There is nothing quite like being surrounded by people who understand your obsession.
AXPONA 2026 in Chicago was one of those experiences that reminds you why this hobby matters. Twelve thousand people showed up to the Renaissance Schaumburg to celebrate the thing we all have in common; a love of music reproduced at its best. Walking those halls, shaking hands, hearing system after system fill hotel rooms with sound that ranged from jaw-dropping to head-scratching, I was reminded that this community is something special. You cannot fake the kind of enthusiasm that fills a building when every person in it shares the same passion.
What strikes me most about audio shows is not the gear. It is the conversations. A guy from Australia who flew twenty hours to hear loudspeakers he had only read about online. A retired schoolteacher from Ohio who built his own tube amplifier from a kit and wanted to tell me every detail of the project. A young couple from Toronto attending their first show, wide-eyed at the realization that music could sound like that. These are not just customers or enthusiasts. They are family.
Our PS Audio room was packed, and I spent more time talking than I did sitting and listening. People wanted to know about the PMG Signature line, about what we are working on next. Mostly though, they wanted to share their stories. Their systems, their rooms, the recording that changed how they listened. I must have heard fifty different versions of the moment I realized my system could do that and every single one of them mattered to me.
The hi-fi family gathers at the PS Audio booth at AXPONA 2026.
The hi-fi community gets a bad rap sometimes. People think we are obsessive gear heads who care more about specifications than music. Maybe some of us are guilty of that now and then. But at AXPONA I saw something different. I saw people connecting over shared passion. I saw strangers become friends in the time it takes to play one well-recorded track. I saw the same spark in a twenty-year-old's eyes that I felt at that age, sitting in front of a pair of speakers and hearing depth for the first time.
If you have never attended a show like AXPONA, put it on your list. It is worth the trip, the sore feet, and the dangerously long list of gear you will want to audition when you get home. Being part of this hi-fi family is one of the great privileges of my life, and Chicago reminded me never to take it for granted.
Header image courtesy of AXPONA.
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