This year's West Coast T.H.E. Show SoCal 2025 took place in June in Costa Mesa, California. Issue 220 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.
Mastering engineer James Connell is CEO of Raven Audio. He’s gave an excellent presentation on the audio mastering process.
We like to say that audiophiles are part of a family, and here, Dilshad Mashoor and his family at Nightingale Audio prove it!
Some audio companies are small, even one-man operations. Ken Kappler singlehandedly runs One Spec and creates his amplifiers from scratch, one at a time, from his shop in Anaheim, California.
Jacob Wendt, a jazz drummer local to the region, has just released a splendid new album, Silver Street. which the author has been enjoying. Recorded in a small studio with minimal mikin, it’s warm and beautifully recorded. Here he’s in the PBN Audio room, where he was able to hear the album on a first-rate system with the man himself, Peter B. Noerbaek.
Yair Raz of Innovo Audio Designs shows off the Luxe T1 loudspeaker, featuring a number of unique innovations. Read about it in Copper here.
In addition to being a co-organizer of T.H.E. Show, Emiko Carlin is an excellent musician. Here she performs at one of the show's live music events.
Another performance featured guitarist Tom Schmitt, vocalist Julia Sawtell, and bassist Anthony Shadduck.
Juan Ovalle is the founder of Auribus Acoustics, here showing his handmade headphones. They are made from 3-D printed aluminum, then smoothed and polished in a tumbler.
Andy George, owner of Toxic Toast Records, was on hand with a bounty of rare pressings.
Mike Maloney was the founder of T.H.E. Show before passing it on to Richard Beers, who gave it to Maurice Jung, who sold the show to Emiko Carlin. At that point, it changed names from The Home Entertainment Show to the Total Hi-Fi Experience. How’s that for an audio family tree?
Two of the nicest people in audio are Theresa and Sunil Merchant, who always have a lively exhibit. Here Theresa welcomes guests to their room.
The always wonderful Abey Fonn of Impex Records and mastering engineer Steve Hoffman in the Audio Note room. Hoffman treated the guests to some unreleased recordings. Not only were his stories about the recordings amazing (as was the fact that they remain unreleased), the Audio Note gear sounded heavenly.
You just can’t keep the speaker engineers out of an audio show, including the secretive and camera-shy Andrew Jones of Mobile Fidelity.
Maurice Jung, the former owner of T.H.E. Show, who happens to be married to Emiko Carlin, the new owner of T.H.E. Show!
Richard Zhang (T.H.E. Show ambassador) and Juan Ovalle (founder, Auribus Acoustics) take a moment before the show opens to the public. Juan’s headphones were the talk of the headphone area.
Mobile Fidelity's Lenny Mayeux had a lot to smile about, as the MoFi room was filled with great gear at a variety of price points.
Two more fine ambassadors for T.H.E. Show, Brian Green and Mike Leach, are all smiles.
Mops Dayal of Sonor speakers and Quarter Note Acoustic with Michael O’Neal of Beginner Audiophile and Kimberly Mattatall. If you are interested in what happens when a Subaru EZ30R flat six is imported into a vintage 1969 Porsche 911, check out Michael’s YouTube channel, Rennch. Clearly he is a man of many talents in addition to being a an in-demand session drummer. He’s also the author’s partner on the Beginner Audiophile podcast.
Emiko Carlin enjoys the company of Brian Mitchell of eCoustics, one of the many press people who covered the show.
Here's musician Ryan Winger, Jacob Wendt, and the wonderful duo of Lonny Gould (Kimber Kable) and Tammy Johnson of Kimber Kable hanging out in the popular PBN Audio room.
Allen Adelstein and Gloria Wolf from American Recorder Technologies attended with Frankie, one of their keen-eared assistants.
T.H.E. Show had a number of well-attended seminars. Here Daniel Cauley and Richard Zhang, both T.H.E Show staffers, are relaxed and ready for the evening's live performances.
How can you not have fun at an audio show?
After Emiko’s performance, the audience was treated to set of jazz standards from guitarist Tom Schmitt, vocalist Julia Sawtell, and bassist Anthony Shadduck.
One of the nicest folks in audio is Sunil Merchant of Sunny Components, whose rooms are always packed with guests. Here Sunil and Ken Forsythe of AudioQuest take a moment to relax.
The Los Angeles and Orange County Audio Society had their own room at the show and enjoyed the event. Here's Alex Chavez, Michael Wechsberg, Lawrence Plon, Allan Taylor, Bob Levi, Michael Pelletier, Gary Rotter, Nathan Rotter, Garrett Priluck, and Ying Kit Lee.
Header image: Steve Hoffman plays records in the Audio Note room.
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