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My Axpona 2025 Show Notes

Posted by PaulF70 (A) on April 24, 2025 at 18:17:18

My wife & I attended Axpona 2025 this past weekend.

Unlike previous years, I only took notes on rooms I found interesting in some way: Rooms that performed well above average and/or were running gear that I was interested in.

That means there is nothing regarding, for example, the large-room mega-systems generally running massive box speakers (almost always with multiple drivers covering the same ranges) and massive amplifiers (which need a lot of power to handle the back EMF from those many low-efficiency drivers and complex passive crossovers).

My goals for this year were:

- Possibly find a speaker I prefer to my restored Quad 63/988 ESLs (I have both, and they are essentially identical)
- Possibly be convinced that I should acquire a vinyl front-end again
- Possibly find an amplifier I prefer to my Purifi-powered NAD M23 (EDIT: I said 32 already; it's the Purifi-based M23), which replaced a Hegel I had used for several years (which replaced 805-powered SET amps and several others)

Below are my impressions from the seven rooms that interested me most.

1. Quintessence Audio (Fyne Audio, Audio Research)

Nearly 20 years ago, I drove down to Quintessence Audio in the northern Chicago 'burbs and ended up buying a Wavelength Crimson DAC.

This "room" wasn't a room: It was an open area that you face as you enter the hotel from one of the main entrances. I saw it and said, "Big Tannoy Dual-Concentrics - cool!" I always enjoy hearing those big, 15" Tannoy DCs.

Turns out there were not Tannoys, but a sort-of clone from one Fyne Audio, which apparently was started by some ex-Tannoy people.

While the sound was big, bold, and very dynamic, with great tone and presence, it was not long before I heard those horn colorations and was subsequently unable to hear them.

These speakers are quite fabulous in a way, but they are speakers. They sound like speakers.

2. Joseph Audio/Doshi

When I reentered the audio hobby back in 2005, the first speakers I purchased, after a lot of research, were from Joseph Audio. They have proprietary technology that allows very steep crossover slopes and very stiff (metal) drivers. And they do sound different from, and better than, the vast majority of conventional box speakers IMO.

(I recall, back in the day, reading long debates between Jeff Joseph and Roy Johnson (RIP) of Green Mountain Audio regarding time/phase coherence. Green Mountain was built on preserving it (despite the fact that it's impossible to do save for a single plane in space for any multi-driver speaker), while Mr. Joseph insisted it is inaudible or irrelevant. I am certain I can detect time/phase coherence, yet Joseph Audio speakers sound very good without it.)

Nick Doshi's electronics are some of the best around. He exhibited with Wilson speakers for years but switched to Joseph last year (I think). I guess that says something.

This was one of the rooms that pulls you in with generally great sound, having everything: Dynamics, detail, tone. And sound great it did, in extended listening sessions, just like last year.

On day two, playing the superb 45 RPM recording of St. James Infirmary, I was slightly disappointed: There was detail missing in terms of vocal nuances and horn decay trails (I know this recording very well). I mean, it was still amazing overall, but not up to what I know is possible.

My references for this recording are essentially two:

- My own Quad electrostats
- What was the single most impressive audio experience I've had: The Cogent room at Rocky Mountain Audio Fest 2006, featuring the Cogen field-coil front horns with Welborne Labs SET amps

(Neither of these systems are tilted-up in the mids so as to create artificial "detail.")

The speakers are around $50,000, and I'd guess the total system cost to be at least $200,000.

3. Acora/VAC

Acora speakers kind of amazed me at last year's show. I haven't really investigated the company and don't know if it's just the marble cabinets or something more, but they are extremely dynamic (for non-horns) and also have luscious tone, and great, non-fatiguing detail.

This room had everything, truly. We listened for a long time on two occasions, both vinyl and digital.

The only problem is that the speakers alone are over $300K.

However - these were very large speakers made for very large rooms. Their smaller offerings are much more reasonable and, from my aural memory, have the same sound signature.

4. Consonance

My raw notes:

- All-Consonance room ($1400 shoebox speakers too) sounded *really* good! Vinyl & tubes.
- Livelier than some of the 300 lb behemoth speakers! Great tone. 18W 300B PSET
- But I think that "creamy" SET sound is a coloration...

This room sounded *way* better than it had any right to, for a very attractive price. But, those are small-room-only speakers.

5. Popori Electrostatics (Atma-Sphere Switching Amps, Digital, DSP)

Here we are at the first of the rooms tied for Best Sound Of Show in my humble opinion (the other two follow).

I instantly recognized in this room something pleasantly familiar: Electrostatic speaker sound. Or, rather, the lack of it - the lack of *any* sound related to a loudspeaker. Sometimes, an extra level of detail and nuance that, at least almost always, is absent from any speaker using cone drivers (all of which - even the Lowther ilk - have moving mass hundreds of times greater than any ESL).

