The Only Complete Coverage Of Cutting-Edge Audio At AXPONA 2025
Rick's first floor coverage features top-level audiophile gear & innovations!
Audio Expo North America (AXPONA) 2025 Show Report By Rick Becker 

Adventure Suites
Audio Technica
I owe Audio Technica an apology. I've visited the small Adventure Suites at past shows. They are really just little offices off an interior hallway accessed off the wall leading to the Expo Hall. This wall also has the entrance to the Men's Bathroom, so I might have been distracted. Anyhow, I'll try and catch up on Audio Technica headphones and phono cartridges, and whatever else might be new from them at Capital Audiofest 2025 in November.

Journey Creation Complex
Synergistic Research, Magico LLC, McIntosh Laboratory, And Scott Walker Audio
The Journey Creation Complex is also a suite of offices on the right-hand wall just before you enter the Expo Hall. Ted Denney erected a large illuminated sign just outside the door to attract attention and planted red velvet rope on stanchions to control the crowd, just in case. This being late on Sunday afternoon, I just walked right in.

Ted escorted me right to the inner listening room, where a highly qualified associate was conducting listening demonstrations with their unique products. I've raved about the importance of such demonstrations with cables, and Synergistic is one of the top cable manufacturers in the world, but they go way beyond just cables. I've reviewed numerous products, including cables and various versions of their footers, fuses, and even the infamous Vibratron are staples in my rig.

Having kept my pace on Sunday, I had more time than usual to sit through a series of demonstrations to report on here at Enjoy the Music.com, with and without various products. Without my usual time constraints, I found it not just more relaxing, but I was able to assess the differences more effectively. Of course, having reviewed some of these products at home before, I knew what to listen for, and having the luxury of a very high-quality rig here made the differences stand out even more.

Notable were the Synergistic Research flagship cables, flagship power conditioner, flagship grounding system, and their excellent Voodoo server ($15k, bundled with a power cord, Master fuse, and isolation footers). The shelves on the Synergistic racks were their Tranquility Carbon Bases, each grounded. And the Estelon speakers from Estonia are highly acclaimed, too.

I sat through demonstrations (with, without, and with again) of the Vibratron (the chrome and brass ‘space needle' in front of the racks), the Black Box (there were four of them—two stacked in front of the rack and one in each back corner), the FEQ Carbon (short tower on top of the racks), the complete ground system, and the HFT Speaker Kit Mk II (little doobies stuck on the speakers). Each demonstration left a very favorable impression on me, doing what it was supposed to do, whether it was improving resolution, creating a better sense of space, lowering the noise floor, or taming and tightening the bass. The prices vary widely, from a few hundred dollars on up, but you can start small and work your way up, as they all contribute and work together—synergistically, as they say. And they all produce improvements that would cost much more if you were to achieve them by spending big bucks for more expensive components, if you could achieve them at all. This was time very well spent.

The outer office is used for static display of Synergistic Research products, and there were many. Ted pointed out the newest power conditioner, which I immediately mistook for the PowerCell 14 that I had recently reviewed.  But no, this was the new SRX PowerCell 14. A closer look revealed the more massive PowerCells from the flagship model inside, and I was told the SRX 14 uses pure silver wiring, plus other refinements you can explore on their website. It is priced at $32k, but includes a $13k SRX XL AC Cable. Compared to the flagship SRX PowerCell, which is essentially two of these power conditioners in one at $65k, the SRX PowerCell 14 should make a lot of sense for most ultimate-level systems, or even those striving to reach that level.

Expo Hall And Food Court
The Expo Hall is even bigger than the Ear Gear Experience and contains an amalgam of products, some of which are available for purchase over the counter, as well as large LP vendors. I walked through the entire room, taking photos of most booths, and stopping for closer examination at a few.

AIM Cables were a new brand to me.

Holm Audio also had rooms 715,716, and 719 on the 7th floor.

I saw several rooms using Puritan power conditioners at the show. Here, they could demonstrate their effectiveness.

The Isonic folks are at both Axpona and Capital, and probably most shows in the US. Their office is in Chicago, and they produce cavitation cleaning devices for other uses as well. Their website warns of increased prices to come.

Silent Angel is another brand I've seen in rooms here and at the Canadian shows. Their products for streaming are modest in size and not easily spotted in a rack.

ViaBlue, from Germany, has been making inroads in North America in recent years; RBH speakers have been around for quite a while. I don't know the connection here.

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