Axpona Chicago anyone?

Yeah, the Naim and Proac wasn't setup that well. I stopped in several times - but really couldn't tell the difference between the Dac-V1/Nap100 and the 272/XPS-DR/250DR. The latter sounded a wee bit more detailed. Ken certainly was having a blast, showing off his recordings. :-) Like I said earlier, for me most of the fun was meeting all the quirky folks. Loved the passion!

The SuperNova into Focal Sopras one of my favorites too..

Well, all just shows how variable the systems' performance is with different music, crowded or empty room etc.. For what it's worth, I headed for the new Dynaudios at ProMusica and wanted to like them but was as disappointed with them as I have been previously with Dyns, some high-frequency aggression. An awful lot of speaker for the price though – you'd need a big room to not feel imposed on. On the other hand I thought the ProAcs sounded great. Agree with the comment about the David Michael system – a bit softer in presentation than my Naim/DeVores, but very enticing. And I join the general praise for Rosso/Harbeths – in my tour, the Harbeths sounded better than anything up to the Vivid Ghia 1s, quite beautiful. That said, I couldn't get to hear the Raidhos, which at previous Axponas have been standouts – the room was just a complete crush every time I tried. Also tried the fanciest headphones – a set of Focal Utopias was next to a set of Sony Z1Rs, a good comparison. The Utopias had a nice Kimber silver cable, and I said, I suppose that adds a grand to the price. Well, $6,000 for the cable actually, I was told. Uh. Who would do that?  But I found that to my taste, which seems to differ from everyone else's, the Sonys were more musical and compelling – I couldn't stop listening. I took my own DAP and played the same music on both headphones.

I also liked the D30's warm and open sound, even when driven with the Nap 100. Unfortunately,I did not get a chance to play my own music in the Naim room.

This year, I probably went into far less rooms due to getting there simply too late and the venue was well attended so it was too crowded for me to go in to many of the rooms. With me was a couple of good friends who never attended the show before so it was interesting to get her feedback.

One of her agenda was to get a turntable so we went around several rooms equipped with a record player ranging from entry level to some more expensive models. But surprisingly she was pretty excited about Naim Muso demo. 'This sounds amasing! ' says she.  I guess she realised that the better integration to her life style and listening habits made more sense than the vinyl replay. She was exposed to vinyl care and a whole ritual of having to clean and care for the media as well as noise issues. Also she realised that a serious cash is needed for a better vinyl replay.

So at the end of the day, she's more leaning towards getting a streamer rather than a record player.

One of the enjoyable room we spent a lot of time was Verity room driven by a new comer Analogueworks turntable + SME 309.

Since I did not bring my own record for demo, I was going through exhibitor's demo record bins and I was so surprised to find this Richter's Schumann Piano Concerto amongst their stack of records. This is far far from audiophile quality but musically this is probably the most convincing  Schumann OP.54 Richter has recorded. They were kind enough to play it for us. ( out with Sade, In with Richter! )

They also had various jazz records ( Horace Silver: 6 Pieces of Silver! ) as well as some rare never released high res. file ( IIRC, Pat Matheny )
Julien Pelchat from Verity was very accommodating. ( actually I have met him over a decade ago through a mutual friend and he remembered me! )

No new discovery for me but always a pleasure to share good tunes with good friends.

joerand posted:

Mohit,

Give Tyler my regards. Take the time to do a Chicago river tour while you're there.

Absolutely! I took the architectural river tour from near the Trump Tower 10 days ago and it was excellent! 75 minutes for about $30.00. Such a variety of buildings downtown, the guide on the boat was really interesting and very knowledgeable. Money well spent IMHO. 

Check out the Sears Tower (now Willis Tower) if you want an excellent view and they have four glass boxes for people to stand in/look down from the top if you don't suffer from vertigo

Also check out the 360 as the building is nearly as tall and the views across Lake Michigan are awesome. I tried "The Tilt" fab, but not for the feint hearted!

KR

Peter

varyat posted:

Its a good show and I always enjoy attending. always interesting to hear the newest and "greatest". I have yet to be disappointed with my system after coming home !

ATB,

Mark

But of course