Article: AXPONA 2018 Show Report

[The Computer Audiophile]

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[Bones13]

The Avantgarde system was the best I heard, from the hallway!

 

actually my favorites were the Vinnie Rossi room, with the Harbeths, and the Salk Song 3a speakers with Schiit gear. I got to listen to the 55K Sennheiser Orpheus, and liked them. I also think I might like the MrSpeakers Voce a bit more than my SR009s.

[Nordkapp]

8 minutes ago, Bones13 said:

55K Sennheiser Orpheus, and liked them. I also think I might like the MrSpeakers Voce a bit more than my SR009s.

Ok. The Sennheiser Orpheus vs the Voce hooked up to a Blue Hawaii. Which would you take? 

[austinpop]

Hi Chris @The Computer Audiophile,

 

AXPONA was both great AND awful.  

 

The great part was meeting people, especially fellow CA'ers. You and I crossed paths more times than I could remember (quit following me!) For those who weren't there, Chris was sporting a jaunty orange beret. Very sharp! I couldn't make the happy hour on Saturday, but enjoyed our impromptu bar meetup with Larry @lmitche and Chris @Forehaven. Finally, @Johnseye who is local, hosted Larry, Chris, and myself for an entertaining equipment comparison session - reported here.

 

It was also great to meet manufacturers, especially designers, and chat about their current products, their designs, and their future plans.

 

Now for the awful: the SQ level in general was just atrocious. I thought RMAF last October had far better-sounding rooms. I also disagree with you about the venue. I just found it confusing, and very haphazard. Here's one example. In RMAF, the Nagra room with their HD preamp and amp driving Wilson Alexia 2 sounded amazing. At AXPONA, that same stack, driving Kharma speakers, and using a Nagra digital source, sounded really harsh and boomy. I could not believe the difference. There were only a handful of rooms that I enjoyed.

 

Here are the few systems that stood out to me as sounding great:

• PS Audio mid-priced setup, using their Stellar line, and Goldenear Triton Reference. Surprising lack of glare and very smooth. Used their new P12 (P5 followon) regenerator
• Chord room with Raidho speakers
• Quintessence Audio (local dealer) had 2 excellent rooms:
  • Audio Research Ref 6/Ref 160 driving Wilson Alexia 2
  • Audio Research Ref 10/Ref 750SE driving Sonus Faber Aïda
• Western Electric electronics driving Gauder speakers
• Rethm Bhaava speakers (under $5k) driven by Audio Hungary (?) electronics with Innuos Zenith SE source. Very impressive speakers at this price point.
• Vinnie Rossi electronics driving Harbeth 40.2. This was possibly my favorite room of the show.
• Really enjoyed the quiet room with the Sennheiser HE-1 $60k headphone system. Finally, a headphone that bests my HD-800S in every possible way. If this were a CanJam, there'd be a line or signup for this setup.

Overall, while it was my intent to do more listening, I found I could barely scratch the surface, as a lot of my time got taken in connecting with people. Don't get me wrong - I think that is the primary point of these shows for me!

[austinpop]

38 minutes ago, Nordkapp said:

Ok. The Sennheiser Orpheus vs the Voce hooked up to a Blue Hawaii. Which would you take? 

 

Not even in the same zip code. The Sennheiser by a mile!

[Johnseye]

8 minutes ago, austinpop said:

 

• Quintessence Audio (local dealer) had 2 excellent rooms:
  • Audio Research Ref 6/Ref 160 driving Wilson Alexia 2
  • Audio Research Ref 10/Ref 750SE driving Sonus Faber Aïda

 

 

Mick, the owner of Quintessence is a great guy.  He sold me my ARC LS-28, came over to my house then helped me rake and tilt my speakers.

 

Did anyone get the opportunity to hear the Classic Audio speakers with Atma-Sphere amps?  They were in one of the larger rooms, not in the tower rooms.  Very natural sounding.  It sounded like a concert in there.  I was impressed.

[Bones13]

Hmm, I think I’d say the Voce system. While the Orpheus is that near perfect blend of refined, and defined, the Voce comes with pads to tune the headphones to your taste, or to “improve” recordings which are troublesome. My SR-009s are a bit more detailed (perhaps overly so) than the Voce, but there were better tubes on the BHSE at the show. I really need to dust off my SED Winged C quad and get them setup on my BHSE, I am still running the original tubes.

Another advantage is that you pick from several cans for the BHSE. I would be happy to try out the new Senn stat if it ever comes separate and works on the old Senn bias and plug.

 

Another nice part of the Voce cans are the removable cables, round at that. 

 

At the level of those systems, it’s a lot about personal musical tastes, and to some degree, the physical element of the system. Marble plinth vs Justin’s custom enclosures. Elevating tubes vs the EL34s on top.

 

All in all there is not a lot of improvement for the extra $45K. Really, really good, yet expensive gear vs. unobtainable truly statement piece of audio art. While I might not turn down a free Orpheus, I feel no need to try and upgrade.

[Nordkapp]

I've never heard either set up, but like you say the difference in price really would likely be the deciding factor for me. 

