As you all know, I attended AXPONA audio show in Chicago this year (2026). First time I have gone back since the pandemic.
First impression was the increased number of companies and attendees. In a number of rooms you could not even walk into the room! This was good as far as the health of the industry. Not so good was its ability to give me some kind of bug by Saturday night. Sore throat and chills followed all night. By Sunday morning, I was feeling really lousy so decided to not go for my half day visit then. I did cover a lot on Friday and Saturday though.
I took my Canon R5 MKII camera with a new lens I bought for the event, the 14-35 F4L. It was a lovely lens with close focusing, allowing me to capture the equipment regardless of how small the room was. The downside is that they are pretty wide shots with some geometric distortion. I was most impressed by the image quality as many rooms were nearly pitch black. I have heavily compressed the images for these posts as to keep the server cost/load low.
The sound impressions are casual observations I had at the time. They are not meant to be authoritative. Track look ups should be mostly accurate although not so much for classical music especially if it was from LP.
Speaking of LP, while there was plenty of it at the show, there was good bit of digital as well which was nice.
Some rooms were hell as far as being too warm and stuffy. Manufacturers would turn off the AC as to quiet it down but in the process, make it miserable to be there. The rooms that had the AC on were nearly silent so I didn't see the merit in that.
Elevators were hell. Really hell. I used the stairs a lot but sometimes you needed to use them and it was a disaster. Long lines. Rude operators. Most of them not being available/operational, etc. And don't get me started on $6 for a can of pepsi.
Overall, it was a very worthwhile show. I just wish I didn't have to document it for you all.
I will be creating individual threads for each room. Will see how that goes.
First impression was the increased number of companies and attendees. In a number of rooms you could not even walk into the room! This was good as far as the health of the industry. Not so good was its ability to give me some kind of bug by Saturday night. Sore throat and chills followed all night. By Sunday morning, I was feeling really lousy so decided to not go for my half day visit then. I did cover a lot on Friday and Saturday though.
I took my Canon R5 MKII camera with a new lens I bought for the event, the 14-35 F4L. It was a lovely lens with close focusing, allowing me to capture the equipment regardless of how small the room was. The downside is that they are pretty wide shots with some geometric distortion. I was most impressed by the image quality as many rooms were nearly pitch black. I have heavily compressed the images for these posts as to keep the server cost/load low.
The sound impressions are casual observations I had at the time. They are not meant to be authoritative. Track look ups should be mostly accurate although not so much for classical music especially if it was from LP.
Speaking of LP, while there was plenty of it at the show, there was good bit of digital as well which was nice.
Some rooms were hell as far as being too warm and stuffy. Manufacturers would turn off the AC as to quiet it down but in the process, make it miserable to be there. The rooms that had the AC on were nearly silent so I didn't see the merit in that.
Elevators were hell. Really hell. I used the stairs a lot but sometimes you needed to use them and it was a disaster. Long lines. Rude operators. Most of them not being available/operational, etc. And don't get me started on $6 for a can of pepsi.
Overall, it was a very worthwhile show. I just wish I didn't have to document it for you all.
I will be creating individual threads for each room. Will see how that goes.
