In Issue 233 I posted my report on T.H.E. Show SoCal 2026, held in the Hilton/Orange County hotel in Costa Mesa, California in June. You can also read B. Jan Montana's article at this link. Officially known as the Total Hi-fi Experience, the show encompasses audio demonstration rooms, a music festival, and more. Here are more of the people and the exhibits that made T.H.E. Show SoCal 2026 happen.
Ying Kit Lee and Chris Ishida left no doubt as to who they were representing: the Los Angeles and Orange County Audio Society (LAOCAS)!
Mike Wechsberg, president and CEO of LAOCAS was one of a number of their members in attendance.
Mike Leach and Maurice Jung of T.H.E. Show were among the staffers who kept things organized and happening.
Grammy award-winning guitarist Larry Mitchell headlined T.H.E. Music Festival. Here he gives an impromptu teaser after the kickoff party, and the guests were wowed.
Here's speaker designer Andrew Jones, who drove down from Los Angeles. The new company he's part of, Jones and Cerreta, recently introduced a loudspeaker that uses field coil technology.
Leland Leard of distributor Lone Mountain Audio always shows us a good time, and great-sounding ATC active speakers.
The Los Angeles and Orange County Audio Society hosted a room to gather, have a nosh and a drink, and cause general audio havoc. Here are Nathan Rotter, Art Alenik, Mark Katz, Alex Chavez, Chris Ishida, Jason McDermott, and Jonathan Jaeckle.
Aubyn Forsyth hangs out with her brother, Ayre Acoustics' Jake Forsyth.
Zesto Audio's George and Carolyn Counnas always have a variety of fine-sounding gear on exhibit at audio shows.
Jake Forsyth checks out Tom McCauley's CD, He Said, She Said, noting the vintage instruments Tom used in the production. The album sounded great in the Ayre room.
These Cerwin-Vega speakers easily took the loudest room at the show award, not showing any strain in doing so.
Kelly Moore and Steven Norber of PranaFidelity loudspeakers take a break from their popular demo room.
Calvin Xu and Bruce Di Ye of Analog Sense AI showed a number of headphone amplifiers including the Paltauf HPA 150, Henry Audio Da256, and Layer Audio Design Gen 300B amps.
The new Wolf von Langa WVL 11620 ORGANIC Wolf von Langa field coil loudspeakers made a sublime statement in engineering as well as sound quality. According the company, “An energized transducer is in a kind of suspended state to prevent energy transfer to the housing. This allows the field coil loudspeaker to unfold its full potential in a precisely designed acoustic labyrinth.” The speakers were accompanied by Cinnamon Audio's Galle components.
The striking German Physiks HRS-130 loudspeaker features an omnidirectional carbon fiber driver combined with a 10-inch down-firing woofer to deliver immersive stereo sound.
Legacy Audio's large display room offered a variety of loudspeakers, including the striking speaker-as-art floorstanders at the end of this lineup.
You want to get your records really clean? Go see Charles Kirmuss of Kirmuss Audio!
Rick Hashimoto (Fidelity Record Pressing), Jacob Wendt (musician/Hayden Records), Kevin Gray (Cohearent Records) and Joel Williams (assistant engineer, Cohearent) convene after one of the numerous seminars at T.H.E. Show SoCal 2026.
Header image: Mike Leach, Charles Kirmuss, Gabriel Toro (Supreme Acoustic Systems), Emiko Carlin (T.H.E. Show CEO), and Jake Forsyth.
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