AXPONA 2018 Show Report -- Audio Expo North America

AXPONA 2018 At The Schaumberg Renaissance
This year's Audio eXPO North America was utterly amazing, and on so many levels!
AXPONA Show Report By Greg Weaver

   Wandering into the cavernous Nirvana B Room, I found John Wolff of Classic Audio Loudspeakers, Ralph Karsten, of Atma-Sphere, and Tri-Mai, of Tri-Planar all involved in different conversations. These cats have been showing together for at least the past decade, and with good reason.

The Atma-Sphere M-60 Mk3.3 OTL amplifiers

The system was sourced by a Kuzma Reference table ($8,900), using Tri's Tri-Planar Ultimate 12 arm ($9,800), fitted with a van den Hul Crimson cartridge ($5,500). Ralph's MP-1 Mk3.3 preamplifier ($18,900) was handing off to a pair of his M-60 Mk3.3 OTL amps ($7,700), which were driving John's big, bold, and beautiful T-3.4 Field Coil powered speakers ($54,950), and everything was connected with Jim Aud's Purist Audio Design cables, including the new Neptune series of balanced interconnects, speaker cables, and power cords. This system has a way of delving into and releasing music in one of the most dynamically and harmonically correct presentations you'll likely ever hear.

The Classic Audio T-3.4 Field Coil powered speakers

I also had a chance to speak with Ralph about a new project he is working on. He was explaining to me that he has found a way to vastly improve upon the speed and resultant performance of current switching amplifier technology. He has prototyped and is testing his designs. I'm hoping we can follow up on this discussion, as it was quite fascinating and exciting news, and if he is successful, could usher in an entirely new era of switching amplifiers.

The Gershman Acoustics room was showing their new POSH statement loudspeakers ($129,000) in room 710, with a host of VAC electronics. The system included the VAC Master preamplifier with phono stage ($40,000), and the Statement 450S Amplifier ($46,000). Sources with either a VPI Titan turntable ($40,000) - (I'm sorry to say that there were no details on the cartridge), or the Oracle CD Player ($4,500).

The new Gershman Acoustics POSH, with all VAC electronics

Now, being a big fan of the origin of words, I had to ask Ofra Gershman, Director of International Sales and Marketing, if she was familiar with the origin of the word POSH. She admitted that she was not, so I shared the tale about it being an old ocean liner term. Based on Port Out, Starboard Home, the term was supposedly printed on the tickets of passengers on P&O (Peninsula and Orient) ocean liners that traveled between the UK and India in the days of the Raj. As Britain and India are both in the northern hemisphere, the port (left-hand side) berths were mostly in the shade when traveling out (easterly) and the starboard ones were when returning, so the best and most expensive berths were POSH, hence the term.

Sorry, I get distracted easily! Regardless, while I've heard many Gershman Acoustics demo's over the years, and while they have never disappointed, this was far and away the best presentation I've ever heard from one of their rooms. Deep, fast, and articulate bass, powerful yet detailed midbass, open, detailed mids, and extended and airy uppermost frequencies. The sensation of slam, of body and bloom, and of resolution have, to my ears, never been more successfully accomplished by any previous Gershman Acoustics loudspeaker. Bravo.

Looking out the fourth-floor hallway to the front of the Renaissance Hotel and Convention Center on a cold and rainy Saturday!

Thanks to the inimitable Philip O'Hanlon of On a Higher Note, Danish manufacturer The Gryphon is once again available in the US. Showing with local Chicago dealer Kyomi Audio (who also represents mbl and GamuT), owned by George Vatchnadze, a celebrated recording concert pianist and Professor of Music at De Paul University in Chicago, room 1528 was a real standout. Featuring an almost all-Gryphon system, sources were either the Gryphon Scorpio S CD player ($9,400), or the Pear Audio Kid Thomas turntable ($10,000) sporting the Ortofon Cadenza Black MC cartridge ($2,729). The phono stage was the new Gryphon Sonnet ($7,500), and the Gryphon Diablo 120 integrated amp ($11,200) drove the Gryphon Mojo S speakers ($29,500). All cables were Magnan Audio Reference Series, a Shunyata Denali 6000S ($3,995) conditioned the hotel's AC, while everything sat on Artesania Exoteryc 4 racks and platforms.

The Gryphon system

This room's sonics were delightful. Piano had well fleshed out texture, with exhilarating speed, highly neutral tone, and exceptional transparency. Though the Mojo S is a relatively small, stand mounted speaker, in this system, they played connivingly deep, with intoxicating speed, marvelous resolution, and complex tone color and texture. Overall this system's ability to vanish from the room and generate an accurately sized, delicately and finely layered soundstage was simply superb; this was a highly resolving yet undeniably musical system.

German powerhouse mbl had some new products to introduce in room 1528. Jeremy Bryan, CEO and president of mbl North America, never fails to turn in a winning performance. The big room featured an all Nobel electronics series system with the mbl N31 DAC/CD Player ($15,400), the mbl N11 Stereo Preamplifier ($14,600), and four of the brand new mbl N15 monoblocks driving the full range, four-way, omnidirectional mbl 101 E MKII Radialstrahler loudspeakers ($70,500/pr.).

Thembl Nobel N15 monoblocks and 101 E MkIIRadialstrahler loudspeakers

I got to hear several cuts from my sampler, including Dead Can Dance and Joël Grare, but the party really got going when Jeremy played the Cursor Minor cover of Van Halen's "Ain't Talking About Love!" DAMN!

This system had a spooky real feel to vocals. While it was vividly dynamic with see-through transparency, it conveyed an ethereal airiness, full of shimmer and sparkle, with get-up-and-walk-through space. Yet, it offered convincing texture, liquid tone, chesty body, and an inescapable sense of 3-D that only a handful of other systems can approach, let alone attempt to match.

Technics returned to the fore with their new lineup, including the SU-R1 network player ($9000), either the SP-1000R ($18,000) or SP-10R turntable ($10,000), the SE-R1 digital basic power amplifier ($17,000), and the SB-R1E speakers ($27,000/pr.), clearly showing that they mean business. Their system in room 678 delivered tremendous bloom, a wonderful sense of air, delicate detail, realistic resolution of fine detail, and undeniably honest timbre.

The powerful looking, and sounding, Technics SE-R1 Digital Amplifier

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