Axpona

[Delkat]

Anyone make it to Axpona this past weekend?  I thought I heard Richard was moderating an industry group discussion on speaker design.  Would be interesting if there are any YouTube videos of that. 
 

I would be interested to hear any feedback from people that attended. 
 

Thanks

[chris1625]

I made it to Axpona on Friday,  so I was unable to hear the discussion group. I did have a nice talk with Richard about his pre amp that will be coming out and my speakers I have on order.. It's very impressive how much access you get to one of the most respected designers in the industry. It means the world he does not hide. I'm in business and I deal with two major $10 billion CEO's all the time. One I have his cell phone and can speak directly to him, the other is impossible to ever get a hold of. The one company cares about the product and quality, spends little on advertising, the second spends more on marketing than engineering. ( we jokingly call it the Bose of the industry). Long story short if your product is great you never need to hide and Richard does not hide at this show. 

My thought are: 1) Next year it would be nice to get a group together and listen to rooms since if you're a Vandersteen owner the music usually comes first. 2) IMO Magico is the worst sounding per dollar speakers I've ever heard. I was hoping for better because a rising tide raises all ships. I listened to 4 rooms and all were bright, and they had them playing at a volume so loud that nobody listens to music. Sad you could hear each driver separately. 3) I liked the MBL room I thought I would not but I see where it has a place for the right customer. 4) Audio Note's room was only $24,000 for the complete system, it was very musical and sounded better to me than several $200,000 plus rooms. 5) I'm old or I'm really not a music lover since only 20% of the rooms were played at a volume that was not painful. I went out of my way to thank the rooms that played at a level I would listen too. 6) There must be a large room trick!!! I'm lost at the sizes of some of the rooms. Even if you are super rich are you going to have a 40 x 60 room with 20 foot ceilings  with just a system in it? Maybe but some companies I think are compensating and they need the room for sound quality. 7) You need more than one day. My head and ears hurt after 6 hrs. You'll need to break it up. 8 ) PMC, Wilson Benesch, Marten and Boulder rooms sounded good to me. 9) If a YouTube reviewer comes across arrogant and full of BS they are!!! I was dressed down so I'm assuming he thought I was the "help" sitting outside on a break. But he loudly was bragging on his phone how he is trying to get a speaker builder to give him free product or he will give it a not the best review, also saying he will lie that he bought it so the review sounds legit. So sad social media is even trying to ruin our hobby for clicks and money, it has no place in our hobby. I worry is there a teams of them just trying to make $$$$  in every product we consume? 10) Your ears don't lie listen to what you like and trust yourself. I was just as surprised to what I liked to what I did not.

 

[Delkat]

Thanks for taking the time to write this up.  Did you happen to see the Soul Note components from Japan?  My son is considering one of their integrateds. 

[chris1625]

55 minutes ago, Delkat said:

Thanks for taking the time to write this up.  Did you happen to see the Soul Note components from Japan?  My son is considering one of their integrateds. 

Yes I saw them. They look very nice and well built. As for sound it's tough to comment since I feel with electronics the noise floor is so high at the show to get the finer details. I believe they where playing with Perlisten, it sounded good and I can understand the positive things we are hearing.

[Holmz]

6 hours ago, chris1625 said:

If a YouTube reviewer comes across arrogant and full of BS they are!!! I was dressed down so I'm assuming he thought I was the "help" sitting outside on a break. But he loudly was bragging on his phone how he is trying to get a speaker builder to give him free product or he will give it a not the best review, also saying he will lie that he bought it so the review sounds legit. So sad social media is even trying to ruin our hobby for clicks and money, it has no place in our hobby. I worry is there a teams of them just trying to make $$$$  in every product we consume?

It is too bad you did not have time to record that as a video on a phone…

[Holmz]

5 hours ago, chris1625 said:

Yes I saw them. They look very nice and well built. As for sound it's tough to comment since I feel with electronics the noise floor is so high at the show to get the finer details. I believe they where playing with Perlisten, it sounded good and I can understand the positive things we are hearing.

 Those Perlisten speakers are supposidly a better than average value in terms of sound/$ . 

[GdnrBob]

Wow, what a nice review of the symposium.

Thanks.

I have never been to Axpona, but if things are as slow as this year, I might just give it a go. It would be nice to see other Vandy owners there.

Bob

[chris1625]

3 hours ago, Holmz said:

It is too bad you did not have time to record that as a video on a phone…

I thought about it way after it happened to old to have a phone at the ready all the time. Hoping he was just acting like a fool trying to impress who ever he was taking too. The phone and recording was huge thing at the show. I wonder if people really think they can go back and hear the difference with an iPhone recording or are there dozens of want to be reviewers?

[ctsooner]

Many are very self important.  It's like over on Audiogon, lol...  I"ve met some amazing friends over there over the years.

[Holmz]

9 hours ago, chris1625 said:

I thought about it way after it happened to old to have a phone at the ready all the time. Hoping he was just acting like a fool trying to impress who ever he was taking too. The phone and recording was huge thing at the show. I wonder if people really think they can go back and hear the difference with an iPhone recording or are there dozens of want to be reviewers?

I think Pete hit it on the head…
And I suspect that they are more social signalling their importance by posing as an “influencer”.

Young workmate asked me why people had such-n-such a TT.
Told him before that before facebook people would look at you onI the BMW or see the TT and just know that one made it.

He asked why some people didn’t show off their systems… and I said, those are the ones that still do not use FB 😁

[ctsooner]

I’ve tried to watch a few of these clowns reviews on FB, but it’s hard. Most are just having fun, but if they are malicious in any way, it can hurt legit businesses. 

[Holmz]

@ctsooner I think you’ve misspelledt revue??

Edited April 20, 2023 by Holmz

[ctsooner]

lol.....  At lease I spelled clown correctly adn that's what I was going for, lol. hehe