AXPONA 2017 Official Show Report

From the beautiful Westin O'Hare in Rosemont, Illinois... AV NIRVANA, with the reporting team of Sonnie Parker, Dennis Young, Leonard Caillouet, and Wayne Myers, and remote assistance by Todd Anderson on the east coast, brings you live coverage from AXPONA 2017!



This thread will be closed until after the show, pending final additions and edits. Please join the discussion HERE.

 

clearaudio

The Sonus Faber Lillian, at $80,000 - or $100,000 with gold plating - gave us a super clean presentation with a crisp, tight, high end, spare but accurate. Powered by Quintessence Audio. Overall sound: you hear nothing that does not belong there.



Quintessence Audio's display of amps and preamps was also beautiful, impressive... and HEAVY. A lot of iron goes into their products. And a lot of serious engineering.

 

avantgarde

Speakers by anantgarde, model 0TA, $15,000 per pair. They did a nice job with symphonic horns and strings, although not my favorite high end. A very clean vinyl setup.

 

Destination Audio

Destination Audio makes their own horn-loaded speakers, tube power amps, tube preamps, and tube phono preamps. The speakers could really deliver a clean sound with a dense, complex vocal mix. Priced at $95,000 per pair for the speakers, the whole setup looked and sounded quite impressive.





Imaging was excellent, even when I pulled up a little closer than the seating was arranged for.

I was wondering how they would sound with a nice pair of solid-state monoblocks.

 

Odyssey Audio

Klaus of Odyssey Audio likes to differentiate his room and products from the others at the show. This year he went with the “hippie hangout” motif, seen below.

His products differentiate themselves. His $6,900 show special system, easily the best sounding system I remember hearing under the $20k barrier, includes a pair of Khartago monoblocks and his Kismet speaker pair. If value is even a small item on your priority list, they will surely impress you.

Imaging was sharp, REALLY sharp, soundstage was pushing at the walls for more space to breathe, and overall tonality sparkles while staying clear and even.



Sonnie's thoughts: Klaus never ceases to amaze us with his presentations at all the various shows. He did it again with a mere $6900 system that was smokin' hot! When you look at the Kismet speakers and sit down and listen, you get up looking for a subwoofer hidden in the room somewhere, but you won't find one. It's really remarkable what these speakers can do... particularly when they are placed so close to the side wall... it defies speaker placement reasoning altogether. I applaud Klaus for his ability to work magic in these rooms. I just can't believe he cut his hair off... what was he thinking?

 

Bang & Olufsen

Bang and Olufsen has been making speakers since 1928, and has made powered speakers for over 30 years. Their BeoLab 90 floor standing model, introduced November of 2015, is a tour de force of the technologies they have been mastering for almost 90 years.

The omnidirectional design houses, per handsome unit, 18 channels of digital amplification with DSP, for the 1 front woofer, the 3 woofers, the 7 mid drivers, and - yes - even for the 7 tweeters. The total available power is 8200 W per speaker, all built in.

The active room compensation design sends correction signals to needed drivers to make the one-person sweet spot experience nothing short of perfect. B&O designer Frackenpohi Pouiheim believes all 2-channel should primarily serve that listening mode, but added 2 additional modes, wide and omni, that optimize for other experiences. Custom EQ modes are also possible.

“Hotel California” (Eagles) and a drum solo track by Jim Kelpner (from a special B&O CD) were mesmerizing. The imaging is extremely crisp and precise. Wonderfully Clean Power was the prime impression that I received at that sweet spot, along with Precise Control.

“Killer” (Adamski) was played in Omni mode and threatened to peel wallpaper for a few choice seconds. Bombastic was the term used by the B&O rep.

The price tag? You can take them home for only $85,000 per pair. If that seems steep, just remember that all amplification is included.


Dennis' impressions - Such dynamic capability, Adamski "Killer" could actually kill somone, heh. Chris Jones "No Sanctuary Here" was jumping, loud and distortion free, but had me jumping up and out of the room to preserve my hearing.

The B&O will play as loud as anyone needs, with great SS&I, as well. All anyone could need in a speaker for sure and the best product I've ever heard from this company.

 

Paragon Sight and Sound

Introducing a new line of tube gear by Doshi, their v3.0 Preamp ($16,995), Mono Amps ($29,995/pair), a Stereo Amp model ($15,995), Phono Preamp ($16,995), and Tape Preamp ($16,995), Paragon has a very nice room and a pair of Wilson Doshi speakers. Cables and interconnects plus a new Transparent Power Isolator 8 by Transparent Audio complete the setup. The slide guitar and vocals by Muddy Waters, from reel-to-reel tape, with drums and bass backing, sounds smooth, clean, and clear. Not a speck of mud in that Doshi sound.

