AXPONA 2025 Show Report: Exclusive 11th Floor Innovations And Highlights
Rick reveals high-end audio innovations and audiophile trends.
Audio Expo North America (AXPONA) 2025 Show Report By Rick Becker 

1114 Master Artist Audio, Accuphase, And Transrotor
This expensive room was an unusual combination of manufacturers, with Burmester from Germany providing the analog and digital front ends. The latter seems to have been a CD player plus a streamer with Qobuz showing on the screen. (Transrotor turntables were not present.) The amplification was from Accuphase Laboratory in Japan. The component on the floor at the right of the rack was a power conditioner — something that doesn't come to mind when thinking of Accuphase.

The unusual speaker from Master Artist Audio in Memphis, Tennessee, was new to me and featured a RAAL ribbon tweeter, Accuton midrange, and woofers in a two-box form reminiscent of the Wilson Watt/Puppy and scores of others. The speaker incorporates IsoAcoustics feet and Kimber Kable internally. The banner in the room illustrated the complex internal construction of the speaker.

1117 RBH Sound
I didn't find much information on the more affordable RBH Sound speakers. The room was certainly colorful, though. That was an Eversolo digital front end on top of the rack, and I recognized a Synergistic Research Atmosphere FEQ Carbon acoustic field generator standing before it. Cables were from ViaBlue in Germany.

1118 Kimber Kable, Grandinote, WattGate, And WBT
Max Magri from Italy was in town with his speakers and relatively new and more powerful Solo integrated amp ($22.5k), which has been favorably reviewed. The Proemio ($10.8k) is one of four preamplifiers from Grandinote. The music was sweet with Kimber Kables used in this rig.

1122 Kanto Audio
Kanto Audio presented their wide range of desktop and small monitor speakers…and even two small subwoofers on the floor. Color was coupled with sound quality for this lifestyle product that fills a sizeable niche in the audio world. The seats were full here, so I grabbed an over-the-shoulder photo and moved on.

1125 Songer Audio And Innuos
I had mistakenly missed Ken Songer at Capital Audiofest, so I was glad to catch up with him at Axpona. His efficient field-coil single-driver S1x speakers ($45k) were driven by his beautiful A3 300B SET amp ($29.5k), seen here. The power supplies for the field-coil drivers were on the floor beneath each small equipment rack. Ken also makes the S2x speaker ($65k), an open baffle dipole design I prefer to the S1x, but it is significantly more expensive.

The LampizatOr Atlantic TRP DAC seen here starts at $7,325, but I expect this one is a good bit more with the volume knob, remote control, LCD screen, and probably a line input and balanced outputs like my Amber 4 model. I can't believe how much more sound quality has emerged from my DAC with the addition of numerous system enhancers since I first reviewed it. But that's another story.

1126 Mon Acoustic, Accuphase, Reed, And Grimm Audio
Mon Acoustic, the speaker manufacturer from South Korea, assembled a four-component rig from four different manufacturers and made it work exceedingly well. Their speaker is a two-module design, coupled with ball bearings that give it isolation like Symposium Acoustics rollerball footers. The overall appearance is not unlike some YG Acoustics speakers, though the lines are not as finely drawn because the top module is a stand-mounted speaker in its own right.

That's an Accuphase E-800S integrated amp out front, a Grimm MU2 streamer/DAC in the right-hand cubby, and a massive Reed Muse 3A turntable in a color you can't miss if you're not colorblind.

I didn't notice it at the time, but the photo reveals the cantilevered architecture of the primary tonearm. I wish I had stayed long enough to see them change an LP to get a better look at the platter. It looks unbelievably thin, although I've used a Soundeck mat as a platter on my old Linn with great results. But I digress.

Reed is based in Lithuania, but has an Italian web address? They recently introduced an optical cartridge, phono equalizer, and a power supply for it, but I didn't see them at the show.

Off to the side of the room were three pairs of small Mon monitors, the smallest of which looked very much like my Lafayette Radio monitors from the 1970s, except for the air motion tweeter.

---> Next Page.