Axpona 2025

[Lsc]

Hopefully better than Borrensen who make horribly measuring loudspeakers.
Keith

Keith, the Borresen room was the best sounding setup at the show. The imaging was the best I ever heard. The music was floating in the air like I never experienced before and the trainsient speed was also so good. Their new bass module demo showed how good the overall system gets when really good subs are integrated well. I have to look at the price sheet but it had to be close to $500k with all that front end.

It was easily way better than my system at home and I still think my system sounds great.

So, while it’s the best system in my book, it’s irrelevant. The 8c is what I can afford and it sounded fantastic.

 

[WillBrink]

Orchard Audio will highlight two standout features at this year’s expo:

1. Collaborative 3-Way Active Speaker System Demonstration, Room 452
   Orchard Audio has teamed up with Creative Sound Solutions (CSS), Danville Signal, and Hollis Audio Labs to present a cutting-edge 3-way active speaker system based on the acclaimed CSS Flagship Criton 3TD-X floor-standing speaker. This innovative setup features the Danville Signal dspNexus 2/8 digital crossover with filters designed by CSS and programming supported by Hollis Audio Labs. The active setup is powered by six Orchard Audio amplifiers, utilizing one Starkrimson Mono Premium (150W) amp for each tweeter and midwoofer and a Starkrimson Mono Ultra Premium (500W) amp for each pair of woofers. To demonstrate the superiority of this digital/active approach, a standard Criton 3TD-X speaker with traditional passive crossover components will also be on hand, allowing attendees to hear the difference in real time. Visit Room 452 to experience this unique collaboration and the future of high-fidelity sound.
2. Debut of the Valencia Headphone Amplifier in the Ear Gear Section, Table 8204
   Orchard Audio proudly introduces the Valencia headphone power amplifier, making its world debut at AXPONA 2025. Designed to deliver pristine audio quality and a robust 17W of power, Valencia promises an exceptional listening experience for headphone enthusiasts. Attendees can audition this new amplifier at Table 8204 in the Ear Gear section. This debut marks another milestone in Orchard Audio’s mission to elevate personal audio enjoyment.

To further sweeten this news, the first 33 visitors to Orchard Audio’s Room 452 on each of the 3 days will receive a box of Girl Scout cookies.

View attachment 442773

I need those!

 

[dedobot]

"..All metal components in the M-series undergo cryogenic treatment. The cryogenic processing cycle requires a 3-day-time window. Within the first 24 hours, the metal undergoes a cooling process from room temperature to cryogenic temperatures. During the second 24 hours, the metal parts are held at temperatures around -196°C (-321°F) before the temperature, within the next 24 hours, returns gradually to room temperature. The gradual cooling and heating is critical to avoid any thermal stress. The process strengthens and compresses the grain structure of the metal components and reduces inherent residual stress that occurs when metal solidifies from its liquid phase to a solid phase..."

Sword making process based on Bubba's build attempt of amorphous metal !

 

[MKR]

Keith, the Borresen room was the best sounding setup at the show. The imaging was the best I ever heard. The music was floating in the air like I never experienced before and the trainsient speed was also so good. Their new bass module demo showed how good the overall system gets when really good subs are integrated well. I have to look at the price sheet but it had to be close to $500k with all that front end.

It was easily way better than my system at home and I still think my system sounds great.

So, while it’s the best system in my book, it’s irrelevant. The 8c is what I can afford and it sounded fantastic.

I don’t doubt they sounded good, I have always enjoyed Borresen at the shows (not my best of show though, ever), rather the issue with Borresen is all the snake oil nonsense and stupid ridiculous pricing. You can do equal/better without all the nonsense and for a LOT less money.

 

[Lsc]

I don’t doubt they sounded good, I have always enjoyed Borresen at the shows (not my best of show though, ever), rather the issue with Borresen is all the snake oil nonsense and stupid ridiculous pricing. You can do equal/better without all the nonsense and for a LOT less money.

Yes the prices are insane. And yes like the Dutch and Dutch 8c. Honestly, as imperfect as these shows are I never would have known about the 8c if it weren’t for you talking about active speakers a while back AND having some sort of relative comparison that Axpona provided for $25.

Just goes to show that you don’t always need to do a double blind a/b test to draw some conclusions.

 

[Lsc]

Some prices. I’d take the XVX but the speaker is too big for any room in my house .

