Third Floor Fantasies Of Hi-Fi Audio Gear
The continuing journey traveling through AXPONA 2025.
Audio Expo North America (AXPONA) 2025 Show Report By Rick Becker 

348  VPE Electrodynamics, Dayton Audio, Magnepan, NAGOAKA, Pass Laboratories, SB Acoustics, And Technics
The VPE Electrodynamics room was the kind of room I delight in discovering at shows. I walked in and was struck by one of those "What the hell is going on here?" presentations.  A lot of stuff I didn't recognize, and two sets of distinctly different speakers to throw me off balance. VPE is the manufacturer of the interesting wood open baffle speakers seen above. The Airfoil DSP Active Cardioid Loudspeaker is their new flagship, and it is supplemented with their Model 2 DSP Dipole Woofer in the large cube between the Airfoils. The Model 2 woofer is said to be fast enough to play with the larger Magnepan speakers as well as the Quad electrostatic speakers. If that's your game, you need to investigate this woofer further.

That was a Technics direct drive turntable on top of the rack. Next to it was a small rack for a handful of Nagoaka MM cartridges pre-mounted on headshells for quick changes of the different models. On my timetable, I couldn't stick around for a demo, but there seems to be a buzz about these affordable cartridges. I covered the silent display of Nagoaka cartridges on the 11th Floor earlier in my report.

Below the turntable was a CD player, a Danville Signal MiniDSP unit, and the new Pass Labs XP 12 preamplifier. The next item down still baffles me, but below it was a pair of Pass XA-25 power amps, so I suspect they were bi-amping the Airfoil speakers with them.

The other speakers were Magnepan 1.7 electrostatic speakers with a couple of significant mods. Looking down from behind one, to the right on the floor, was an ArgentPur Class D monoblock that was driving the Magnepan. The line-level signal in the lighter blue cable was first fed to the amplifier/DSP unit mounted on top of the VPE Little Dipole Woofer and looped through to the ArgentPur. The Little Dipole Woofer is designed to fire out beneath smaller Magnepan models as well as fire toward the front wall. Again, if this is your game, you need to check out VPE Electrodynamics.

What makes the VPE Little Dipole Woofer feasible is the special speaker feet from Magna Risers, which raise the speaker high enough for the large 'port' of the dipole woofer unit. The driver of the Little Dipole Woofer fires toward the front wall behind the speaker, but the opposite side of the enclosure is an open port, firing toward the listener. All very clever. Magna Risers offers several different styles as well as different colors. Installation was said to be easy. That's Robert Raus of Magna Risers, who also works closely with the principals of VPE to voice their bass products.

354  Danville Signal Processing
Several years ago, I met Wendell Diller, who was nearing the end of a long career with Magnepan. He presented an unusual triangular open baffle woofer design featuring a large number of small 6" woofers whose top end stretched unfiltered into the midrange, blending superbly with a pair of Magnepan LRS planar speakers. He requested I stop into the Danville Signal room for a private audition of his latest endeavors.

Wendell is no longer with Magnepan, but he is collaborating with Danville Signal to develop the DSP-controlled open baffle woofer to use with Magnepans. One possibility is to offer the speaker in kit form as a design to be used with the Danville-developed DSP/amplifier unit. The subwoofers shown here had marble sides, which would add to the cost, but they looked more elegant than alternatives made from wood. My first visit to this room was brief, but I was invited back for a more technical discussion and demonstration near the end of the show. I will get to that in the final Part of my report.

360  Bandwidth Audio, Tannoy, And VPI Industries
Bandwidth Audio out of Austin, Texas, was another new company to me. They featured an efficient TannoyTurnberry speaker driven by their tube amplifiers. As I recall, there was a lot of discussion going on here, and I didn't get a chance to hear any music.

That was a VPI turntable fitted with a Soundsmith Zephyr cartridge on top with a Bandwidth Aurora One preamplifier ($5k) below it and a Kaskode One tube phono stage ($5900) further below. They sell factory-direct.

While the preamp and phono stage have a rather clinical laboratory look, the 2845 monoblocks ($27k) with 845 tubes, putting out 50 Wpc, were aesthetically warmed up with elegant wood side panels. All their products looked very well constructed.

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