The AXPONA 2023 Chronicles: Part 10
Third floor thrills with great sounding stereo systems.
Audio Expo North America 2023 Show Report By Rick Becker

Glenn Poor's Audio Video
Glenn Poor is located downstate in Champaign, IL, and features a very wide range of prominent lines. I understand they also have a brick-and-mortar branch in Chicago, now, too. Featured on the Lateral Cadenz rack was a Luxman PD-151 MkII turntable with dust cover ($6490), a D-07X SACD player/DAC ($10k), and their new L-507Z integrated amp ($8995) with a phono stage. At the very bottom was a Puritan power conditioner. The stand-mounted monitors were a Harbeth Compact 7 ($4500) and a YG Acoustics Tor, the larger of two monitors in their Peaks series. Cabling was by Kubala-Sosna. All-in-all, fine-sounding equipment without going way overboard on price.

Haniwa
Haniwa showed what looked like their typical display playing LPs using their fine phono cartridges. Haniwa is a systems approach. They describe it best on their website:

Connecting it to your analog turntable, CD player, computer or streaming music server is simple. Once inside the HDSA01, the magic happens. The music signal is converted to the ultra high resolution audio format of 24-bit/192 kHz where both frequency and phase control is applied in real time to the signal using a Digital Signal Processor with Haniwa proprietary technology. This conditions the signal to be perfectly matched to the Haniwa HSP01 speaker system.

The almost full-range speakers on the wide-base pedestals were supplemented with a pair of Sony-powered subwoofers. While the sound here is very good thanks to their HDSA03 Digital Phase Control System amp, the rig is looking pretty tired after so many years without a refresh. Something like a fine automotive paint finish would do wonders to spark my interest in this gear. Acoustically, it is very impressive, but it needs an artist's touch. The flyer I picked up in the room was not useful. The model numbers and prices did not correlate with photos of the items. I can tell you the turntable shown here was $5k. Otherwise, it looked like systems ranged from $30k to $35k, but don't hold me to that, please.

Masimo Consumer
Masimo Consumer Audio is a large corporate umbrella that is home to eight major audio brands: Bowers & Wilkins, Denon, Marantz, Polk Audio, Definitive Technology, Classé, HEOS, and Boston Acoustics. They presented three rooms in a row, each with a blue backdrop highlighting a major brand in the presentation.

The first room (above) had Bowers & Wilkins 702 S3 speakers ($7k) along with a Marantz TT15S1 turntable with cartridge ($1799), SACD30n digital source/player ($3k), and Model 30 integrated amp ($3k) with a system total of $14,796, plus cables. This was a room designed to get your feet wet in the high end and there is no shame in that.

Masimo Consumer
Their second room was also pretty bare-bones without even a product list on the wall.

With the bright light on the screen, my photo failed me, but it looks like the speakers were from Definitive Technology.

Massimo Consumer
Their third room was also pretty minimal.

Here, a pair of Polk monitors sounded decent driven by a Denon integrated amp. Much more expensive B&W speakers were shown on the 2nd Floor coming up. And I can refer you to my Montreal report where even more B&W as well as Classé products were shown multiple times.

I didn't take a lot of photos of the environment of the show. This being Sunday morning, there was a lot of staff in the hallway checking their phones and not many attendees walking around. Sunday is always the lightest day for attendance which would seem to make it a good day to cover some ground. Unfortunately, a lot of the room hosts were burned out from the heavy traffic on Friday and Saturday.

Magnepan, Darwin Cables, And Rogue Audio
This room had two system configurations on its fact sheet. I got to hear the version with the large Magnepan 3.7i speakers ($8,795). I was delighted to see that Rogue Audio has done away with the Raven logo on their products. I like my birds either in the dogwood tree outside my home office or the antique birdbath in the backyard.

The 3.7i Maggies were driven by the Rogue Dragon monoblock hybrid amps ($6k) with the Rogue RP-7 tube preamp ($5k). The Aurender A-15 server ($8,400) was the source. Cables were by Darwin Cables in Palmerton, PA. XLR interconnects were $1,095, Enlightenment speaker cables were ($3k) and Enlightenment power cables were $2k each. Their stand-up card said they use pure bare silver wire with an air dielectric and extremely low metal mass.

The smaller rig featured the very high-value Magnepan LRS+ speaker ($995) which I have heard on other occasions. It was driven by the Rogue Audio Pharaoh II integrated amp ($4k) (third component down on the rack). This is a hybrid integrated with tubes in the preamp section and for the headphone jack. It was also awarded a Best of 2022 Award from Enjoy The Music.com.  Both systems used the Aurender A-15 ($8,400) seen in the middle of the rack.

I keep hoping to hear some news or better yet, hear the actual production version of the Magnepan prototype subwoofers I heard at Montreal in 2022. I'm not holding my breath, but this could be an innovative breakthrough product if they can get it right.

Saturday Audio Exchange, Anthem, Paradigm, And Tributaries
Saturday Audio Exchange typically has a large room down on the 1st Floor, but this year they added a room in the hotel. Like Massimo Consumer, they addressed the entry-level but had a much more enticing presentation, complete with a product sheet on the wall.

They featured a handsome-looking Paradigm Founder 40B two-way monitor ($2399) in gloss black supplemented with a Paradigm Defiance XR11 subwoofer ($4k) with an 11" driver, 1100 Watts, and ARC room correction. A Paradigm Atom SE 2-way monitor ($299) was also on the list. It would have been cool to have heard that, too.

An Anthem STR integrated amplifier ($5k) with 200 Wpc into 8 Ohms, an MC/MM phono stage, and ARC room correction handled the amplification. The rig used Tributaries cables including a 12' Series 8 speaker cable ($1212) and an Audioquest Niagara 1200 power conditioner ($1595) to clean up the AC. And yes, that was a familiar Pangea Vulcan rack, in keeping with the entry-level theme here.

Part 11 Reporting On The 2nd Floor Coming Soon!
Soon we will finally get to the big rooms on the 2nd Floor. Have a great Memorial Day weekend and enjoy as much music as you can. And if you're on the road or in the air, safe journey.

---> Onward to the next part of Rick Becker's extensive AXPONA 2023 show coverage.

---> Back to main AXPONA 2023 show report page.