Stereonet Australia Show 2025

[MKR]

I have to remember to check this audio shows for more often! I missed this report.

Wow Kieth, this was really awesome! You really put in a lot of work here and I really appreciate the photos and the level of detail you went into with your impressions.

I’m fascinated that you were so taken with the Aslyvox speakers because I have been somewhat infatuated by those… but I’ve never heard them. I have seen the boys on WBF talking about them, but I’ve also seen plenty of other user reports both from shows and elsewhere raving about them. I also love how they look for a panel speaker.

I find it interesting that you were taken by the particular “tactile” sound because that for me is where panel speakers have not satisfied me. I find they sound boxless, but also a little bit ghostly, like I’m staring through a porthole to music happening in a different room.
I find this most pronounced with electrostatic speakers, with ribbon speakers (eg big Maggies) having a bit more meat to the sound, but still not to the extent of many box speakers. I tend to associate tactile impressions of instruments and voices - by which I mean, a sense of density and thereness, where it feels like you’re in the presence of an instrument actually moving air in the room - with good horn speakers, most of all. I’ve long been sort of obsessed with this aspect of loudspeaker performance, but I’ve never had the type of room that could accommodate horns. However among regular dynamic speakers, I have found Thiel speakers excel in this area, which is why I have kept going back to them for many years.

Anyway, from previous descriptions, including yours, the Aslyvox is often described as combining the classic attributes of a panel speaker but with great tactile/density and dynamics…. which to me sounds close to a holy Grail speaker. Which is why I’ve always wanted to hear them.

You might be interested in the recent review of THESE ASLYVOX SPEAKERS in the Absolute Sound.

Apparently, it started from TAS reviewers at an audio show a while back telling each other “ you have to hear this” and being dragged into the Aslyvox room. I think it’s quite interesting to read the report of somebody who actually got to live with those speakers for a while. (as well as going into the technical detail details.). I personally seem to get a good sense of the sound from Robert Harley’s descriptions, in which he seems to note some of the characteristics you mentioned.

Some quotes:

It doesn’t take a “golden ear” or even any previous exposure to high-quality audio to instantly appreciate that the Caravaggio doesn’t sound like a box speaker. It has a vivid and lifelike realism in timbre, imaging, transient speed, resolution, physical energy, and in dynamics that make it sound that much closer to live music. The instant the music starts, there’s a sudden frisson of excitement as this remarkable loudspeaker brings the music to life.

This gestalt reaction is the result of a host of specific performance attributes that I shall try to parse and describe. The first is that the Caravaggio presents a kind of physicality to the sound, not just in the usual terms of bottom-end weight and heft, but in the tangibility and presence of instrumental and vocal images, both texturally and spatially. The impression of an instrument or vocalist existing in your listening room—right there—is spooky.
—————

I know a lot of people around here don’t give any credence to subjective reviews or descriptions, but I do. And when I see lots of people starting to converge in their descriptions of a loudspeaker… especially if they’re describing characteristics that I am very enthusiastic about… that often gets my butt out, searching for a way to hear them. Very often I’m very glad I made the effort. I hope you get to hear those speakers again too.

(I got to listen to some YG speakers at my pal’s house and like you, even after they were finally dialled in I didn’t find them a bit tilted up. But they were quite vivid.)

A TAS review doesn’t carry much weight with me, but what does is the almost unanimous positive impressions from the public that have heard the Alsyvox, as you also allude to. I also would love to hear them at some point. Of course no matter, I could NEVER afford them. However, what may grace my listening room as a second dedicated 2ch system at some point is the Diptyque. Maybe not quite at the level of Alsyvox, that is TBD until I hear the Alsyvox, but I love the Diptyque and would in fact describe their sound very similar to these observations on the Alsyvox. These large planar panels definitely do something special that it seems is difficult to duplicate with a more standard cone based design. Note I hear much of this same “specialness” with my planar based midrange Soundfields. Part of the reason I went with the planar was an attempt to replicate that large panel planar sound. I have come darn close

I should note the Clarysis are also very good, another “darling” of recent audio shows, but ultimately I prefer the Diptyque

 

[gdickins]

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Another highlight of the show (being a DSP nerd) was the DEQX room. That's Kim Ryrie on the right, one of the founders of DEQX. Alan Langford (the other founder) looked like he had been up all night and declined to be photographed. The gentleman on the left is Steven, who designed the speakers that you see.

