Score one for audiophiles. Our AXPONA expert found it a distinct pleasure to gather once again in the Chicago, IL, suburbs for the 2022 edition of the Audio Expo North America, better known as AXPONA. Everyone, exhibitors and attendees, had good fun while listening to some exceptional systems. In this show report, Oliver Masciarotte details some of the highlights.
Returning to the Renaissance Schaumburg Hotel & Convention Center for the 11th year, the show hosted close to 7,600 civilians. Masks were in evidence for those in need. I, having been jabbed multiple times, decided I needed my daily doses of wild SARS–CoV2 particles to complete my immunity. All good with that. The trouble was, I had a list of more than 50 vendors I specifically wanted to visit and then there were the 90 additional rooms that may have provided a moment of pleasurable audio serendipity. I had my work cut out for me...
Let’s start with Zoltán Bay and his unique BAYZ radial transducer technology. Back in 2019, I heard the version 1 Counterpoint and was duly impressed. This year, it might have been the room but I found the smaller 2.0 version of the Courante to be less compelling. The imaging was, as my notes mentioned, amorphous while the low frequency was not as controlled and the overall timbre a bit on the sharp side.
An altogether different experience was had at Jim Salk’s room, where his affordable and exceptional new BePure 2 was one of the top products for me at the show. This two-way floorstander combines SB Acoustic’s Satori beryllium tweeter with dual 6.5" Purifi Audio midwoofers for a smooth, extended, and low distortion sound that’s impossible to beat at their $6,000 price.
Tied for first place in the Real World Affordability category was Clayton Shaw’s Spatial Audio $7,500 X4 Premium passive open-baffle speakers powered by LTA’s $7600 Z40+ output transformerless integrated. Everything was wired up thanks to ANTICABLES. Both the Salk and Spatial rooms demonstrated how excellent a mid-priced system can sound.
I am not one to favor a skewed voicing choice when it comes to equipment. I like my speakers, interconnects and electronics to be as linear and wide band as possible within the limits of budget. I feel that audio gear should be able to play acoustic chamber music just as well as EDM. That said, one speaker I heard would be an absolute blast to employ in a muscular, all-out rock-and-roll assault. The folks at Göbel High End had a COVID-new “small” loudspeaker that made me question my assumptions. The relatively squat Divin Marquis delivered “true high fidelity from subterranean bass to sparkling but not knife-edge highs,” according to my notes. Göbel is known for BIG, and the Divin Marquis is no exception. At more than 3’ tall and 300 lb., even this “affordable” model comes in at $85,000.
Also showcasing a new speaker was local company Valorem Audio. Straight out of Addison, IL, designer and owner Dusan Plavsa started out as a hobbyist and DIY builder during quarantine. He later decided he wanted to get into it “...on a more permanent basis.” For the show, Plavsa had his top of the line $8,400 Somnium stand mounters, powered by a Jadis 30W Class A attached with WireWorld Eclipse 8 cables. The Somniums rely on premium 1” and 7” Scan-Speak drivers plus audiophile crossover components in a vented, heavily braced Baltic birch ply cabinet. Various wood finishes come standard while real leather is also available as an option.
The Rare Audiovisuals
Audiovisuals are rare at mostly two-channel shows, but I have to mention Devialet and its sexy new soundbar. The diminutive $2400 Dione is dwarfed by my reference AMBEO, but what it lacks in size it makes up for in sound. Delivering a 5.1.2 experience, the bar accepts Airplay 2, Bluetooth 5, HDMI, and AES3 over F05 optical as inputs while acting as an UPnP end point. As with other Atmos soundbars, the Dione doesn’t fully envelope. Instead, it achieves a quarter sphere of rich and detailed sound. Unique to Dione is its centrally located ORB transducer, which can be physically rotated to change from tabletop to wall mounting.
What is not rare is the shuffling of personnel in the industry. Case in point; during the show it was announced that Andrew Jones, former propeller head at Elac, is now the Chief Loudspeaker Designer at MoFi. This means that not only will Jones most likely have freer rein to concentrate on just a handful of designs, but also MoFi will have a complete program for sales and marketing. From record labels all the way through to loudspeakers, they’ll be able to offer a branded, end-to-end solution.
Pro Audio
A couple of pro audio vendors made the scene in the Ear Gear arena — RME and Rupert Neve Designs. The latter is no stranger to AXPONA, but Fort Lauderdale, FL-based Synthax chose the RME line from its very pro manufacturer collection (Ferrofish, Digigram, Appsys, etc.) to showcase. RME’s versatile little ADI-2 DAC FS has so many bells and whistles, you simply have to visit www.synthax.com for all the details.
