Axpona 2025

[sigbergaudio]

Good grief.

 

[Gary_G]

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 · Apr 11 – 13

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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.

Awesome photography, thanks!

 

[Old_School_Brad]

I saw on LinkedIn that Magico had their M9 speakers at the show.

Did anyone here get a chance to experience them?

 

[Martijn Mensink]

We had a great AXPONA 2025. I returned home yesterday, still a bit jet-lagged, but it was all very much worth it.

Our room featured just a pair of Dutch & Dutch 8c's on stands, positioned in a way that conventional speakers would struggle with, and without any acoustic treatment. Despite these conditions, countless visitors told us they were impressed with the sound.

The positive response was no different than during AXPONA 2023, the only other time we attended. What was different this time around is that back then, many visitors had never heard of us. This time, the brand recognition was greater. We were on many people's lists of rooms to check out, many of whom had heard about Dutch & Dutch but hadn't had an opportunity to listen to the 8c's yet. We've only done a handful of shows so far, but this kind of feedback motivates us to do more in the future.

It was great to see so many of you visit our room. While only a few introduced themselves, I would have loved to meet more of the faces behind the avatars. We're planning to return to AXPONA in 2026, so if you attend, please stop by and say hello!

 

[EERecordist]

Fourier speaker

Ugliest component ever created

Struggling to see the audio component with this one. Does it double as percussive instrument? :)

www.audiosciencereview.com

I copied the transcript from Erin's video, Fourier is not mentioned. Have not watched it.

 

[Lsc]

We had a great AXPONA 2025. I returned home yesterday, still a bit jet-lagged, but it was all very much worth it.

Our room featured just a pair of Dutch & Dutch 8c's on stands, positioned in a way that conventional speakers would struggle with, and without any acoustic treatment. Despite these conditions, countless visitors told us they were impressed with the sound.

The positive response was no different than during AXPONA 2023, the only other time we attended. What was different this time around is that back then, many visitors had never heard of us. This time, the brand recognition was greater. We were on many people's lists of rooms to check out, many of whom had heard about Dutch & Dutch but hadn't had an opportunity to listen to the 8c's yet. We've only done a handful of shows so far, but this kind of feedback motivates us to do more in the future.

It was great to see so many of you visit our room. While only a few introduced themselves, I would have loved to meet more of the faces behind the avatars. We're planning to return to AXPONA in 2026, so if you attend, please stop by and say hello!

The sound was eye opening for sure (ear opening?). It’s really something how unassuming the speakers are and yet they throw this huge accurate dynamic sound.

Also, the demos were among the best of the show in terms of variety and loudness.

 

[MattHooper]

I have enjoyed reading peoples impressions of the show.

I’ve also been looking online at various discussions and also video interviews with people giving their impressions at the show.

I just watched a roundtable of five audiophiles who visited the show, discussing which rooms impressed them. They had some varying opinions, some finding certain rooms were a stand out, whereas others would find the same room sounded off-putting (for instance the big magical M9s).

And yet, there was one area of agreement: all five gave similar descriptions of the sound of the Joseph Audio room, and all five found that system immensely enjoyable.

I am admittedly a Joseph audio fanboy, since I put my money where my mouth is and bought Joseph speakers. I don’t think they are the ultimate loudspeakers, of course . But it often amazes me the amount of reliable consensus Joseph manages to obtain show after show (and review after review) among audiophiles with all sorts of different tastes, that his systems sound good.

 

[Groove01]

Me too. But I imagine the typical owner of a $50K speaker would probably be the kind of person with a LFA in the garage and the LX700h for the grocery run.

View attachment 443869

Sorry, at $150k, I’m getting this to get my groceries - lol.

 

[No one who matters]

... "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??

Had dual subs behind it too. I checked out the Buckeyes driving it and left snickering.

 

[boxerfan88]

Timecode 7:45. Isoacoustics.

Did anyone here got the chance to listen to the Isoacoustics A-B comparison demo?

If you did, did you hear the same difference he described in the video?

 

[raif71]

Anywhere we can make a connection!

Did u guys meet at some cable booth ? haha

 

[Arindal]

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

Actually, there are speakers on the market offering cardioid dispersion down to 25Hz, and they are definitely good for exciting the room modes much less than omnidirectional concepts. Admittingly, such models are rather chunky.