[austinpop]

Oh, I forgot one more - the Gingko Audio room, where they were A/B comparing 2 of the Denafrips DACs. 

 

Based on this demo, I'm quite intrigued by the Denafrips Terminator DAC.

[austinpop]

Wait - you said "Which would you take?" Not - "Which would you buy?"  Important difference.  

 

I have to say, the Voce with Blue Hawaii did nothing for me. I liked the SR009 with Woo amp (?) in the next little alcove a lot better. But that's just me.

[Nordkapp]

Your are right @austinpop. Got me. Yeah, that SR009/WOO combo is a top flight contender. I need more money!!

[Derek Hughes]

Hey Chris, good to meet you, really enjoyed the chat in the bar, especially the 2 "free" double G&T's courtesy of our friend from Manhattan.

Here's a 1 pager about my visit which I posted to our club's facebook page  Far too many photos to include here.

 

Just a couple of comments. It was great fun, I'll be going back and probably go to RMAF in October and maybe to Munich next year. I met many wonderful folks in the listening rooms and, of course, in the bars.

There were 3 major highlights amongst many.

On the low end was a $3k REAL wireless system from Aurender. During the presentation the host passed a dongle to attach to my iPhone and play my music (they use a proprietary wireless technology). It was so easy. The are battery powered and contain a DAC and active amp in each speaker. The batteries last for 50 hours but only cost about $150 each so having spares is not a big deal. Here's a link to their site.

http://www.aurender.com/page/premiumaudio

 

At the VERY high end there were several stunning systems displayed in large conference rooms as well as a couple for Home Theatre. I wasn't there for Home Theatre so spent minimal time on them. Take a look at the photos to see some of these systems but my favorite moment was walking into the Classic Audio Speakers display. They were in the middle of Moby Dick by Led Zeppelin playing on a reel to reel. It took me right back to when I saw Zep in 1971...nah, not really, my memory is not that good. But, the sound was astonishing. They were using their T-1.5 reference speakers, yours for a mere $72k a pair.

 

At the mid point I had a great time with the new Gayle Sanders “system”.

I took a selphy with Gayle who, I'm sure most of you know, was THE man at Martin Logan for many years. He's come out of retirement to introduce this new product

http://eikonaudio.com/

This was introduced at the AXPONA show and those of us with “Gold” tickets were able to go to a private showing. They had 2 rooms with the speakers positioned differently in both rooms. No point in me trying to describe the technology, take a look at the website. However, it was my favorite time of the 3 days, even including the 2 free G&T's I got from the computer audiophile guys.

 

[Chris_B]

Did anyone listen to the Spatial Audio X2’s?

[rando]

Little bit of marketing trivia.

 

1.  Identify this car and tell me why it is relevant to the product.

 

 

2.  Chris was enthralled it worked in a hall and near a wall inside a hotel room no better than a stall.  Explain to me how feasible a scenario we are taking in below.

 

 

Honestly a bit amazed at a full sized powered speaker system solutions ability to resolve complex multi-room limitations.  Don't think I'm taking too hard a look at their composite images.  You can learn a lot by examining the language exuded by design and layout if you remove the barrier locking them into cohesive thought.  Quite sure many of you much closer to their target audience will see widely more interesting notions than myself.

[rgbyhkr]

The Eikon's have caught my eye as I'm converting a former small kids' playroom to a mancave and have been looking into speakers for a 2-channel solution.  Based on @The Computer Audiophile' writeup, some additional info from @Derek Hughes, Google searches for additional show reports as well as a thread on these over at the ML owners forum, I've put a few things together:

 

- I'm waiting for a response for an inquiry I submitted to Eikon, but as of now what it looks like is that the the Eikontrol box is a straight up Bohmer Wavelet.  I'm curious if Eikon worked with Bohmer to add any additional special sauce or just stuck with their turnkey solution (http://bohmeraudio.com/J345/index.php/2-uncategorised/15-products-turnkey).  I wonder if the production version will be in a different looking chassis than what was shown at Axpona, somewhat as suggested by Eikon's video Chris linked to above, but the internals exactly the same.

 

- My gut guess is that Gayle decided to build a speaker that was made to pair with and therefore capitalize on Bohmer's Wavelet, thus offering consumers a ready made active speaker solution that includes stellar Room EQ.  That makes sense to do instead of spending years and gobs of R&D cash to develop your own Room EQ solution.  That would really make sense if Gayle's target is for a more boutique company and not a huge new brand.  He can still sell and tout the benefits of the whole system even if the digital domain smarts aren't his own company's IP.  

 

- Unless there are more surprises to come in the shipping version, it's useful to point out that unlike some other active speaker solutions with network connectivity, the system doesn't include any built in streaming sources and it's not a Roon Endpoint.  All sources are BYO, which is personally fine by me.  Sure, it's nice to have a single app interface that affords content selection as well as master volume control, but I can live with that "limitation" as I prefer existing source interfaces from Roon and Sonos anyway.

