AKA: The Adventures of Stretch Armstrong in the Land of Self-Induced Poverty.
Remember Stretch Armstrong, the action figure you could stretch a few feet in each direction?
This is how many of us in the audio press feel during AXPONA. We start the day out normal sized, but are soon stretched in four different directions, like Stretch Armstrong’s limbs, trying to visit as many rooms as possible, talk to friends and industry acquaintances, listen to as much music and equipment demonstrations as we can, and fit unexpected changes into our schedules on a moment’s notice. At the end of the day, we get to decompress back down to a normal size and prepare for our Stretch Armstrong routine the next day.
So while I had planned to do AXPONA The Right Way this year, well, that intention lasted maybe a half hour. As it does for all of us.
I typically start the show with a walk through the Marketplace. Thankfully I walked out of The Land of Self-Induced Poverty without buying any records. Honestly, the prices weren’t attractive, so I was not motivated to purchase any. I do appreciate the used record stores making an appearance as part of the show’s Record Fair but unfortunately with a busy schedule, I don’t have time to dive into the bins like I would at home.
A half hour into it, of course, I run into my Chicago pals Sean, Eric, and Steve, and catch up for a few minutes. My first derailment of the day but of course, an expected and welcome one. We never seem to find enough time to hang out together.
Walking the Marketplace and the first and second floor at the beginning of the show, without visiting many rooms at length, is a ritual that gives me an idea where to start, and a few things will catch my eye along the way. A good example was near the Clearaudio display, where I discovered a couple of interesting items I had missed over the past couple of shows.
While it’s been available for a few years now, the SUPATRAC Blackbird tonearm jumped out at me as it was the first time I’d seen one in person. Distributed by Musical Surroundings, I saw it mounted on a Technics turntable similar to my SL-1210G, which gave me ideas about trying one in my setup. The arm is a Sideways Uni-Pivot Arm (SUPA) which offers an advantage of applying downward torque during louder passages (TRAC: Torque-Reaction-Assisted Contact) to reduce distortion. Briefly holdling the arm on the display unit, the arm handled like a featherweight, and the unique idea of using a cord as a finger lift is way more practical and easier to use than it seems.
Nearby, Clearaudio showed a new entry-level turntable, introduced late last summer. The Compass slots in beneath the Concept, starting at $2,000 without cartridge or $2,175 with the Clearaudio M1 moving magnet cartridge. The Compass with the provided cartridge promises a simple setup routine, so buyers can unpack the turntable, do some minor assembly (like attach the counterweight), and play records in relatively little time.
If anyone remembers the Garrard Zero 100 turntable, you’d recall that Garrard claimed their articulated arm setup resulted in zero tracking angle error. While some enthusiasts claim the idea worked better on paper than it did in practice (due to cheap materials or substandard build quality, depending on who you believe), we have to admit that it was an impressive idea back then, as it avoided the complexity of some of the linear-tracking arms that would follow a few years later (like the Rabco).
Today’s spiritual successor to the Zero-100 is the Thiele TA01 tonearm. While it’s a different configuration than the Zero-100 (which appeared to pivot the headshell as the arm traveled its arc), this arm similarly boasts the ability to provide a perfect tracking angle (with an error of 0.036° or less) through an articulated arm movement. This arm and turntable were also introduced a few years ago but I only stumbled upon it this year. Pictured below, it is mounted on Thiele’s TT01 turntable. (Sorry for the blurry photo – this was inside a display case.)
Featured in the Fern & Roby room was the top of the line Technics SP-10R turntable, the first time I’ve seen this model at the show. The SP10 was a professional turntable series used in broadcast studios and similar applications for decades, and the SP-10R carries on that tradition for audiophiles, with a separate control unit like the original models. I have always appreciated the Fern & Roby hand-built aesthetic and this carries over to the plinth they have designed for this turntable, on which is also mounted an SME M2-12R 12-inch tonearm. (This setup is sold as The Archival Turntable.) The 700-gram brass isolation weight is also their design (the image of a 45 RPM adapter is etched into the top), as is the Equipment Rack #1 on which the components are sitting here.