Speaking of pro gear, the Lone Mountain group now represents the excellent Mutec line of clocking products, and were showing the REF10 universal format reference master clock and the MC3+ USB Smart Clock. While those were technically not new products, they are a new line for Lone Mountain to distribute. The $4999 REF10 exhibits ultra-low phase noise so that jitter, the Achilles heel of digital audio, can be reduced to vanishingly low levels. While the REF10 is aimed at pro setups, the $1649 MC3+ is specifically design to address the major shortcoming of USB DACs — their clocking. Of course, Lone Mountain was also filling its room with what I noted were beautiful sounds, thanks to one of my very favorite speaker brands, ATC. Some folks think soft domes are passé, but those folks in the UK have it dialed.
One more fabric dome aficionado is EgglestonWorks, which teamed up with Bryston to showcase its COVID-new (2021) $12,895 Oso three-way floorstander along with a new DAC/streamer/preamplifier. Bryston’s BR-20 has got it all; digital ins via USB, AES3 on XLR along with S/PDIF on RCA and F05, and “fully discrete” unbalanced and balanced analog ins and Class A balanced outputs. They had an HDMI input option, but the company’s supplier lamed out and it’s no longer available. Including wired Ethernet for streaming and an optional MM phono stage, it ticks all the boxes at a reasonable $5,995 price point.
Using the BR-20 as a streamer into a $6,795 4B³ stereo power amp. Cabling was provided by Straight Wire, and power conditioning via Bryston’s $4299 BIT20. Who knew that Bryston made power conditioners?! As to the speakers, EgglestonWorks’ $12,900 Oso is a tallish drink of crystal clear water at 45” and a gut busting 115 pounds each. Sporting a 1” soft dome, dual 6” mids and a side–firing 10” woofer, they complemented a pleasantly real world-priced system. I am not necessarily a Bryston fanboy but this combo sounded really good.
Promising Newcomers
Hailing from Florida, Malbork Designs is a promising newcomer. Its minimalist $65,000 Warsaw combines a 4.7” open-back AMT and dual 5” aluminum-coned ferrite midrange drivers in an MTM arrangement. An SB Acoustics cast-aluminum basketed 8” polypro woofer, also with a ferrite motor, completes the piece. The low-order hand-assembled crossover has the mids handing off at 5,500, while the woofer crosses at 350Hz. With the exception of the tweeter, each driver is housed in its own sealed space. In turn, the enclosures are mounted on vertically aligned, chiseled stalks. The entire speaker is fabricated from aluminum, and telegraphs an industrial, retro-future look. Speaking of which, Malbork also had a static display of a vertically-oriented, omni two-way desktop speaker. With fluidly sculpted acoustic lenses, the little beastie reminded me of a miniature version of Anthony Grimani lens design for Bang & Olufsen.
An additional manufacturer making its debut at AXPONA was Augspurger. Long a staple in the pro audio control room monitoring space, the distributor brought its littlest speaker system to the show. A hallmark of Augspurger speakers is their ability to cleanly deliver literally punishing sound pressure levels, hence their popularity with hip hop artists. Though I could not test that in their room, I’m confident that the new little MinimaX can play well at ear damaging volumes. That’s not to say that the bookshelf-sized, active $10,995 two-ways can’t also deliver at civilized sound pressure. Mid/highs for the quad front-ported model MX-65 are taken care of via a 1.4" beryllium diaphragm compression driver coupled to a compact maple horn, while low-frequency duties are handled by a long throw, 6.5” cone.
According to my notes, the rotatable, 70° × 110° multicellular horn provided very uniform, resonance-free coverage with a solid bottom. The included SXE-3D electronics package, incorporating balanced–only analog and 96k AES3 digital I/O, is housed in a 1U 19” rack–mountable case. I would love to be able to compare the MinimaX to Ocean Way’s HR4 two-way mated to their S12A sub.
Next up, another “new” vendor at the show was Aretai, which had a $7,500 pair of Contra 100S standmounters on live demo. These good-looking little dudes are visually reminiscent of a Martion Einhorn, with a prominent, shallow flare horn-loaded SB ring tweeter mated to a front–firing 6” woofer and equally sized rear-mounted passive radiator.
All that in a sealed enclosure containing a high-order crossover. Driven by already sterile Benchmark electronics, I found them to be mid-shy, but hey, it was a show so my 10-second listen could well have been skewed. I definitely want to understand Aretai better.
Overcoming Obstacles
Not deterred by a lost show shipment from their Austrian home, the Brodmann krew grabbed a local pair of entry-level $8,000 Festival F 2 from, if I remember correctly, a customer and ended up with an admirable showing. They were supposed to be exhibiting the far fancier $23,700 Vienna Classic VC 1. I found Brodmann’s singular solution to low frequencies “interesting.” I didn’t get any details in time for publication but, according to my notes, they appear to include full-length side panels that provide sympathetic resonances.
