Inside AXPONA 2025: Friday Highlights From The USA's Premier Audio Show
Beginning my deep dive into high-end audio gear at AXPONA 2025.
Audio Expo North America (AXPONA) 2025 Show Report By Chuck Bruce

  Friday morning crowd gathers for tickets at AXPONA 2025, which is expected to be big and fun this year! Overall, the sheer variety of music that I heard today at the AXPONA 2025 audiophile show was outstanding. Some of the playlists were very well-produced and assembled by the presenters. Sure there may be a glitch or two during the day, it's a show so these things happen.

Thankfully, we as an industry have become far better at integrating analog and digital to ensure great demos of the world's best home audio gear. Please let me say this again, a great compiling of music playlists at this year's AXPONA 2025 high-end audio show. The crowd was generous, and the music during the day was, overall, inspiring! While I'm looking forward to tomorrow, let's first get to the outstanding audiophile gear I heard today at AXPONA 2025.

Vinyl Sound room was showcasing a fine new pair of Wharfedale Elysian 4 speakers with AMT tweeter at ($10,995), the new enhanced HiFi Rose 150 with 4x processing and 2x RAM ($4995), and Rose integrated amp 200 Wpc into 8 Ohms ($6995). I spent a good bit of time in this room. Wharfedale is a truly legendary brand within British audio.

Studio Electric had it rockin' with their new M10 Statement multi-dynamic driver floorstander ($3,4950 per pair), with the electronics by Benchmark Media Systems featuring their DAC3 HGC digital-to-analog converter (DAC, $1899), Line preamp LA4 ($3499), AHB2 X3 100 Wpc ($3499) power amp. This room had a superlative soundstage and was emotionally involved (like it should be). That's the whole point, to enjoy the music!

Supreme Acoustic Systems was offering a first-rate presentation featuring a pair of ceramic driver-based Albedo tower loudspeakers from Italy. These are supported by a brace of Accustic Arts electronics featuring their tube preamp V ($39,990), A Compact Disc player / Hi-Res audio DAC III player. Outstanding dynamics from a 'mere' 60 Watt Class A solid-state amplifier. They had a Revox reel-to-reel that was incredible.

The AGD Productions was showcasing their compact, glass envelope encapsulated, solid-state, Gallium Nitride MOSFET pre and power gear with the Andante pre-DAC, streamer phono ($12,999) was making sweet music of a variety of styles. The AGD SOLO power amplifier was greatly enjoyed via the Florentine Model Arno 40 ($15,000). The room sounded remarkable; really good!

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