 

- This turnkey and separate box route for the digital components can be seen as both positive and negative.  For one thing, upgradeability should be easier than upgrading the speaker chassis units themselves.  Since the digital processing components are the ones we'd expect to more likely need hardware upgrades over the short to medium term vs the amp section, this is a benefit.  And who knows?  If Eikon is successful enough, maybe they work with Bohmer to create a more customized version of the Wavelet that could be upgraded to down the road.  

 

The downside is that you have to worry about the health and future of 2 companies, instead of just one.  An important item of note is that the Wavelet sends data collected from in room measurement's to Bohmer's server for processing and then the results sent back to the Wavelet.  From a review from Secrets of Home Theater and High Fidelity from last year:

 

"The resulting data obtained from measuring the Wavelet’s internally generated tones are uploaded, via your home network, to a dedicated processing server. The server crunches the data, which you can monitor real-time via the web browser on your computer or smartphone, with the final calculations being communicated back to the Wavelet itself."

 

I saw mention in a Legacy Audio forum that this process may be a little annoying ("Connecting to a server in another country is a pain in the *bleep*, as well as other UI issues, but they've done an incredible job at Bohmer.").  This makes Bohmer's health and ongoing support for the product pretty darned important.   The update question is also a fair one.  Since it's Bohmer's product, how much influence do they have over the timeline of such updates?  How responsive can/will Bohmer be when Eikon isn't there only Wavelet customer (Legacy Audio)?  Will Bohmer roll out platform updates for all Wavelets or might there be a development fork that differentiates the ongoing Legacy from Eikon platforms other than badging for the interface app?

 

- Intersting note is that Legacy's implementation doesn't include amplification, you BYO.  Again, Eikon's selling a more complete end to end.  Some folks will prefer that while others want the choice on amps.  

 

- Some interesting resources:

Legacy Wavelet User Manual

http://legacyaudio.com/images/uploads/manuals/Wavelet_Manual_2017_opt.pdf

 

 

Legacy Wavelet Back Panel:

 

 

Bohmer's Backgrounder on their approach to correction:

http://bohmeraudio.com/J345/index.php/background

 

 

Eikon rear panel with attached cables:

A little less tidy than you'd like to see for something sold as an end to end system, but most of us don't see the rear of our floor standers all that terribly often.  

 

[intensemojo]

Best sound for me came from:

Ayon and Luminwhite - wow

DCS and Wilson Audio (Sasha 2)

DCS and Kharma (the bass!)

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

23 minutes ago, rgbyhkr said:

Connecting to a server in another country is a pain in the *bleep*

I can't help but laugh at that one. Unless the server is out in the bush in Austrailia with a 33.6 dialup modem, it won't matter where it's located :~)

[rando]

Zhongnanhai mainland China.  

 

[Solstice380]

23 hours ago, austinpop said:

Oh, I forgot one more - the Gingko Audio room, where they were A/B comparing 2 of the Denafrips DACs. 

 

Based on this demo, I'm quite intrigued by the Denafrips Terminator DAC.

 

That system did sound good.  

[Bones13]

Jaguar XKE I think. Looks like a hard top one. No clue as to year.

[Steve7]

Chris - thanks for the report. Although I'm sure you know this, you've gotta have earplugs, even if you have to use cigarette filters. If your ears are ringing, you've done damage and in your case, your ears are your livelihood. Take care!

[coot]

Interesting, but only 33Hz bottom end?

[rgbyhkr]

15 hours ago, coot said:

Interesting, but only 33Hz bottom end?

 

That does seem a little conservative for dual, active 8" bass drivers.

[left channel]

I can confirm the Stereophile report on the overworked staff at the big restaurant. Great food though, once we got it. Chicago has great beef! Overall our first visit to AXPONA was fascinating and exhilarating, though the layout and rooms were indeed not ideal. By the time we arrived after noon on Saturday there were no more of the printed guides available, but when I started whining about that they found a crumpled copy under a box somewhere for me. :-) So we were off to a good start, as finding specific displays efficiently would have been difficult without that little book plus frequent referral to the website.

 

We seem to have spent most of our time at different spots from everyone else reporting here, visiting the minimalist modern Pro-Ject distributor booth, the happy hipsters of Mr. Speakers at the long and always fully occupied Schiit Audio listening table, and the iFi booth which was absolutely fabulously radiant with inner Abbingdon energy. We scored an Audio Rescue Kit containing free earbuds from Periodic Audio, but the main expo hall was a terrible place to try listening to anything at reasonable volume levels, what with the large vinyl market at the center and blaring speakers all around, so we didn't plug into anything on that floor. Great stacks of wax were on offer though, and that was fun.

 

Upstairs we popped our heads in to see the higher-end shiny Schiit stack, then into the Elac room to hear part of a talk by Andrew Jones, and in another room sat for a pleasant demo of Anthem+Paradigm and McIntosh+MartinLogan products. Didn't have time for more than that. AXPONA was not my main reason for being in Chicago, but next year I'll try to schedule a trip around at least one full day at the show.

 

 

[rickca]

51 minutes ago, left channel said:

Chicago has great beef!

Next time you go you have to make a pilgrimage to Mr. Beef.  It's a dive but a really memorable experience and the sandwiches are fantastic.