Impressive Showing
In the Alta/Mojo room, the new $15,000 three-way Adam floorstanders were special — mated to Mojo Audio’s new $12,000 Mystique X DAC being fed from the also-new $4,998 Jay’s Audio CDT3-MK3 Red Book disc transport with low noise/low jitter clock.
Amplification was courtesy of Rogers High Fidelity $14,700 KWM-88 integrated. The whole exceeded the sum of those parts. Also refining the engineering was Gayle Sanders' EIKON, with his new IMAGE.5 stand-mounted actives. As with his IMAGE1 floorstander, the soon-to-be-released half-pint will be driven by Böhmer Audio’s wavelet integrated processor. I found this new entrant to provide a more believable low end than the larger version, with the active electronics weaving “...beautiful transient response into a more cohesive whole,” according to my notes.
Personal Audio Curiosity
In the personal audio department, I finally got to hear two products I’ve been curious about — Warwick Acoustics’ new BRAVURA and Audeze’s CRBN. Derived from Audeze’s work on a non-magnetic headphone for medical imaging applications, the $4,500 "Carbon" electrostats employ a polymer/carbon nanotube alloy in place of vacuum-deposited metals. I found my too brief listen to be “ethereal.” Also electrostatic but on a different tack, Warwick’s BRAVURA is designed to work with its existing M1 DAC/energizer/HPA. At a package price of $5,995 for cans + electronics, I still found Warwick’s combination of voicing, transient response and overall presentation to be the best headphone experience around.
The Unexpected
As was the case at AXPONA 2019, Magnepan had an unadvertised location at the show where it was demoing its updated Little Ribbon Speaker (LRS). As in the past, the company was using a prototype amplifier driven by unknown source components, so I passed on the invitation until I could hear them with a reasonably predictable electronics chain. Let’s hope they’ve made significant improvements.
Too Much to Hear in Too Little Time
In retrospect, I missed visiting several rooms while being lured into other spaces by the shear weirdness I glimpsed while passing. In particular, I had wanted to hear what Polk and Totem were up to, as I’ve followed those brands since CES was held at the Alexis Park. I also missed KEF’s new $9,000 stand-mounted Reference 1 Meta since I have such a positive impression of its downmarket LS50 Meta.
In addition to KEF, here at audioXpress we’ve been following PerListen Audio and I lost an opportunity to get some seat time with them. According to CTO Erik Wiederholtz, they also felt they had some difficulty gaining attention for their new model during the gathering. “The S7t is our flagship, it’s what was playing almost the whole time. The S5t was having its debut but everyone wanted to hear the S7t due to the accolades, so we mostly played that.” The new S5t comes in at $6,995 to $7,995 each, depending on the finish, while the S7t is $8,995 to $9,995 each also depending on finish.
Bigger Is Not Always Better
In the Bigger-Is-Not-Necessarily-Better category, I happened upon a spendy system employing giant, open-baffle $137,500 Aries Cerat Aurora cubic loudspeakers from Cyprus powered by Pink Fawn and in-akustik electronics and cabling. Robert Neill, owner of distributor Worldwide Wholesales, walked me through the setup: in-akustik $4,300 AC-4004 2-meter cable supplying a $5,500 4500P conditioner, also by in-akustik. A $30,000 Pink Fawn 2.16 Ultra server/streamer sourced a $47,000 Aries Cerat Kassandra Ref DAC into the new $76,000 Aries Cerat Ageto Gen3 triode preamp, which in turn supplied signal to $50,000 Aries Cerat Essentia monoblocks. The Aurora loudspeakers have a couple of novel features, including their mini-biradial hornloaded tweeter and Bluetooth-enabled crossovers for configuration on a mobile device. The sound in the room did not really capture my fancy but it sure was a visually impressive array of components.
Overall Impressions
For me, AXPONA 2022 was all about the return of in-person events and the rise of quality European vendors here on American shores. It’s good to see more manufacturers are braving our domestic marketplace. Another trend to note with alarm was that our industry has gotten a bit smaller in recent history, with Exogal and several old skool hi-fi dealerships folding their tents during the COVID pandemic. The past few years have been tough on us all, and I can only hope our world will advance, not decline into chaos. aX
This article was originally published in audioXpress, July 2022.
About the AuthorOliver A. Masciarotte has spent more than 40 years immersed in the tech space, working on manufacturing, marketing, and product development for many pro and CE audio manufacturers including dbx, a/d/s, Lexicon, Sonic Solutions, and Minnetonka Audio. His client roster is as diverse as Apple, Harper Collins, NASA Johnson, NPR, and Universal. His writings include a book covering file-based music for the home and more than 100 articles for sundry trade publications. A member of the Audio Engineering Society (AES), Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE), Project Management Institute (PMI), and Digital Cinema Society (DCS), he is currently co-founder and CMO of MAAT Inc., a digital audio software manufacturer.