I’m not a fan of wearing headphones or earbuds (the “closed-in” feeling bothers me), but I do acknowledge that many of them can sound good. It was a treat to hear the Audio-Technica Narukami, a handcrafted headphone amplifier which utilizes four Takatsuki TA-300B tubes in its output stage, and is crafted with Kurogaki wood side panels and other visual nods to nature that convey the sense of natural sound reproduction. A bit pricey for most of us at $108,000, it would nonetheless be up there for cost-no-object headphone rigs. (Disclaimer: our editor does some consulting work for Audio-Technica.)
The 300B is a well-known (if not legendary) vacuum tube produced by Western Electric, and in recent years they have entered the realm of high-end audiophile components. This year, they were displaying the Type 100E monoblock amplifiers, boasting a 160 watt RMS output per monoblock. These were single-ended designs sporting a 14-inch tall 308B vacuum tube, pictured below. Not only visually stunning (it dwarfs the 300B immediately in front of it in the chassis), the sound was similarly large and dynamic. The amps are self-biasing, and include interchangeable transformers for speaker matching and an integrated cooling system. Impressive! The monoblocks were driven by the 91E preamplifier.
Speakers tend to draw my attention, and I found a few interesting items in my travels. The British speaker manufacturer Lockwood has for nearly a century produced speakers used as studio monitors (with many popular albums having been recorded through them), and they displayed a selection of their smaller models at AXPONA this year, their show debut. Pictured here in orange is the Universal Stanley 1, utilizing a point-source 5-inch driver in an infinite baffle cabinet. (The Stanley 2 is a floorstanding version of the same speaker configuration, in orange to the far right.)
The Lockwood Mini was also presented. It slots in as the next biggest bookshelf speaker after the Universal Stanley 1 (aside from the limited edition Mini Major).
If you prefer your speakers in bits and pieces to assemble yourself, I had a peek into both the Madisound Speaker Store and Parts Express rooms at the show. Here are a few tables of parts in the Madisound room – drivers, crossovers, and the Seas Toy Kit, a point-source speaker made using one of their coaxial drivers. Madisound also sells a SEAS driver kit and the knock-down speaker cabinet parts for the Linkwitz LX521 so the hobbyist can build this system for themselves at home. (The LX521 is one of the few cone/dome speakers I can listen to at length and enjoy. Engineer Barry Diament switched from his beloved Magnepans to the LX521 in his studio. Copper’s Rich Isaacs owns them.)
For visual pop, the Legacy Audio room featured a display of speakers in their Artist Series. Given the rotating demo systems in the room, I was not able to hear this model at the show when I visited the room. But on looks alone, this would be near the top of my list.
I covered the Revox reel-to-reel tape deck last year in my show coverage, but I can never resist stopping in to listen to their reels. Revox now offers over 100 pre-recorded tapes they have produced themselves. They are still featuring the limited edition Alice Cooper B77 Mk III in their demos (of which only 25 were produced, and signed personally by Alice Cooper).
Any time Andrew Jones appears at an audio show, there is always a buzz around whatever room he is presenting his products in. For 2026, Jones is off on yet another adventure in speaker design! This time, he has teamed with brothers Jamie and Bill Cerreta (who have backgrounds in the music and electronics industries), and has designed the new Jones and Cerreta Troubadour speakers using field coils for the concentric midrange and tweeter, and a traditional magnet structure for the dual 12-inch woofers in a vented box.
The question that many had was if Jones had left MoFi and his SourcePoint speakers behind. Not at all. He is still working for MoFi, and has a couple new designs in the pipeline for them. And MoFi Distribution is going to be distributing the Jones and Cerreta speakers as well. Production on these new speakers should begin later this year.
The Troubadours with stands are just over 3 feet tall.
The concentric field coil driver is impressive in itself.
Here’s a YouTube video of the presentation we attended. My buddy Don was queued up early Sunday morning to get into the room, as was I, and The Audiophile Junkie was seated next to us.
One common struggle with every room at AXPONA, especially the small hotel rooms, was the acoustics. That is why I don’t comment much on how the systems sounded – one planar driver I heard sounded excellent towards the back of the room, yet was dull and lifeless, but with an amazing soundstage, when seated in the sweet spot. Their room could have been improved, at least on the bottom end, with bass traps.