View attachment 473416

DEQX was showing off their new Dolby Processor. IOW it's the only linear-phase Dolby Processor in the world, apart from Trinnov. It takes a HDMI input and does the decoding. It has 8 Dante outputs, each equipped with PoE (Power over Ethernet) that can go to other Dante capable DEQX devices, such as the Premate 8, the LS200 (a 2 channel DSP processor), and a their new amplifiers shown below.

View attachment 473417View attachment 473418

This is DEQX's new Class O amplifier. I asked ... "Class O? Never heard of it". Answer: that's because they invented it. "O" stands for "Open Loop", so it is an open loop Class D. An amplifier designer I was with thought that it was crazy to design an open loop amplifier. But me, I have no opinion. I have no interest in amplifiers - to me, if they do the job, and don't go unstable, they are fine. Can someone tell me what's wrong with open loop amplifiers? Genuine question - I don't know the answer, and I am not here to promote or defend them.

As you can see, it's a tiny little thing. See the Dante network port for an idea of its size. There is no power supply, it receives power from PoE. The outputs labelled Ch1 and Ch2 are speaker level outputs. It makes 30W RMS, but is capable of 300W for 300ms. This design means that it is severely limited with compatibility, and MUST be used with a Dante and PoE.

I dunno man, I like the idea of a linear-phase Dolby decoder, but this thing is really niche. Almost as if some engineer went wild with a minimalist concept without a marketing guy (sometimes you need them) putting the brakes on that idea. They are selling it as an AV preamp with the flexibility of choosing as many amplifier output modules as you need. I didn't ask about price, but it better come in at less than AUD$1000. Because I can think of some other Class D amps without the same limitations of compatibility that I would rather own. I mean, there is a reason why all other AVR's have XLR outputs instead of Dante/PoE outputs. You don't get the flexibility of up to 64 Dante endpoints, but i'm not sure the average HT needs that many endpoints. Maybe they aren't targeting the domestic market.

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This is Glenn Dickins, the DSP guru at DEQX. He is one of the fathers of linear-phase, a big proponent of FIR, helped develop Dolby Atmos, and has multiple DSP related patents. We exchanged phone numbers, and he sent me this message:

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The Youtube link goes to an AES presentation by Francis Rumsey about spatial audio, and the rest of what he said ... I had to do some serious Googling before I understood what he was talking about. As a doctor, I have to explain technical terms to non-technical people, and it is vital they understand. Engineers mostly talk to each other. Maybe they might have to speak to marketing or accounting. So the flurry of jargon was too much for my brain to process even though I have a better understanding of DSP and signal processing than most hobbyists.

He agreed to do a Q&A session for ASR, so I will think of some questions and send them to him. If you guys have questions, feel free to post them in this thread or DM me. He had some opinions which were different to my understanding of DSP (for e.g. he thinks that 8192 taps per channel at 48kHz is enough - "show me a system that needs more than a 6Hz bin size"). I am in no position to disagree with him (he is a Professor, I am a hobbyist!), so the best I can say is that I have not yet been persuaded. "Disagreement" is too strong a word, I am not qualified to disagree.

Hey Keith - it was a pleasure to meet you and share your interest and depth in this space!

I look like a crazy person!
So you got the right photo.

Stay well.

 

[gdickins]

The late-1990s to early-2000s Equibit power DAC could be classified as open-loop switching design: PCM→PWM→output filter→speaker. It was praised by some and harshly criticized by others. Used in Lyngdorf digital integrated amplifiers and Panasonic receivers, it was eventually eclipsed by ICEpower and Hypex, which delivered superior performance.