 

[Lsc]

The Borresen room had a lot of $70k products but MKR I see what you mean - the right side with the speaker cable and interconnects are even more insane.

 

[Puddingbuks]

Crazy prices, ethernet switch for 23.000.

 

[Bjorn]

Well, I suppose it depends upon what you mean by “well damped”. My guess is we actually have same position. To be clear, I am referring to a more typical living environment where minimal to no treatment is needed with cardioid. So furniture, carpet, window covering, etc. Certainly I am not saying no treatment needed if you have an echo chamber. Definitely some damping would be needed in such a case, even with cardioid. And I think you would agree that in the worst case, room treatment can at least be reduced with cardioid capability, as a generality. I will say, and based upon real world experience (several months spent with cardioid designs in multiple different living spaces with varying furnishings), and to reiterate in a fairly typical living space (furniture, carpet, window coverings), I have yet to need ANY room treatment. The sound is superb. Of course the designs I am referring to have cardioid ability down to about 40Hz, which also helps tremendously with low frequency issues. As your designs are only midrange cardioid capable, it may be they would benefit from additional room treatment to tame LF issues.

Cardioid dispersion is ideally 120°, but in practice we see cardioid speakers have directivity more around 140-150° and also up to 160° in part of the frequency area. This means that a cardioid:
1. Doesn't avoid the nearest side wall reflection and which is quite detrimental when it arrives early
2. Doesn't avoid the opposite side wall reflection. While Toole find this a benefit to classical musical when arriving later than 7 ms, most find with that various music it's best to treat it (though not neceassirly with absorption)
3. Doesn't avoid floor and ceiling reflection, and which arrive very early in most homes
4. And abvoisuly doesn't avoid the the reflection from the rear wall

Cardioid also doesn't avoid room modes, since there's no directivity control that works that low in small rooms.

What you basically have with cardioid is slightly lower level of some side wall reflections compared to a traditonal 180° directivity and less reflections from the front wall compared to especially traditional narrow baffle speakers when they are placed close to the front wall.

However, what you have with cardioid vs most traditional speakers is a much more constant directivity. Meaning the reflective energy will more similar to the direct signal. It may very well that is what you're primarily is hearing. After all, a speaker with much narrower directivity sounds very different from a cardioid due to much less early arriving reflections.

 

[Purité Audio]

In my admittedly limited experience, the cardioid designs I have heard, Kii/D&D/ Sigberg ( and hopefully the upcoming Ascilab designs) have all sounded slightly clearer than non-cardioid designs and this included the direct D&D 8C versus D&D 8M non cardioid designs.
The in room measurements versus traditional designs are also much tidier around the cardioid region.
I am a fan of cardioid.
Keith

 

[Bjorn]

In my admittedly limited experience, the cardioid designs I have heard, Kii/D&D/ Sigberg ( and hopefully the upcoming Ascilab designs) have all sounded slightly clearer than non-cardioid designs and this included the direct D&D 8C versus D&D 8M non cardioid designs.
The in room measurements versus traditional designs are also much tidier around the cardioid region.
I am a fan of cardioid.
Keith

Compared to a traditional speaker with a non uniform directivity or typically a speaker that looses it's directivity high in frequency that makes sense. But compared to a speaker with broadband 180° direcitivty the difference in the reflected energy is quite limited. You really need a much bigger difference in the directivity for a major change.

 

[tw99]

Crazy prices, ethernet switch for 23.000.

"Entry level"

 

[dsnyder0cnn]

I poked my head into most (but not all) exhibits at AXPONA this past weekend. Here's a link to photos that I took along the way.

AXPONA 2025 - David Snyder

128 new items · Album by David Snyder

photos.app.goo.gl

After I took a photo or two, if I liked what I was hearing, I sat down and listened for a while. My general observation after listening and talking to a few exhibitors was that setups where the crew took acoustic measurements and calibrated the speakers to the room had a distinct advantage. Sadly, most did not bother; the tonality was pretty terrible in a lot of rooms. Either heavy mid-bass or hooty mids. Easily preventable if they had just run some sweeps into a $100 mic. Ugh.

The Perlisten room sounded fantastic from the middle of the exhibit's three listening chairs. I'd like to see more vendors follow their lead in years to come. Legacy Audio was excellent too, although I felt that playback levels were generally too low for the size of room they were energizing. Lingdorf also did a great job with calibration. Kii and Dutch and Dutch had things sorted nicely, as usual.

