Here is a quick feel for the AXPONA 2016. Will post all the pictures and room impressions later.
This is my first time at AXPONA. There is a lot I like about it:
1. About a mile or two from the airport. Bad for food. Great for reducing the aggravation to get here.
2. If you have read my previous posts on shows like RMAF, you know that audiophiles as a group tend to not take showers and small horrible. Not here. Whether it is because the weather is not too hot (beautiful sunny 60 degrees), or the right sort of people coming here, there is not a foul smell anywhere.
3. Hotel suites are cool with very quiet AC. None of the roaring sound at other shows where they either bother you with that noise, or turn it off to suffocate you with here. At AXPONA, almost every room was comfortable to sit in although a bit too hot if I wore my jacket.
4. I put that as a plus but it is a consumer show, not dealer. They openly sell gear here unlike CES and everyone is focused on end users.
Not so good and rather strange for a show is not giving you any badges. Just a rubber band to wear which no one checks. I tend to want to make a lot of connections with engineers and company reps which in the other shows I did by having them scan my badge. Thankfully I brought my own personal cards to hand out.
I can't believe in this day and age we still have to carry the show book around. Thankfully they made it small but i wish they would give you a pdf of it so that you could electronically scan it.
Anyway, you didn't come to read this garbage but learn about audio. On that front, the show has been enjoyable. There is a shuffling of guards with some new rooms sounding good. I only had time to see two and half floors.
Quick highlights are Dan D'agostino finally showing the Stromtank online audio UPS playing.
They said it powers the system for 8 hours (this was with their dual new monoblocks). The price is a cool $30,000. You could get a new Tesla car for $35,000 or just get a much smaller battery UPS for your audio system. You pick!
They said this is NOT a unit they designed but rather one they are distributing from a German company.
The room had their amps, Wilson speakers and turntable. Sadly it sounded pretty poor. It was boomy in that small room. And the two tracks they played were rather bland and had tons of pops, ticks and groove noise.
One of the highlights at the other extreme was the Tidal room. Impressive, dynamic sound driven by somebody who knew exactly what to play to make them shine:
The vote for prettiest suite goes to Focal:
They had this clever pleated paper with LED lights in it which nicely set off the bright orange speakers and their integrated DAC, pre-amp and power amplifier. Sound was good.
What was shocking was this:
Can you spot it? Yup, it is that skinny speaker wire. It was thinner that cheap headphones that come for free with stuff. It was from a german company and cost $1,200. How can that wire not cause colorations with its high impedance? Proof that I am not nearly as smart as so many others out there.
Anyway, we had some Turkish dinner and I need to let that digest. Hope this keeps you from blowing your curiosity gasket. More random comments and posts to come later.
This is my first time at AXPONA. There is a lot I like about it:
1. About a mile or two from the airport. Bad for food. Great for reducing the aggravation to get here.
2. If you have read my previous posts on shows like RMAF, you know that audiophiles as a group tend to not take showers and small horrible. Not here. Whether it is because the weather is not too hot (beautiful sunny 60 degrees), or the right sort of people coming here, there is not a foul smell anywhere.
3. Hotel suites are cool with very quiet AC. None of the roaring sound at other shows where they either bother you with that noise, or turn it off to suffocate you with here. At AXPONA, almost every room was comfortable to sit in although a bit too hot if I wore my jacket.
4. I put that as a plus but it is a consumer show, not dealer. They openly sell gear here unlike CES and everyone is focused on end users.
Not so good and rather strange for a show is not giving you any badges. Just a rubber band to wear which no one checks. I tend to want to make a lot of connections with engineers and company reps which in the other shows I did by having them scan my badge. Thankfully I brought my own personal cards to hand out.
I can't believe in this day and age we still have to carry the show book around. Thankfully they made it small but i wish they would give you a pdf of it so that you could electronically scan it.
Anyway, you didn't come to read this garbage but learn about audio. On that front, the show has been enjoyable. There is a shuffling of guards with some new rooms sounding good. I only had time to see two and half floors.
Quick highlights are Dan D'agostino finally showing the Stromtank online audio UPS playing.
They said it powers the system for 8 hours (this was with their dual new monoblocks). The price is a cool $30,000. You could get a new Tesla car for $35,000 or just get a much smaller battery UPS for your audio system. You pick!
They said this is NOT a unit they designed but rather one they are distributing from a German company.
The room had their amps, Wilson speakers and turntable. Sadly it sounded pretty poor. It was boomy in that small room. And the two tracks they played were rather bland and had tons of pops, ticks and groove noise.
One of the highlights at the other extreme was the Tidal room. Impressive, dynamic sound driven by somebody who knew exactly what to play to make them shine:
The vote for prettiest suite goes to Focal:
They had this clever pleated paper with LED lights in it which nicely set off the bright orange speakers and their integrated DAC, pre-amp and power amplifier. Sound was good.
What was shocking was this:
Can you spot it? Yup, it is that skinny speaker wire. It was thinner that cheap headphones that come for free with stuff. It was from a german company and cost $1,200. How can that wire not cause colorations with its high impedance? Proof that I am not nearly as smart as so many others out there.
Anyway, we had some Turkish dinner and I need to let that digest. Hope this keeps you from blowing your curiosity gasket. More random comments and posts to come later.
