Axpona 24’ Mike Lavigne pics
- Thread starter Mike Lavigne
- Start date
looks like for whatever reason i missed that room. give me a room number and i will take another look. i did try to at least poke my head in each room to see whether it was worth listening to. but some rooms had closed doors or were working on something and no music, or it was too loud at that time. to get done what i did i had to keep moving.
at Axpona 2022 i returned to the J-M-F/Ideon room 5 or 6 times. and at CAF 23' was in the Ideon 3 times. i wanted to get the measure of that gear and liked both the Ideon and the J-M-F. i did hear and like the other big Estelon/Vitus room.
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Across the hall (Room 1230) Amphion + Esoteric Integrated + Esoteric streamer + Playback Distribution TT, also sounded wonderful. A smaller system set up with care. One that kind of beckoned me to stick around a little longer. Amphion is completely new to me and I was happy to spend sometime there.
On the same floor (Room 1210) darTZeel America + Stenheim Alumine 3 (?) + customized TT/tonearm with darTZeel cartridge. Another "smaller" system sounding wonderfully musical and engaging.
" More curiosity, less judgement " what a novel idea!
Nice pictures and comments too.
I wasn't able to get out and see very many rooms at all. The ones I did visit sounded generally good. Lots of people have commented that the overall "average" sound at the show has improved. I remember 2022 when practically everyone thought everything there sounded pretty bad. Maybe it is taking a few years past covid for everyone to get back in the groove.
Lot of nice pictures of the rooms. Thanks for taking the extra time to do the work.
Lot of nice pictures of the rooms. Thanks for taking the extra time to do the work.
I also liked the Amphion room. New to me as well. Those Stenheims were the 3SE.
It must have to do with something other than Covid. I was at AXPONA 2017 and the overall sound was pretty bad, with only a few high quality standouts. Glad to hear people got their act together. Maybe the power delivery system has improved as well.
It’s also a different hotel vs 2017. Generally room treatment is much more prevalent than 5-10 years ago at shows. Also, tons of vinyl vs poor Wi-Fi setups. Accuphase even used a new cdp for you Al
Mike, thanks for posting and for your summary. Nice to see lots of gear was noted from “good enough” to “stand out”… I think this speaks well for the hobby. System matching of course is key, but lots of choices for the hobbiest. Not everyone is chasing the grail, many just want to assemble an awesome rig for their budget.
It can take a lot of time to figure out how to tame some of these hotel spaces particularly when you have very limited time . I know in my case it took assembling a team so that we had the resources and the time to fix some serious problems. We still can't fix even most of them but we have gotten better and therefore better results. Please remember that most of us only get Thursday to unpack and set up the gear that has been shipped and handled over a two week period before we get to it. I applaude everyone that works their asses off to give the patrons a good show and hopefully some good sound. I never made it in your room.
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Agree 100% with you. It is tough setting up a room. I don't think most attendees can comprehend the challenge. (But they don't have to). I went to sleep at 2:00am on Thursday night. Got up at 6:00am so I could get back to put some finishing touches on everything. That was with a team of Angie's people working on the various parts of 3 rooms.
Certainly an advantage of having the same room year after year is that we can learn from this year and apply that to next year. For example, if I setup the speakers in that room next year it will not be on that carpet. Carpet sucks. It is very hard to move the speakers and they sink unevenly into it over the course of the show. I had to make a substantial adjustment the speakers each morning and make a small adjustment in the afternoon.
We also learned that some of the plugs in the same room are on different circuits. Ground loop yuck.
Sorry I didn't get a chance to visit your room Elliot. I wanted to hear the Goebel with your new tube gear. Maybe next year.
Aah, different power too, then. I guess a main, though not the only, reason for bad sound at shows is when the power delivery capacity in the venue is severely limited while most vendors use big power-sucking amps.
Good point about poor streaming. The vendor at T.H.E. Show last year where I bought my speakers (PranaFidelity) used tape, vinyl and CD. All three sources sounded excellent. No streaming.
Power distribution of hotels needs to be understood
for one the typical small rooms the vast majority of rooms at shows
Rooms are done to nec code and very little separate circuits to have
each bathroom is most likely its own circuit
so my advise is use a heavy duty ext cord
Next the room has an outlet for fridge and coffee maker
This while not seperate always is middle of the room on right side of door entry if it swings in right hand hinge rarely are there used so it should be tried
as for larger rooms multiple circuits is provided
But this also can be attached to some large rooms on each side.
if I were to show in any rooms I would ask maintenance to come and give advice on Circuits used and panel fed from.
I don’t see panels most times but there must be 2 or more per floor if it’s a long hallway.
many rooms.
for one the typical small rooms the vast majority of rooms at shows
Rooms are done to nec code and very little separate circuits to have
each bathroom is most likely its own circuit
so my advise is use a heavy duty ext cord
Next the room has an outlet for fridge and coffee maker
This while not seperate always is middle of the room on right side of door entry if it swings in right hand hinge rarely are there used so it should be tried
as for larger rooms multiple circuits is provided
But this also can be attached to some large rooms on each side.
if I were to show in any rooms I would ask maintenance to come and give advice on Circuits used and panel fed from.
I don’t see panels most times but there must be 2 or more per floor if it’s a long hallway.
many rooms.
There is definite magic going in with the Ideon digital gear. Heck, their DAC weighs in at 60+ pounds which speaks to its build quality and obsession with multiple power supplies. As for the Scott Walker room featuring the J-M-F- mino blocks w Ideon stack and the Estelon speakers they were in the Journey 1 room. Synergistic Research was hyping their Vibarton in that room which I found interesting. I’ve got a few pics I’m attaching here.
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Great sound in a very tiny room
oh man those ebony legs on the racks and amp stands saved my bacon! My only instructions for that room were 'make something great, Trevor'.
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