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

I would also attribute that to the rather neutral indirect soundfield in the room compared to the midrange-heavy one many people are used to. Cardioid in one method to do this, but there are other ways to create a constant directivity from lower mids on. I have some sympathy for the technical sophistication of many cardioid active speakers, but that usually comes at a price of either limited SPL in certain frequency bands or problematic transition in dispersion from a cardioid band to the neighboring bands which in my understanding is not really achieving the goals of a constant directivity speaker.

 

[MattHooper]

Did anybody here happen to hear the Pearl Acoustics Sibelius speaker at the show?

It’s a tall, slender, single driver speaker that has cornered tons of surprised and enthusiastic reports from the show.

Here’s a video with the designer being interviewed and explaining the design and how the small single driver achieves what it does in terms of bandwidth and bass etc.

He’s a good communicator, and his descriptions are quite interesting, though I’m not confident enough to interpret them on technical grounds (and speaker designers always of course talk up the positives and their design choices):

 

[thewas]

It’s a tall, slender, single driver speaker that has cornered tons of surprised and enthusiastic reports from the show.

People tend to get more impressed when a simple/small device gives a good performance.

That said it clearly has the limitations of such a design as can be seen exemplary here:

Interview about Measurements with Pearl Sibelius Speaker Designer

This review as an example shows pretty much what’s wrong with single driver speakers. Here the main problem is LF distortion and directivity. Once the driver is increased the problems will shift to high(er) frequencies. Physics are just not favorable with wavelengths vs driver size and then...

www.audiosciencereview.com

Its a good business model though to sell two <$100 drivers in a decent enclosure for around 10k.

 

[jhaider]

Did anybody here happen to hear the Pearl Acoustics Sibelius speaker at the show?

No, that looks like the kind of room that, had I seen it, would have had me inching to the other side of the hall. As for the florid “technical” talk, it ranges from eye roll to shudder.

The charity to support young “classical” musicians is cool though.

 

[MAB]

Did anybody here happen to hear the Pearl Acoustics Sibelius speaker at the show?

It’s a tall, slender, single driver speaker that has cornered tons of surprised and enthusiastic reports from the show.

Here’s a video with the designer being interviewed and explaining the design and how the small single driver achieves what it does in terms of bandwidth and bass etc.

He’s a good communicator, and his descriptions are quite interesting, though I’m not confident enough to interpret them on technical grounds (and speaker designers always of course talk up the positives and their design choices):

A member here actually builds speakers with these same drivers. For instance a spherical pair with Ikea salad bowls. Here is the build thread, with measurements and discussion of some optimizations:

Sphere shaped speakers with CHN110 drivers

I got inspired by an earlier thread here and decided to build my own sphere shaped speakers too The idea is the same, I will be using the largest Ikea Blanda Matt bamboo salad bowls (having an outer diameter of 28cm) The drivers will be Markaudio CHN110 full range models (I have used these...

www.audiosciencereview.com

This is one of the nicer fullrange builds, actually addressing some of the tradeoffs. And the spherical baffle is actually interesting, although the eye of the beholder look may not appeal to everybody.

However, they are not magic. Charging as much as they do is absurd and insulting though.

 

[Mart68]

No, that looks like the kind of room that, had I seen it, would have had me inching to the other side of the hall.

Likewise. I no longer bother with going in the rooms that are exhibiting single driver speakers.

 

[Somafunk]

Did anybody here happen to hear the Pearl Acoustics Sibelius speaker at the show?

It’s a tall, slender, single driver speaker that has cornered tons of surprised and enthusiastic reports from the show.

Here’s a video with the designer being interviewed and explaining the design and how the small single driver achieves what it does in terms of bandwidth and bass etc.

He’s a good communicator, and his descriptions are quite interesting, though I’m not confident enough to interpret them on technical grounds (and speaker designers always of course talk up the positives and their design choices):

I enjoy his YouTube videos on deep dives into albums/artists but i doubt his speaker could reproduce my preferred genre of electronic/techno very well.

Seems a really nice guy though, I’d happily have a pint with him

 

[MattHooper]

Timecode 7:45. Isoacoustics.

Did anyone here got the chance to listen to the Isoacoustics A-B comparison demo?

If you did, did you hear the same difference he described in the video?

I wasn’t at that show, but I have heard the demo done at a store and I heard the same thing most people report.

I also tried (and use) the Gaia footers under my own speakers at home, and they seemed to make a similar difference in the sound.

 

[boxerfan88]

I wasn’t at that show, but I have heard the demo done at a store and I heard the same thing most people report.

I also tried (and use) the Gaia footers under my own speakers at home, and they seemed to make a similar difference in the sound.

Thank you for sharing your experience.