Article: A Great Experience At Axpona 2023

[The Computer Audiophile]

View full article

[jrobbins50]

@The Computer Audiophile, thanks for your comments. Do I take it that there was no Atmos demo running anywhere at Axpona this year?  JCR 

[botrytis]

SVS, Emotiva, and Focal each had one running.

[botrytis]

I have been to every AXPONA but one, since they came to Chicago, and this one was the best one so far.

[The Computer Audiophile]

23 minutes ago, botrytis said:

SVS, Emotiva, and Focal each had one running.

Devialet had one with its Dione soundbar as well. One thing I learned when talking to the Devialet guys is that the Phantom II speaker can be customized with Dante / AES67 input, enabling audio over IP. I could then send 7.1.4 Atmos from a Mac directly to 12 Phantoms!

[botrytis]

forgot one - shoot me :D

[ray-dude]

After Munich last year and Axpona this year, the people setting up rooms at these shows are REALLY out of practice after the pandemic. There were so many poorly set up rooms, made 10x worse by choices in music that sounded like absolute crap with the room issues

 

when folks in the rooms really had good ears or cared about music, it was very clear. Alas many rooms did not. 
 

show conditions are challenging, but you have to be able to adapt and play to your strengths
 

pro tip to exhibitors: the best sales strategy is to be as passionate about music as all your potential customers. 
 

that being said, it was a marvelous weekend. So nice to be back IRL with real humans. The capper for me was being able to see Amber Rumbarth live Saturday night. Such an amazing talent. 

[botrytis]

I have set up rooms, like this, so I know. I did 4 different rooms at 4 different audiokarma.org audio events where the me,bers showed rooms. I really enjoyed it.

[daverich4]

I realize that this wasn’t the point of your article but thanks for the heads up on the Dua Lipa acoustic album. Very nice.

[PAP]

Quote

Two songs that left a major impression on me in this room were Dua Lipa's acoustic version of Golden Slumbers and Carmen Gomes Inc.'s version of Thousand Shades of Blue. On Shades of Blue, this system reproduced the bass and drums with absolute perfection. The air around the snare drum was reproduced beautifully! On Dua Lipa's Golden Slumbers, the system reproduced her glossy vocals exactly as they should've been reproduced. It isn't an audiophile track and has a pop gloss to it. I loved every minute of this guilty pleasure. 

That album is one of the first albums I put on as well when listening to new equipment. It's a classic.

 carmen-gomes-inc-thousand-shades-of-blues