Axpona

I agree with Ohlala that the Bricasti room was impressive. For me the system I would taken home was in the Mofi.com room, Quad/BAT, though the MBL room was a close second.

My daughter ended up sitting next to a TAS rep in the Magico room (4th floor I think) and after the demo she said his notes were something to the effect of "dynamic but lacking emotion". I just thought it was an odd track for a demo, three piece jazz but all very closely mic'd so the while the instrumentation was lively the mix was somewhat unnatural.

The Esoteric room was awful, in my humble opinion. To the point that I wondered if the left La Sphere speaker had a blown tweeter or something. It shrieked at me most unpleasantly. And I like a forward high end.

The Sadurni horns were cool, but I didn't get an extremely satisfying answer from the rep about why they chose to pair them with Merrill mono blocks. Something to the effect of "while these are 108Db efficient and could run on flea watts we chose to run them with these 400W Veritas...". IDK, seemed odd.

In the Scaena room there was a Crown amp peeking out from under the curtain in the back of the room. The rep confirmed that it was running the subs. So put it out in the open! Don't be ashamed of your Crown amp!

Kudos to the guys in the Benchmark room for just being super cool and fun to talk to.

Csmgolf,
Muraudio room was probably the best of the show for me.
I was amazed by the Janszen dynamics. I requested to play the bookshelf model and was amazed by their sound stage and scale. Another good room was the Lahave audio with their new model that retailed for $11k. Single driver and highly efficient. I was amazed at how low they went down. I was told that it was flat to 30Hz, but I thought I was hearing lower than that.
I thought that the Signature SEs were playing in Legacy's big room. But it was the Studio HDs. Amazing. They then played the Signature SEs and it seems a very nice speaker. Easy on the ears and rhythmic.
Another speaker that simply amazed me were the Lawrence Audio's Double Bass speakers. The realism and transparency were second to none. These were playing with Jeff Rowland electronics and a custom preamp. They sounded fabulous. In the next room the Lawrence Violins were playing. But they did not sound anywhere close to the Double Bass.
Sony's speaker at the Hegel+Nordost demo room were another speakers that took me by surprise. I had read that the $27K were very nice. But these $10k speakers were very good indeed. They were playing Phoebe Killdeer He's Late song while demoing Nordost products. The system sounded awesome.
Another awesome and unaffordable system that I wanted to hear was Polymer system. And now I know why they are so nice.
Tidal speakers were used in various rooms and the one with Bricasti audio, sounded very good indeed.
Honestly the Vandersteen Treos were a bit of disappointment for me. I was so hoping to like them.
AudioKinesis was the first room I entered since I was looking up to hear them so much. An older Jazz was playing when I entered the room. It sounded pretty good with image and body. Then folks requested something digital and more modern. So Brian switched to Steely Dan Gaucho in DSD 64. For some reason that sounded rolled off. The gentleman next to me was looking at me to make sure that he was not having hearing issues. But I acknowledged the same. Maybe the system was not warmed up yet. I went back to the room later in the evening. And this time the highs seem to be in place with enough weight to the system.
I did visit the Scansonic room. But they said they would not be playing the speakers standing silently in the corners. The Raidhos were nice. But so are the Buggatis in the world.
Wanted to listen to Endeavor E-3, but the E-5 were paying. But the sound was good.
KEFs gave a very nice demo with Parasound electronics. I was impressed by the LS50. They were in a big square room and this speaker were pulled so far from the rear wall. But the bass was quite convincing. Of course when they switched to the Blade 2 it showed all the weakness of the LS50. The only weakness it had was the "life size" staging and bass response. And yes, the resolution of Blades was in a totally different territory.
I can go on and on. But let stop it here.

I find it hard to believe that nobody liked the Magico Q7 and M project.

I enjoyed the MBL room (as I did 2 years ago) but the big surprise for me was the Lawrence Audio/Rowland room. Excellent speakers from Taiwan.

I spent too much time in the Ear Gear room and did not go to the 12th floor. Looks like I did not miss much based on the comments here. I was impressed with the MrSpeakers Ether headphones. A great way to test out all the latest headphones.

I agree with much that has been said. I enjoyed speakers from Raidho, MBL, HHR Exotics, and Kaiser Acoustics as much as any others.

I liked the Magico M Project speakers in a small room more than the big room setup. The Q7's were highly detailed, but not moving me. I think part of it was the music selection I heard while there. I felt like I was almost listening to sound effects tracks at times.

My favorite speakers from the more budget-friendly priced options were from Odyssey, Emerald Physics, and Tyler Acoustics.