"Makes other speakers sound broken - clarity is incredible - including bass & drums" was among my first set of notes (we visited the room eight times over two days).

I also wrote (see below), "Back later after Pure Audio Project (Voxativ) - sound is remarkably similar."

And that's how good the Pure Audio Project open baffle speakers, with Voxativ 1.6 drivers, driven by LAiV electronics, are.

"However, after a few minutes, there is a delicacy, I think the dynamic speakers don't quite match. Sound just hangs in the air with no artifacts."

6. Hegel/YG

I ran Hegel amps for years until I discovered Purifi. They are one of the very few manufacturers that clearly understood the weaknesses of multistage push-push transistor amplifiers and successfully addressed them. (The videos from their lead engineer describing crossover distortion and how they address it are really great.)

I wrote:

"Fabulous! Very close to as clear as the prior electrostatics."

"Creamy hone tone really amazing."

"Bass on Ghost Rider fabulous."

"So similar to the Popori ESLs - yet more body or something."

"This was by far the best-sounding of the several rooms running YG speakers."

Of course, YG speakers are quite special also. They are one of the very few brands of dynamic speakers that can pull off simulating an electrostat.

7. Pure Audio Project/LAiV

I've heard the very popular Pure Audio Project speakers before, but never with the Voxativ driver, and never with these (LAiV) electronics.

The sound in this room was really incredible. Five or six times, my wife & I went back & forth between this room and the Popori room which was almost next door, amazed at how similar the sound was.

Having spent years with Lowther, AER, Supravox, Fostex, and other wideband drivers in back-horns (Lamhorn, Beauhorn, Cain & Cain, etc.) and open baffles, I am quite familiar with their strengths and weaknesses. What really impressed me about this PAP/Voxativ speaker was that there were absolutely no tonal anomalies at all - no up-tilted response, no "shout," no shrillness. Nothing but the very opposite: Completely fantastic, balanced sound.

The *really* impressive thing about this is the cost of the room: Peanuts by high-end standards, and playing right along with or bettering rooms 10x the cost.

I wrote:

"Blown away right after the Popori room - they're better! There is every bit of the openness, liveliness, transient snap, lack of smear, and they are even more neutral, having more body."

"Imagine them with the Voxativ field coil drivers!"

(But then I reversed my opinion vis-a-vis the two after another visit next door. That's how we roll, isn't it?)

If I could not have electrostatic speakers - and maybe even if I could - these are the speakers I would take. Especially because the field-coil Voxativ driver, which I am sure is superb, is a drop-in replacement for the 1.6. I've owned field coil dynamic drivers from Supravox and Cogent, and heard Lowther conversions, and there is something special to them - something that elevates dynamic drivers to another level of nuance and naturalness. Electrostatic levels? I'm not quite sure.

But we can't talk only about the speakers here - this LAiV gear is killer. I want to say I *knew* the DAC was a resistor ladder affair and I was right. And I want to say that I *knew* there was something special about those amplifiers and I was right about that too. Look them up - they use some special tech.

(It was interesting to me, after the fact, that the amplifiers that I picked out as something truly special without ever having heard a thing about them or the company beforehand are indeed quite unique. Look them up - the transistors they use, that is.)

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Conclusions

Popori, PAP, and YG/Hegel gave the best sound (for under ~$1 million anyway) and also sounded more alike than different.

I left the show intending to buy Pure Audio Project speakers. And then we went home, and I listened to my system: Innuos server, Schiit Yggdrasil DAC & Schiit line stage, Marchand balanced active crossover (70 Hz) going to dual, 15" sealed Dayton Audio subs with 1KW outboard amps - and the restored Quad 988 electrostatics.

If it can be beat, I don't know what beats it. It does *almost* everything as good as anything, and what it doesn't quite do is tolerable.

What it doesn't do: Play over 100 dB, at least above the bass region (probably those subs could blow the far wall down if put to a dare). This means that you do not get live jazz club volumes on things like snare hits and even trumpet blasts (which can manage 110 dB).

I can pretty much live with that. I never preferred the front row of tables at the Vanguard because it just gets a bit too loud.

Mind you, the system can still do very impressive dynamics, especially with percussion. The exquisite rendering of "Black Magic Woman" on Patricia Barber's "Companion" ends with a percussion solo that leaves me completely spent, and never wanting, on this system.

So, for the moment at least (I've had something close to this setup for over five years), I'm still happy with the ultra-low distortion, perfect coherence, and essentially unmatched naturalness of this system.

Edits: 04/25/25

This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:

Kimber Kable

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