It would interesting to learn more!

Yeah, modulators have come a long way since then, and then there is the whole math of what really happens with a close loop amp and complex signals (not signal tone). Feedback creates a recursive cascade of non-linearities.

Check out this from the guru https://www.passlabs.com/technical_article/audio-distortion-and-feedback/
"If you want the peak distortion of the circuit of figure 13 to remain below .1% with a complex signal, then you need to reduce it by a factor of about 3000. 70 dB of feedback would do it, but that does seems like a lot. By contrast, it appears that if you can make a single stage operate at .01% 2nd harmonic with a single tone without feedback, you could also achieve the .1% peak in the complex IM test.

I like to think the latter would sound better."

And indeed, partnering with Nexalist amp design https://www.i2dclass.com/ we can hit that .01% (and below) in open loop at >10W. Bliss.

People can be very opinionated in the space, so I don't want to press any buttons. I am just a fan of tracking the simpler, and also using the newer. Combining the idea of open loop amps with 95% efficient multistage power design, and you have what I created for Elytone Soundboost.

I liked the omment some-one had about "what an engineer would build if there was no marketing" - Guilty as charged ;-)

 

[gdickins]

The PoE+ Amp reminds me to the Powersoft Nota 140 Amps

NOTA 142

Nota 142 is an ultra compact PoE/PoE+ amplifier designed for networked AoIP applications where space and wiring constraints are a concern.

www.powersoft.com

The Nota amp is a nice unit.

I first put an Ultimo (Dante), smart power, and 2ch together in 2015. A concept we played with in Dolby and mapped into Theatre scale fitouts. Like the Xerox Parc of audio.

The time is right now, and it is great that Power soft moved to test the market, educate and bring it along.

I have a personal interest in lower cost network amps for my school support projects and kitting up the next gen creatives. So I created a base with a low cost AES67 engine and the potential to go down to 12.5W in, 300W punch out. The work with DEQX took the elegance of that design, pushing out the quality and components, and a high bar evaluation.

I feel we are just now starting to get past the 40 years of 'digital arrogance'. The core components are nearing audiophile metrics (the 130dB, not the 90dB CDs said was enough), and there are some good people who know how to avoid the errors of digital path complacency. Digital was never flawed in principal, it was the death of 1,000 cuts acoss the chain without critical ears.

HiFi Melbourne and DEQX genererally has been an outlet for me to bring a few things forward.
But most of all, to see soooooo much passion and care taken to perfecting sound.

 

[gdickins]

DEQX Dolby home theater decoding? Wow. The very thought sends my mind off into non-cartesian space....

Well, you would love the core IP and filings behind Dolby Flex Connect (or OPAL as we named it early - orchestrated play and listen).

The simple idea of higher dimensional audio topology.

If you are setting up a complex audio system (domestic mess of random speakers), it is not the XYZ that matters - it is really the 'acoustic distance'. A combination of time, spectral, direct to reverb etc. I would say often - if your mobile phone goes into your handbag, where is it in XYZ space? In the acoustic space for which we want to understand and solve the problem, it has technically lifted out of three dimensions into another curled dimension.

Yes, I did just equate a handbag to a visibile Calabi-Yao manifold.
And of course, the Dolby conference phone was a 3 Planck Rosen bridge.

When it comes to Ambisonics, projective geometris, sphere packing.... spatial audio and quantum mechanics are very familiar bed fellows.

 

[Keith_W]

Hey Glenn, you might want to upgrade your sticker from "Audio Company" to "Audio Luminary" by listing some of your publications and inventions in the DSP space

 

[gdickins]

Hey Glenn, you might want to upgrade your sticker from "Audio Company" to "Audio Luminary" by listing some of your publications and inventions in the DSP space

Thanks Keith - you are a notch up from me on marketing!
Sorry I was slow to find your great review. I am glad you had so much time with so many displays.

Stay well.