 

AURALiC

AURALiC has packaged several exciting products for music lovers. Their Altair Wireless Streaming DAC, which can handle 384k samples/second at 32 bits, and can move your music stream across the air with no loss in fidelity, goes for $1,899. A pair of their new Polaris amp will only set you back $5,000, while setting our music appreciation level forward several giant steps forward without having to string wires or interconnects to the nether regions of the house. The compact Polaris is capable of delivering 120 W into 8 Ohms, 180 W into 4 Ohms continuously.

 

Volya Audio

The Volya company, from across the pond in Germany, makes these little gems, about 5 feet in diameter. A cross between a novelty and a seriously serious pair of sharp-imaging speakers that can reach down into the near-20 Hz region for deep bass, they are dynamic and surprisingly well controlled. I had a good discussions with the designer, Yevhen Kozhushko, designer and Volya’s technical director, and got a good appreciation for his design priorities. They might be a little trickier to place, but seemed very capable of great sound.

 

Goldmund

The Goldmund Logos Sukha, right in the middle of the Goldmund speaker product lineup, is a $95,000 per pair speaker with lossless streaming build in. That means fewer wires, less work, and less mess involved in putting them wherever they will sound best. The days of running and hiding wires might just be coming to a close.

Lossless Wi-Fi, with no limit as to bit depth or bit rate, is the way of the future. And experiencing the future is what the Goldmund company is all about. "High tech performance that makes your life simple."

 

JTR Speakers

JTR’s products have a way of making you feel small. The Noesis 215RT three-way monster - standing six feet tall (1.83 m) and weighing 215 pounds (97.5 kg) - boasts 95 dB sensitivity and delivers SPLs up to 128 dB. Two 15-inch LF drivers and a high-end 2-way horn-loaded compression driver make one think of big pro-sound systems, which JTR also produces. The 7.0 cinema system will wake up the neighbors in the next county if unleashed. Lacking separate subwoofers does not mean sacrificing strong bass, the 18 Hz LF -3 dB point for the design can reach those deep notes and shake the seats during a good action flick. The $3299 price tag seems relatively small, almost compact, when considering the big-boy theater and music possibilities.

With the introduction of the RT series, Jeff pushed his product line into the minds and onto the wish lists of the very particular listener types who place two-channel listening at the same priority level as bone-crushing home cinema sound. I have been pleasantly surprised by his two-channel demos involving the 215RT at recent audio shows. The choice of efficient drivers with high-end refinement designed in means home theater and surround-music mixes heard without sacrifice or compromise.

Complemented by jRiver and a well-executed setup and calibration by Michael Boeker, the system had an imaging focus to die for. Michael Buble in concert on the very-big screen, a surround mix, was fun and prompted me to dig out a 5.1 mix of Porcupine Tree’s “Shallow.” High volumes are not a challenge for the 215RT system with its Lab Gruppen FP1002 power amps. They can push 2500 W x 4 channels. Sharp imaging of the type I heard on the whimsical “Shallow” mix, and on Midlake’s “Roscoe,” with a chorus featuring an evenly-spaced lineup of voices and guitars across the soundstage, showed what the big system could do. The clear space between those sound images was as well defined as I have heard it. Low-frequency room modes being what they are, they can be tough to tame in a theater-sized room with lots of bass and low drums exciting the air, and ringy nature of the room caught my attention while auditioning the big surround setup. The vertical spread of LF drivers in the 215RT will tend to lessen this effect in most rooms. The 13 ft x 39 ft x 50 ft room insisted on imposing its sonic will on our low frequencies, and we simply had to put up with it.

After “Shallow,” in the mood for more good music from the system, “Perfect World,” by Broken Bells, is a favorite for 2-channel auditions, with a very focused kick drum at mix’s front-center. That focus was a little mushy, but the rest of the mix was very sharply focused. Soundstage width and clarity through the midrange and highs was downright exemplary. Todd Rundgren’s “Compassion” has bells and glockenspiel that each own their little points in space as though they were solid objects. Scott Davies, playing Rachmaninoff’s “Lilacs” on the Overs piano, coaxed forth the piano’s very delicate characteristic tinkle, which was preserved by the 215RT. The voice separation on “Roscos” was perfection. Muse gave us a strong finish with ”Supermassive Black Hole.”

The cinema room included a JVC RS4500 projector ($35,000) and a Seymour Enlightener 4k screen ($5,500).

The smaller demo of JTR’s Noesis 210RT is the one of the speaker setups I enjoyed most at AXPONA this year. Sporting a beautiful red cherry finish. Driven by a Yamaha 801 with 100 W / channel, the 210RT was a knockout performer. The soundstage was not as wide because of the setup, and was not quite as precise as that in the cinema room, but for overall clean, relaxed, natural, accurate sound, the 210RT was easily my pick in the JTR room, and over many other models at the show.