 

[Lsc]

I poked my head into most (but not all) exhibits at AXPONA this past weekend. Here's a link to photos that I took along the way.

AXPONA 2025 - David Snyder

128 new items · Album by David Snyder

photos.app.goo.gl

After I took a photo or two, if I liked what I was hearing, I sat down and listened for a while. My general observation after listening and talking to a few exhibitors was that setups where the crew took acoustic measurements and calibrated the speakers to the room had a distinct advantage. Sadly, most did not bother; the tonality was pretty terrible in a lot of rooms. Either heavy mid-bass or hooty mids. Easily preventable if they had just run some sweeps into a $100 mic. Ugh.

The Perlisten room sounded fantastic from the middle of the exhibit's three listening chairs. I'd like to see more vendors follow their lead in years to come. Legacy Audio was excellent too, although I felt that playback levels were generally too low for the size of room they were energizing. Lingdorf also did a great job with calibration. Kii and Dutch and Dutch had things sorted nicely, as usual.

Perlisten was very good I agree and Lars is such a nice guy. That new sub looks pretty impressive. Lars really cranked it up late Sunday so I was able to gauge how capable the tower sub was. Of course I don’t need any more subs…the D&D 8c…I haven’t been able wanted to get speakers this much since I got my salon2. What a game changer. It’s funny how I just learned about it at Axpona and didn’t realize it’s been around a while.

The modest volume demos are not the best that’s for sure. That was the Magico M9 room. $2 million - it’s like getting a new Ferrari or Lamborghini and driving it 45 mph on the expressway .

 

[Bjorn]

When someone are simple playing music like acoustics, and at a low level it's a good sign they didn't achieve good sound.

Obviously it can be challenging when you have an unknown room, many listening positions and limited time. But a lack of active design, little or no serious treatment and no DSP gives major disadvantages.

 

[sigbergaudio]

Yes I think the improvement levels of room treatment between regular speakers ie the salon2 vs. 8c needs to be clarified. It’s like anything else in this industry where snake oil is bound to happen.

The 8c room had no room treatments or special emf rejecting equipment. Just power cables and an Ethernet cable. The sound quality was close to the room with the $190k Borresen M2 and their new subs. Perhaps room treatments could improve the sound quality but the snake oil room treatment (getting more and more expensive) is a deterrent. I guess I’ll just have to live with the 2% difference .

What are you referring to when you say "snake oil room treatment"?

 

[traind]

Perlisten was very good I agree and Lars is such a nice guy. That new sub looks pretty impressive. Lars really cranked it up late Sunday so I was able to gauge how capable the tower sub was. Of course I don’t need any more subs…the D&D 8c…I haven’t been able wanted to get speakers this much since I got my salon2. What a game changer. It’s funny how I just learned about it at Axpona and didn’t realize it’s been around a while.

The modest volume demos are not the best that’s for sure. That was the Magico M9 room. $2 million - it’s like getting a new Ferrari or Lamborghini and driving it 45 mph on the expressway .

Well, at least that Ferrari or Lamborghini owner on the highway is taking it out of their garage to actually drive it at all.

 

[Lsc]

What are you referring to when you say "snake oil room treatment"?

The fancy ones that cost a small fortune. Maybe the fancier designs demand a premium since it’s almost like art now.

 

[scrubb]

What are you referring to when you say "snake oil room treatment"?

I saw Acoustic Grove System panels in a number of rooms this year. While it might make a difference if you were to fill the room with them, I'm dubious that putting a single panel on the floor in front of a speaker does much, if anything. Also, I suspect those panels are way overpriced for what they are.

From the manufacturer:
"Acoustic Grove System - an indispensable acoustic tools to manage unwanted reflections/diffractions in the room without absorbing the liveliness of music energy. The science behind it stems from the science of forest acoustics. The design goal is to bring the natural silence of forest into our living room.The Acoustic Grove System are a set of an indispensable acoustics conditioning tools to manage unwanted reflections/diffractions in the room, without absorbing the liveliness of music energy. The science of AGS stems from the science of forest acoustics. The design goal is to bring the natural silence of forest into our living room.The effect of an AGS product is immediate and shocking!"

EDIT: photo from audioexotics.com website, not Axpona.

 

[Salt]

... "the science of forest acoustics. the design goal is to bring the natural silence of forest"...
Ppphhhmmpphh ... there is nothing silent in a (living) forest, and what would these pilates supporting devices do acoustically??