AXPONA 2019 Show Report -- Audio Expo North America
AXPONA 2019 Coverage By Rick Becker -- Part 5

Fourth Floor

  Rooms 442 and 444 were hosted by Glenn Poor's Audio Video down in Champaign, IL, a college town 135 miles south of Chicago. I recognized Geoffrey Poor (L) who has taken over from his dad after working for years with Balanced Audio Technology. Geoff introduced me to Walter Swanbon (R) of Fidelis Distribution whose room 1534 featured the Einstein components driving Stenheim speakers that I wrote about in Part 1 or 2. Geoff's rooms featured Harbeth speakers driven by Luxman electronics (an L-509x integrated amp [$9,495] in 442 to drive Harbeth M30.2 Anniversary monitor [$6,995]). These brands make a very nice combination that I've written about at the Canadian shows in the past.

What interested me here were the new Technics turntables, most specifically the SL-1500C single rotor coreless model at $1200. It comes with a built-in phono stage on a separate power supply from the table itself and comes with two sets of RCA outputs, one which by-passes the phono stage if you wish to use your own. An Ortofon 2M Red cartridge is fitted as standard. They've deleted the pitch control, light and strobe of the SL-1200GR, knocking $500 off the price, making it more affordable for a person with audiophile aspirations rather than moonlighting as a DJ.

Working clockwise again, I entered the Odyssey room (446) and sat down for a séance. In the darkened room it was easy to appreciate the music and the value of the components. With their tube Candela preamp ($1600) linked to a pair of Khartago monoblocks ($1995/pr) driving the Kismet Beryllium Reference speakers ($4200/pr), they were offering an $895 discount on the entire system at the show. This was a very high value room and I had to wait a long time while Klaus Bunge (L) wrangled a deal on the show samples with a couple of guys out in the atrium. He only vaguely recognized me from the "old days" when he showed at Montreal (late 1990's, early 2000's). He has gained quite a reputation since then as a very personable, trustworthy manufacturer/vendor who offers upgrades on many of his products. Working in Indianapolis, the AXPONA show is practically in his back yard.

Paul Manof of importer High Fidelity Services was involved in three rooms at AXPONA. The first I encountered (554) with the Verity speakers I felt qualified as one of the Best Rooms at the show. Here, in 454, he again had a bevy of Trilogy Audio Systems gear with the 903 Hybrid preamp ($3995), 933 Hybrid stereo amp ($8750) and 907 mm/mc phono preamp ($3495) active in the rig, and their 925 hybrid integrated amp ($14,850), 906 Class A mm/mc phono preamp ($1295) and SPD H1 Electrostatic headphone amp ($6750) on static display.

This is a small, British very high-quality company that so far has flown way below the radar in North America. That's the power amp and preamp on the lower shelf in the photo. The phono stage is the small light-colored box to the left of the TW Acoustic Raven GT SE turntable with Raven 10.5 arm ($15k). The cartridge was an Ortofon A95 mc ($6,500), if you were lucky enough to catch them playing vinyl. Digital was sourced from a Melco N1ZH Mk 2 ($4,995) and the DAC was the dark Playback Design Merlot ($6500) on the floor beneath the lower shelf.

I expect most of the gear was connected to the Computer Audio Design (CAD) GC-1 Ground Control ($1995) from this Swedish company that was also prominently involved in room 554. As I may have said previously, the importance of grounding is becoming more widespread in this industry. The kicker in this room was the Neat Acoustics Ekstra, a $4000 pair of speakers in a $70k rig and I'm here to tell you this sounded better than any Neat speaker I've heard in the past (and I've heard a bunch of them at the Canadian shows). The Ekstra is a 2.5-way isobaric bass reflex, incorporating a downward firing iso-baric subwoofer. The tweeter is a 50mm ribbon type. And did I mention the Vibex Generalife DC Power Filter ($1795)? All told, this was a very nice presentation of a rather esoteric group of manufacturers. But wait, as High Fidelity Services sponsored the next room, too.

In 458 once again we have the Vibex power filter (?) and Signal Projects, a cable company from Greece and Great Britain that also makes power conditioners and a ground box. Note the speaker cable with the Verity Audio Lakme ($13,995). Like most Verity speakers this one seems to be a two-cabinet design, but unlike most of the others, there doesn't seem to be an isolation layer between them. The Lakme is also more lifestyle looking with the cloth covered lower baffle. It is also available in wood veneers. Perhaps they will do COM (customer's own material)? This model is brand new for Verity, so there was little info about it, but I would expect it to be fairly efficient and tube-friendly like the rest of their line. The preamp was Verity's DAC-PRE ($25k), and their AMP-45 stereo amp was the same price. Again, Vibex power conditioner and power cables were used.

Two of the most stunning pieces of gear at AXPONA were amplifiers by Western Electric. Had Jules Verne lived to see stereo (or mono, for that matter) he would have thought these the perfect amplifiers. The first, looking like an early Keurig prototype seems to be a SET monoblock with a 300B tube protected by a small railing. The latter, the 91E integrated amplifier puts out 20 Watts per channel due to their newly patented steered constant current source power supply. If that sounds a little like Class A, I've included a photo of the patent for you to research

From personal experience with Eddie Wong's monoblocks with parallel 300B tubes that put out 18 Wpc, I can assure you that this much power (20 Wpc) is a game changer, opening many truly great speakers to the beauty of SET amplification. Zero feedback. Microprocessor controlled bias. Champagne or black anodized finish is available, and the toroidal output transformers can be exchanged for ones that more perfectly suit your speaker's impedance. Now, where have you seen that option before? At $12,500, this could replace a lot of preamp/power amp combinations for those who want to simplify their system and beautify their music with SET power. (Room 464)

Also on display in the Western Electric room were "cutaways" of the 300B tube and samples of their cotton braided "audio transmission wire". I remember seeing samples of this wire at the Toronto show where Mike Tang had acquired quantities of this wire from the tear-down of an old theater. And even today, very high end cable manufacturers are using cotton as an insulator. Unfortunately, I was so taken back by the amplifiers and the photo op in this room, which I neglected to make video notes on the sound. Rest assured that it was excellent and worth following up on.

I had the pleasure of meeting Roland Gauder of Gauder Akustik whose speakers have a very high reputation. The ribbed styling of the Berlina RC 7 MkII ($40k) fit very nicely with the neo-vintage look of the Western Electric amps. While Gauder speakers are typically rated at 4 Ohms and only medium sensitivity, it speaks highly of the Western Electric amp that it can drive them. Roland explained that they use a very steep crossover of 60dB/octave and more to minimize interaction of the drivers. The Berlina series is their flagship series with two complete series below. (Room 462)

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