The focused bass I was looking for on “Perfect World” was all I could want it to be. Instrumental clarity and detail on “The House Of Tom Bombadil” by Nickel Creek were right on, the wide soundstage was not quite as dramatic as from the 215RT, but seemed cleaner and more balanced. There was nothing to get fatigued by. Vocals by Mindy Smith and by The Civil Wars were dreamy and drew you into the intimacy of their recordings. The clarity and almost-materialized precision of the imaging was also not quite like the cinema setup, but did not fall far short of the mark. I wager that many a high-standard 2-channel listener would blind-test pick a Noesis over ¾ of the speaker models at the show.

A brief visit to JTR after AXPONA yielded the second photo.



Sonnie's thoughts: Wow! I listened to quite a bit in this room with literal amazement that there were no dedicated subwoofers in the room. Jeff and his gang did a masterful job of setting up their room and it was really rockin'! Speaking of subwoofers... I believe we have a Captivator 118HT in our hands for review and giveaway!!!

Leonards' thoughts: The theater was astoundingly powerful. When the fireworks started after the National Anthem I could feel my shirt moving there was so much air being moved. The degree to which they achieve such power with extremely low distortion is really something to experience.

 

Isoacoustics

The modular aluminum speaker isolation stands made by Isoacoustics are designed to help eliminate extraneous vibrations that can interfere with accurate soundstage and imaging results. I have listened to the Isoacoustics demo several times over the last two years, and it always seems to give impressive results, yet has left me scratching my head to understand the who, what, where, why, when, and how of the design.

After an extended discussion of the engineering particulars with the Isoacoustics team, some of those questions were answered, while others were not. My personal hesitation about these products is that there can be conditions under which they might be the perfect solution and others under which they might not be.

That said, I will report that the demo setup, two identical sets of speakers, one with Isoacoustics isolators and the other without, showed a dramatic improvement in their imaging and soundstage performance. The “before” speaker pair delivered a vague, spread-out wash of a soundstage. This was transformed with the “after” pair of speakers, using the Isoacoustics isolator, delivering solid image clarity and a pleasant soundstage. Will all situations be equally served? Doubtful, and the Isoacoustics team would probably not argue the point, their wares being an honestly- and rigorously-engineered products.

Some speakers almost set themselves up. With minimal setup effort and a symmetrical arrangement, a great soundstage emanates almost as a given. Such speakers will probably receive little benefit from the Isoacoustics isolators. Other models require that you coax them to their best position, and it can take a good while to find the position and treatment that will sound best. These models will probably benefit from the appropriate Isoacoustics isolators. This is my assessment based on personal experience and theory.

The isolators make use of materials which flex more at low frequencies and are quite stiff at mid-range audio frequencies, providing isolation that can eliminate disruptive vibrations from a speaker cabinet. This is an oversimplification, of course, but gives a general idea how the isolators work. Another way of looking at the Isoacoustics products is that if they help you get to a great imaging result quickly and easily rather than by the long, slow reposition-again-and-again pulling-teeth method, then they just might be a worthwhile investment for your speakers.



Sonnie's thoughts: There is no doubt they were doing what the designer intended them to do with the setup we heard. Very convincing. Like Wayne, will they work for everyone in every situation? I don't really know. I can tell you that I am willing to purchase a couple of sets to find out if they will work for me... however, it won't be near as easy to tell in my situation... I don't have two pairs of MartinLogan 13A's to experiment with. We'll give the Gaia's the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps when we have our evaluation session we can do some more in-depth investigating and report back on our findings. In the meantime... I will recommend them.

 

Smyth Research

The Smyth Research Realizer A16 is a truly innovative product for modeling and realizing a speaker and room acoustic combination for delivery through a pair of headphones and into YOUR ears. That’s right, your ears become part of the model.

Speaker / room sets are measured and stored in the A16 Virtualizer. The listener goes through a brief calibration process with an ATMOS system, with tiny microphones placed in his ears, and sweep measurements tune the system to the subject’s ears. This process has been completed for many professional sound rooms and speakers. Headphone modeling takes place as part of the listener calibration.

With the user’s ear and headphone modeling added to the system’s base programming for rooms and speakers, the listener may now play a mix through the system and hear it through headphones as though through the selected speaker system in the designated room. This can allow one to hear with reasonable accuracy how well a set of speakers would sound in a target room. It can also allow mixing or mastering engineer to test a mix on a known sound mixing stage or in a favorite mixing studio across town, an excellent resource for “checks and balances” simulated comparison.

The result creates a very accurate 3D rendering of a speaker / room combination. Directional vectors are preserved faithfully. During the demo, one could remove the headphones used by the system and compare the headphone sound directly with the speakers and room being simulated.




Sonnie's thoughts: Amazing accomplishment... and get your order in before June 30, 2017 to save 15%. I was truly impressed. This will be really nice for someone who just doesn't have a room for home theater. If you can find a room to model, or I suppose purchase modeled rooms at some point in time, you can sit in your less than optimal room (up to two people at the same time)... perhaps even at your computer, watch a movie with your headphones and it will sound like you are in that modeled theater... no matter WHERE you are seated. Cool as grits!