...]
AXPONA 2016: “This stuff costs how much? No f@!#ing way!”
When I attend audio shows these days, I spend a lot of time riding elevators. This year at AXPONA in the Westin O’Hare in Chicago, where more than 400 exhibitors were [...]
AXPONA 2016: Sonist sings with Triode
It may be an odd thing to say, but Jonny Wilson knows how to decorate a demo room. No, seriously. There are a lot of folks that can set up a great-sounding room. But the [...]
AXPONA 2016: Seduced by Vapor Audio and LampizatOr
Fan favorite Vapor Audio has not necessarily had the best track-record when it comes to audio shows. Maybe we’ve been unlucky with our timing, or they’ve been [...]
AXPONA 2016: Noble Audio, down the line
Lets talk about Steve Bug. If you’ve never heard of Steve Bug, I’m not sure what to tell you. He makes music that would generally fall under the [...]
AXPONA 2016: Essential Audio goes AudioKinesis, with Resonessence Labs
I’m a fan of Duke LeJeune and his AudioKinesis brand. Brought to AXPONA by Brian Walsh’s Chicago-area based dealership, Essential Audio, I got to see Duke’s [...]
AXPONA 2016: Endeavor indulges in Audio Alchemy
Audio Alchemy, Peter Madnick’s newest project, showcased here a slightly different flavor of gear than I found (and talked about) in the ELAC room. Here, I found the [...]