Rick Becker's AXPONA 2022 Chronicles
Fantastic Luxury Hi-Fi On The 5th Floor At AXPONA 2022.
AXPONA 2022 Show Report By Rick Becker

  On a Lateral rack in a room that listed a lot of different manufacturers, I saw this Mark Levinson 5105 turntable above a ModWright Instruments PH9.0 phono stage, a Lumin server, a Clarus Concerto power conditioner ($3600), their flagship model, and a ModWright KWH 225i Hybrid Integrated amp. I remember owning a Counterpoint hybrid amp back in the early 1990s. Hybrid amps seemed to go out of style after that, but in the past decade they have been coming on strong from numerous manufacturers.

Infigo used their preamp and monoblocks to power Alta Audio Adam speakers ($18k). The room also mentions Caprice Audio and I met Luis Alberto who did his best to explain what his Core Optimization System of interconnecting the components does to lower the noise floor. (He needs to get his elevator pitch down to one minute.) It is not a grounding system. It was not installed in the rig here, but the central component can be seen on the floor between the left monoblock and the stand with the infigo preamp. Wires connect to each of the components. I think it is best left for someone who can review the Caprice Audio to better explain it. It starts at $10k and goes up from there if you need additional cables for more than three components.

Backlighting certainly didn't help the photo here. On top of the rack was another Mark Levinson 5105 turntable marked with a price tag at $6600. Below it was a Rogue Pharaoh II tube integrated amp ($3995) and a Mark Levinson 5101 streaming SACD / CD player at $6050. Below that was something Sony, without a price tag. Speaker cables, at least, were by Nordost. The very attractive speaker in a reddish mahogany veneer was a Triangle Acoustics Signature Theta, seen here on an aftermarket stand rather than the dedicated Triangle stand. The Signature Series is one below the Triangle flagship Magellan Series, so the music here should have been quite good. Unfortunately, I failed to make a note of it.

I've had a hard time locking into Haniwa's presentations in the past. This year I took a few minutes to get centered and take a good listen. In the top photo, you see the TransRotor turntable with the Haniwa HCTR-CO MC cartridge with a very low 0.2 Ohm resistance — also seen up close in the second photo. The stack of Haniwa components on the right side of the top photo includes their HCVC01 Current/Voltage converter that takes the very low current signal from the cartridge and converts it to a (relatively) high current signal that can then be fed to a moving magnet (MM) input on a phono stage with much better clarity and more information from the groove than traditional approaches that try to deal with the (low) current signal coming from an MC phono cartridge, even with the assistance of a step-up transformer. The extremely low total impedance of the Haniwa cartridge and tonearm cables transfers the signal with high accuracy and low loss.

The current / voltage converter has a very low input impedance (0.09 Ohms) and converts the signal to a voltage signal, maintaining a S/N ratio of 84dB so as not to harm the low noise of the original current signal. The cartridge sells for $10k and the current/voltage converter is $6k. This is for serious analog enthusiasts. I will not be requesting review samples because my phono stage only accepts MC cartridge input.

The other components on the table were the HDSA01 Digital System Amplifier and below it, the HEQA01 Equalizer Amplifier. The signal is converted from analog to digital, thereby permitting DSP allocation of frequencies to the subwoofer and HSP01 circular driver seen in the third photo. This system allows adjustment of both phase and gain allowing flat curves from 20Hz to 20kHz.

The bottom line here was that I was able to greatly appreciate the music I was hearing this time around.

This room is a real stretch for me. I caught it at the very end of the show. There was no signage or literature and I was told this speaker was a prototype. As best I can figure out, this was the Timbre & Luces room and I'm here to tell you it sounded quite decent. The top three drivers were an open baffle design sheathed in red cloth. This seems like an interesting adaptation as the music sure had the signature of open baffle designs. The lower two drivers were obviously enclosed. The electronics were on a Pangea rack with cross braces on the sides and looked to be entry-level at best, though I could be wrong. The Timbreluces.com website describes the company as "an audio, lighting, and power products wholesaler, and repair service provider." It looks to me like they are branching out and I will certainly be keeping them on my radar.

Another room I caught at the very end of the show was High Water Sound to be found just above sea level in New York City. I burst into the room to find Jeff Catalano on his knees starting to pack things up. His Moto Guzzi t-shirt did not escape my eagle eye as we are both motorcycle and bicycle junkies as well as into vinyl. Jeff insisted on cueing up an LP for me as I poked around taking a few photos. The stylus barely entered the groove when I recognized the Rolling Stones and I knew Jeffrey was gunning for another Best Rooms Award.

By 30 seconds into the song, he had nailed it. So what was this weird rig he had assembled? Jeff is a real pro and without asking, he handed me a copy of the equipment list for the room. The top of the rack was a TW Acoustic LS 3-motor, copper platter turntable ($24k) with two TW Acoustic 12" tonearms ($6k, each). The cartridges were a Stein Music Aventurine 6 MC ($6500) and a Miyajima Infinity Mono ($3500). Sitting atop the LP was a Massif Audio Design Record Weight comprised of multiple layers of what were most likely various wood species ($1k). (Massif is also known for making very authentic-looking wood component racks.)

After that, naturally, was a TW Acoustic RPS-100 phono stage ($20k), a TW Acoustic RLS-100 line stage ($20k), and a pair of TW Acoustic SE300B monoblocks ($30k/pr.). The monoblocks featured Western Electric 300B tubes and the amps were designed to put out 6 Watts. TW is famous for its turntables, and since the line stage and monoblocks are not shown on their website, I expect this was a North American premiere. High Water Sound is the North American distributor for the line.

Cabling was by Stein Music, Furutech, and Harmonix Hijiri Million. The speaker with the Chrome plated horn atop a piano gloss block was Cessaro Horn Acoustics Opus One ($45k). It is not some strange open baffle design — the mirror finish is merely reflecting the components on the adjacent Codia Acoustic Design Stage 5000S racks ($9500 each). I'm a big fan of Codia racks, having reviewed a couple and highly praised the less expensive Stage 3000 Diagon for its elegant design which you can customize. The Stage 5000S is more conservative in its design but surely contributed to the outstanding resolution and transparency of this system. An expensive room that easily approached $200k, but wow! Another of the Best Rooms.

And with that, I'll call it a night and drop down to the 4th Floor tomorrow. Look for it in a few days.

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