The AXPONA 2023 Chronicles: Part 7
Many very exciting 6th floor sound systems at AXPONA.
Audio Expo North America 2023 Show Report By Rick Becker

Audio Craftsmen
Audio Craftsmen is a new company from Canada and I'm surprised I didn't see these speakers in Montreal. Perhaps I'll catch up with them again at the Toronto show in the fall. The Victoria, on the left, was $6k and the Halifax floorstander on the right was $11k.

Next time I see them I will be more inquisitive about the unusual protective bars suspended in front of the tweeter from a plate sitting on top of the cabinet.

Volti Audio, Border Patrol Audio Electronics, And Triode Wire Labs
The obvious change in this familiar room was the use of color wood stains on the Volti Audio Razz Limited Edition speaker. It comes in Crimson Red, Deep Blue, Sage Green (as shown), and Drift Gray Oak, as well as all the original wood stains. Greg has a nice grill in the front port to keep small pets out of the speaker, but the raw wood on the port and also visible inside the speaker should be blacked out to give it a more finished look, even at the reasonable price of $6500. Otherwise, this is a kick-ass, high-efficiency, worthy-of-note speaker, particularly for low-power tube amp fans.

On the top edge of the very handsome Border Patrol S20EXD tube amp the unstained top edge of the wood chassis becomes an integral design element. On the speaker, not so much. The amp, with parallel 300B tubes puts out 16 Wpc and was fitted with an optional volume control and Western Electric tubes ($22,290, as shown).

I took a closer look at the Triode Lab cable prices on the spec sheet and found them to be very reasonably priced. They used the $1499 "The Obsession" power cord on the amplifier and a $499 "Digital American" power cord on the DAC below and the Innuos ZENith music server and Innuos Phoenix reclocker. Speaker cables were $699 and RCA interconnects started at $399.

The Border Patrol DAC SE-i with no oversampling or filtering and a resistor ladder R2R DAC caught my eye again this year with its tube/solid-state hybrid choke input filter power supply and copper casework ($1525 to $1995, depending on inputs). It plays files only up to 24-bit/96kHz, however.

Linear Tube Audio, ANTICABLES, And PureAudioProject
Next door down, just at the corner was another good-sounding real-world working man's rig.

An LTA Ultralinear+ integrated amp ($7650) was fed from an Innuos server and music was pouring out of PureAudioProject's entry-level Duet15 Prelude open baffle speaker ($6490). The upper driver was a full-range driver that was supplemented with just a single 15" woofer in this model. That was a prototype DAC on the second shelf without a chassis and likely a power supply for the DAC on the bottom shelf. Look for its release in the fall. It looked like there were special footers under the amp and DAC and I noticed separate inputs for high and low-impedance headphones on the lower right corner of the amp. Cabling was by ANTICABLES with a $215 USB Level 3.3 cable, $900 XLR Level 5.3 interconnects, $640 FLEX Level 4.2 speaker cables, and $330 Level 3 power cords — all very reasonably priced.

Linear Tube Audio And Fern & Roby Audio
The sound and the equipment became more sophisticated in the next room with Fern & Roby combining their speakers with full-range drivers and turntable with an identically priced LTA Z40 integrated amp ($7650) sporting four tubes protruding through the top of the chassis as well as a headphone amplifier. (It uses KT77 or EL34 tubes so you don't have to patronize Russian tube makers.)

The short Raven II speaker ($6750) was tilted back to aim the driver closer to the ear level in the small room. I suspect they did this even with the taller Raven III speaker ($8500) that others might have heard. This was a sound with sufficient bandwidth and smoothness that could be listened to all evening without irritation or becoming tired. Music was coming through a Roon Nucleus+ ($2959 w/2TB SSD) to a Roon Ready Weiss DAC501 with headphone output ($9645) to the left of the amplifier.

With Fern & Roby's expertise in both metal and woodworking, the stand seen here was also fabricated by them. They offer custom sizes as well. The one seen here was 48" wide by 22" deep and cost $6500.

Cabling was by Black Cat Cable including Graceline LI XLR interconnects at $1795,  Graceline I three-meter speaker cables at $2695, and PC-1 power cords at $1495.

The F&R Montrose Heirloom turntable with its cast iron plinth, 30 lb. brass platter, and Schroder CB tonearm ($14.5k) was a blend of 19th and 20th-century materials and technology that exuded a sense of quality and design that is unique in audio today. Note the bubble level set into the plinth. And also note the white platter mat is not undersized. It is the platter that is oversized to increase the speed stability. Of course, the built-in computer speed control helps, too. An LTA internal phono stage with a moving coil (MC) step-up transformer was an additional $1500.

Ah-ha! Here were the footers I was seeing under the gear in this and the previous room! And to the right were a couple of the brass 630 g. LP weights were offered at a show price of just $100. The footers were $100 off on a set of four during the show. It looked like they were out of the drink coasters with line drawings of popular vacuum tubes. The coasters have been on my Great Audiophile Gifts list in the past.

Coming Up Next....
That wraps up the 6th Floor. Part 8 with coverage of the 5th Floor will miraculously appear early next week if I don't get dragged out of the office for too much Mother's Day activity. As always... enjoy the music!

---> Onward to the next part of Rick Becker's extensive AXPONA 2023 show coverage.

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