Some Axpona thoughts

Raks, maybe they were not broken in. I remember listening to the silver pair saturday an loving it. Not as enjoyable Friday but still liked them. Take my memory with a grain of salt. I do not remember the speaker color Friday, probably black. I also loved the Crescendos as well. It was fun that Robert Lee rountinely asked the audience if they liked the them. That room's sound may have benefited from him being there to place the speakers. Dynaudio C2s sounded good, but there was too much room resonance.

I stuck around the Volti room as they're dynamic sound was a nice contrast to other rooms, and the best horns I heard at the show. A little shouty, still.

Hi Charles, sorry for the late reply. I didn’t spend enough time in the Volti room to give your questions the type of answers they deserve. I was only at the show for one day and was determined to pop into every room. That said, I can’t imagine anyone actually using these speakers in a room like the one where they were being exhibited. Still, I thought that they did a creditable job of soundstaging without being a too obvious source. I had no issue with their tone. I don’t recall what amp they were using. I know you’re looking for more and I wish I could oblige. Maybe the best thing I can tell you is that these are the kind of speakers that can make you forget why you walked in the room. It was that much fun listening to the music.

There were quite a few rooms with good sound in them. I liked both of the Volti rooms. The Sony's were very good. All of the MBL's sounded great. I heard a demo of the large ones with a master reel to reel tape and it was absolutely stunning. I've never heard anything like it. As usual, Audio Note sounded good. Others included in no particular order, but not limited to, Scaena, YG Carmel, Dynaudio C1, Joseph Audio Pulsar, the new model from Tyler (I liked them better than any of his previous speakers I've heard/owned), Vapor Audio Cirrus and Stiff Breeze (Stiff Breeze are an awesome speaker at <$1900 a pair), everything I heard in the Selah and Salk rooms, and the speakers from Waterfall Audio. The Seaton Sound room was good as well and are a fine value considering that they are triamped using onboard amps.

I have to disagree about the Legacy Aeris. I have owned probably ten pairs of Legacy speakers over the years and still own a set. I went to that room on four different occasions expecting to be wowed and was disappointed every time. The tweeters were hot and there was a resonance in the lower midrange. Those issues should have been able to be resolved with the room correction processor they use. I wanted very much to like them and quite honestly, didn't. Also, they are 17k, not 12k.

I am not a huge fan of panel speakers, but thought the King Sound King (12k)were outstanding, amongst the very best of the show irrespective of price. I am sure there are others I have missed, but overall most of the sound was pretty decent considering the circumstances.

I also thought the King Sound room was pretty impressive with the depth of the sound stage being on one of the runways at O’Hare. I also felt the SoundSmith Dragonfly speakers were pretty amazing for the price.

My favorite room at the show was Legacy, there were some other good ones as well- the TADS did indeed sound good. So did the Sonus Faber with dual stacked subs with Audio Research electronics.

Whisper XD had the best imaging at the show with King Sound a close second. Neither system left any sign that the sound was coming from a speaker. A lot of other rooms sounded kind of diminutive by comparison. I still haven't found a speaker that out images the Whisper XD.

The Legacy Aeris was really dynamic and open with lots of punch. I would like to have heard them with the Ayon player they used on the Whispers. The Coda amps they used are a real bargain IMHO. Funny you don't read much about Coda.

All in all, a great show, I hope they do it again.