This year's West Coast T.H.E. Show SoCal 2025 took place in June in Costa Mesa, California. Issue 220 (last issue) has B. Jan Montana's show report, and we continue our coverage here with a look at more of the people and exhibitors in attendance.
SVS threw quite the audio party, with a full-blown SVS powered theater showing music videos. Here Larry McGough (SVS), Sophie Assencoa (Creative and Network Programing for T.H.E. Show), and Nick Brown of SVS take a glam turn on the red carpet.
The wonderful duo of Lonny Gould and Tammy Johnson of Kimber Kable in the ever-popular PBN Audio room, led by Peter Bichel Noerbaek.
Here are Tinka Weena (CTO), Ron Resnick (Beverly Hills, California dealer Audio Cafe), Michael O’Neal (Beginner Audio), and Kimberly Mattatall.
Ed Sudario from the Los Angeles and Orange County Audio Society enjoys the tunes.
T.H.E. Show has a unique set of fans; here are Mike Leach, Maritte Green, Brian Green and Scotty Lylander relaxing before the show kicked into full gear.
Two staffers from B&W (left) join Lucca Chesky (Chesky Audio), David Chesky (The Audiophile Society), Jonny Wilson (Snake River Audio) and filmmaker Josh Block at the opening party.
Vladamir Kraz didn’t intend to be in the audio business. His company, OnFilter, makes devices that clean AC power for scientific, medical, and aeronautical uses. It turns out that many of his customers were audiophiles who tried his filters at home and reported back with great results. He joked that “I’m the only one at this show who isn’t making any claims about his products!” The display tells the story: the green trace on top is the actual raw AC voltage coming off the wall. That smooth blue trace on the bottom is the filtered AC coming from the OnFilter CleanSweep AFN1515FM filter.
Some of the handcrafted components on display in the Akustika Eterna room. Stas Lesniewski and Nik Chesalin hand-make all the components for his gear, including their $180,000 4-watt per channel amplifier.
Jacob Wendt, a local jazz drummer, just released a splendid new album, Silver Street. Recorded in a tiny studio with only minimal microphones, it’s a warm and beautifully-recorded album I've been enjoying. Here he’s in the PBN Audio room where he was able to hear the album on a first-rate system.
A beautiful example of high-end audio metal work from Burmester.
Steven Norber (Principal Ponderer) of PranaFidelity cues up a track.
One of the most distinctive equipment racks was from South Korea's Klang & Ko. They're powering the Galatea Series speakers.
One of the most beautiful turntables at the show was the Reed Muse 1C.
Emiko Carlin and Daryl Sanservo did a great job organizing T.H.E. Show.
Two masters of their crafts: J.R. Boisclair of WallyTools/WAM Engineering is an expert at turntable and cartridge setup, while Norman Varney of AV Room Service is the master of stopping unwanted vibrations in audio setups.
On Saturday night Emiko Carlin and Mike Leach played a moving set of originals for an enthusiastic audience.
The great Lenny and Nicole Mayeux. Lenny was there from Mobile Fidelity.
We had a blast during some after hours listening to one of the only immersive Dolby Atmos rooms at the show. Here Final Audio showed its Model 35 electrostatic loudspeaker system with matching subwoofers made by Tekton Design. The electronics were from Coda and EMM Labs.
Alan Adelstein and Gloria Wolf of A/V equipment supplier American Recorder Technologies have smiles that can light up a room, and have Deoxit on hand to keep your connections sparkling clean, along with a full range of audio accessories.
Susan Wilson and Charles Harrison of Austria's Ayon Audio offered a wide range of exceptional vacuum-tube-based components in their suite.
Mops Dayal (Sonor Audio and their distributor Quarter Note Acoustic) awarded the author with a specialized hair accessory that promised to make him look like Coach from Survivor. Still, there is no way I could look as cool as Mops.
Great things come in small packages! Tonian Labs, owned by Tony Minasian, builds the Oriaco loudspeakers, here powered by Denon electronics. The sound was wonderful, and he’s also well-known as a recording engineer who recorded many of the CDs stacked in the photo.
Maritte Green (Los Angeles and Orange County Audio Society) and Julie Mullins (Stereophile) relax in the women’s lounge away from the show hubbub. I was an invited guest!
Abey Fonn of Impex Records and mastering engineer Steve Hoffman presented amazing unreleased recordings in the Audio Note room. The recordings and gear sounded heavenly.
Three legends of audio: David Chesky, Paul Seydor (The Absolute Sound), and Peter Kent. Peter is a professional violinist, Juilliard trained, and one of the top studio violinists in Los Angeles, Peter played on Sasha Matson’s recent album Fillmore Street/Little Woodstar (check out Paul’s review in The Tracking Angle). Speaking of audio royalty, the album was produced by none other than John Atkinson and Joe Harley.
Header image: Desmond Bowe of Desmond's Tiki Tubes with some of his favorite things. All images courtesy of Harris Fogel.