The Swiss manufacturer PSI Audio offers active bass traps, and on display in their room this year was the AVAA C214 digital bass trap. One C214 will work, but more will always work better. These are the digital version, which can be controlled via a smartphone app. While they cost a lot more than conventional bass traps, they are much smaller and can be deployed in rooms where there is very little space for room treatments. I did not listen to the room at length, but in various locations I moved to, the bass did not bloom in the corners as it did in other rooms.
IsoAcoustics has introduced the newest to their product lineup – the Gaia Neo Series, which improves on the original Gaia I, II, and III feet (I use the Gaia IIIs under my speakers, the different numbering in the series representing the weight range of each product). I can also vouch for their use beneath turntable platforms – I use another set of their isolators beneath my Butcher Block Acoustics 3-inch maple block, and rapping elsewhere on the rack results in absolutely no vibration whatsoever getting back to the turntable.
As I mentioned earlier, I did not linger very long in the Marketplace this year, but I did make my annual stop at Butcher Block Acoustics, to see what was new in their product line. They have been teaming with IsoAcoustics to provide isolation feet for some of their products (like shelving units and isolation blocks), utilizing a common thread size into which various IsoAcoustics feet will attach. They also have a set of wood blocks to use as risers, with viscoelastic damping pads on top and bottom (pictured on the top shelf below). Their Vibe-Guard mobile amp stands now include heavy duty 2-inch TPE swivel casters to make moving heavy amplifiers and components around much easier than lifting them by hand (pictured below on the bottom shelf).
Also in the marketplace, I checked in with GIK Acoustics. I use two pairs of their diffraction/absorption panels behind my speakers to good effect but unfortunately, wall space is so scarce in my room that I don’t have room for some sorely needed bass traps. They have had a few product additions to show this year, including the Q11D diffuser panel, the Amplitude series acoustic panels and bass traps, and a new selection of Camira Cara fabrics to replace what they have previously offered (like the premium Guilford of Maine fabrics). As crowded as their booth was when I visited, I did not get a chance to snap a photo of the new products or fabrics.
There were a lot of used components available in the Marketplace as well. I wonder if anyone rescued this classic Conrad-Johnson stack from the show…
Presentations
Unfortunately I had little time to fit in the presentations offered during the show but, having chatted with Jeff Dorgay (publisher of TONEAudio magazine) at the industry mixer on Thursday evening, his ideas for his presentation seemed to be an outlier at the show and I was thankfully able to catch the last half of it the following morning. His seminar on putting together an affordable audio system provided a lot of good, common-sense knowledge to the attendees, especially those just starting out in the world of audio. In my opinion, high-end audio could use more common sense thinking like this. It’s not about owning high-profile brands, owning the latest and greatest, or keeping up with what friends or audio forums recommend. It’s about owning and keeping what sounds good to you, within your budget. His recommendations of what to buy, and where to buy them from, were valuable information that needs to get out there more.
Breaking News
As I was completing this show report, I received notice that the AXPONA show has been acquired by Sound & Fury LLC. Henry Wu, owner of Sound & Fury, will further promote and expand the show, and next year’s event will continue as planned.
“I had my first audiophile experience in sixth grade at my best friend’s house – and it changed the course of my life,” said Henry Wu, owner of Sound & Fury LLC. “Decades later, I am honored to serve as the next steward of what I believe is the greatest audio event in the world, alongside one of the best teams in the industry.”
I will echo my thoughts from prior years: AXPONA really needs to be a four-day show. Even if the first day is for the press only, it gives us all some breathing room to cover some of the newest products while not having to rush around during the remaining three days. The smaller Rocky Mountain Audio Fest offered Thursday as a press day, so it only makes sense that a show which bills itself as one of the largest audiophile shows in the world would follow suit.
Until next year…and hopefully, with less traffic!
Editors' note: AXPONA wasn't all work and no play: the Copper and PS Audio crew did get to enjoy some of Chicagoland's finest, courtesy of Giordano's in Schaumburg.
All images courtesy of the author.
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