AXPONA 2022 Show Report
Final Update Featuring The First Floor
Audio Expo North America 2022 Show Report
Show Report By Rick Becker

  With an hour left, I went back to the hotel to find a few rooms I had missed and a couple I wanted to visit again. I incorporated most of these stops into my coverage of the individual floors. As you can see above, there were not many people around late in the afternoon as even the presenters were preparing for the tear-down at closing time.

One of the rooms I stumbled upon in my sweep was sponsored by On a Higher Note. Philip O'Hanlon was nowhere in sight, but I snapped a photo of the eye-catching red Bergmann turntable with the linear tracking arm that I had seen in Montreal and made note of the Moonriver Audio model 404 integrated amplifier that was also there. The integrated amp comes in standard and Reference models and optional phono stages and a DAC can be plugged in if needed. I love the vintage look that gives it personality, suggests quality, and hints at wealth. It would be hand-in-glove in traditional décor — something that most of the high-end manufacturers pretty much ignore.

Surprisingly, it comes from Sweden where you'd expect to find Scandinavian modern styling. The speakers were from Graham Audio in Great Britain, who makes BBC licensed speakers as well as a couple of floor standers. The speakers are also very traditional — no curved sides, and designed to be used on stands, making them a stylistic fit with the Moonriver. Once again, I'll have to promise to catch up with Philip at the next show and have a serious listen.

Another room I missed on the first go-around, probably because I passed it at the very end of the day, was room 574 hosted by Refined Audio, a company that seems to fly under the radar. Their website gives no address and they carry minimal brands. The room is listed to someone with a Forest Park, IL address which puts them about nine miles straight west of the Loop in Chicago. The rig looks very similar to one I had seen at Capital AudioFest in November 2021.

The speakers were the Cube Audio NenupharBASiS ($26.9k) with a full-range driver on top supplemented with a side-firing woofer in the separate bass module. The analog front end was a TW Acoustic Raven turntable with a pair of tonearms, similar to what I had seen in the High Water Sound room just down the hall. A Pass Labs XP-27 phono stage followed, as did a Pass Labs XP-32 preamp. There was a copper-top LampizatOr DAC on the floor, but I didn't notice a source for it.

The mystery component here was a rare Nelson Pass stereo amp to the right of the rack. Power was built up by using hundreds, if not a couple of thousand jFET transistors. (It must have been a slow week at the shop.) Once again I spotted the Silversmith foil speaker cables that I had seen at the Capital show, as well as other very good-sounding rooms here at AXPONA. Time was running out so I couldn't stay to get a good listen here but I remember the similar room sounding quite good at the Capital show.

As boxes of equipment started to drift out of the rooms I left the hotel and found a quiet spot on a grassy knoll. Little did I know I was coming down with Covid, but I was grateful that I didn't have to drive back to Rochester that night.

Monday I hit the road after a good night's sleep. I paraphrased Leonard Cohen at the beginning of this chronicle with the words "First we take Chicago." On the way home, the next line became "Then we take Cleveland" as I rolled up to the Rock Hall under a light rain at closing. I found out what I needed to know from the guard and headed for home, still asymptomatic.

I slept in the car in my driveway so as not to interface with my wife who was heading out to Kansas City in the morning. Fortunately, she dodged Covid and Axpona did not become a turning point in either of our lives. For the next two weeks, my brain was in a fog. Thanks for hanging in with me this long. Hope you found something useful or entertaining in this chronicle.

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