Audio Thrills And Music Chills On AXPONA 2025's Second Floor
Let's continue the audiophile coverage with AXPONA part 10.
Audio Expo North America (AXPONA) 2025 Show Report By Rick Becker 

  On the 2nd Floor, at the extreme front corner of the lobby, is a very tall space with glass on two sides. It can be seen from the Atrium on the 6th Floor. I've heard other systems in this space, and I'm being kind to say that it is a difficult space to work with. Yet many contemporary homes present such large walls of glass, so this area offers a benchmark of what you can expect to achieve. More extensive room treatment could certainly help. Acoustic panels absorb and diffuse mid- and high-frequency energy, taming early reflections that blur detail and smear stereo imaging. By strategically placing panels at first-reflection points—walls, ceiling clouds, and even floors—listening rooms gain immediate improvements in clarity, making subtle nuances in recordings more discernible.

This reduction in unwanted echoes and flutter echoes sharpens rhythm and timing, so transient sounds like snare hits or plucked strings remain crisp rather than washing together. As reverberation time becomes more controlled, the room feels neither dead nor overly live but strikes a comfortable balance that lets music breathe without veering into muddiness. In addition, broadband and bass-trap panels address low-frequency buildup in corners and along boundaries. Overall, listeners experience an enhanced sense of space and depth, which translates to more accurate and satisfying home-listening experience.

Hotel Studio  YG Acoustics, Supreme Acoustic Systems, And Soul Note
The large array of YG Acoustics speakers, powered by a row of Soulnote amplifiers, was the most successful system I've heard in this tall open space with walls of glass. Note that a large number of the large wooden diffusers, like the ones I encountered on the upper floors, were employed. Maybe that was the difference, maybe not. Another way to approach such a large space would be to create a small triangle with a smaller system for a more intimate listening experience. Here, they wanted to exhibit a large sound, so they went big—very big.

Four large Soulnote amplifiers were connected to a Synergistic Research Galileo PowerCell SX conditioner with Synergistic Research power cords. In the upper corners of the photo were Synergistic's Black Boxes for resonance control of the bass. And against the glass front wall, you can see Synergistic's flagship SRX speaker cables with individual lines running through round discs to keep them spaced apart. Soulnote is relatively new to the US, but it was founded by former employees of Marantz Japan in 2004. Synergistic Research, in the Los Angeles area, needs no introduction.

The rack was from Music Tools, and I noticed Hifistay footers under the Soulnote P3 preamplifier on the top shelf. Below it was an X3 clock generator for the D-3 DAC on the bottom shelf. Synergistic power cords and interconnects were seen behind the rack.

Hotel Open Seating Area  Acora Acoustics, And Audio Research
Behind the hotel registration desk was a lovely seating area that was just a small portion of the much larger space. With a sofa, love seat, a couple of chairs, and ottomans, it felt like a real-life room in a home. Val Cora grabbed the opportunity and filled the space with wonderful-sounding music using Audio Research amplification and the new Acora MRC-2 speaker introduced at Capital Audiofest last November.

The Audio Research LS-3 preamp was on the top left in the rack, and the S-200 power amp was on the right on the coffee table. An Aurender server was on the bottom right in the rack, and a new I/70 integrated amp in silver was just above it. The rack was from Acora Acoustic and made from black granite, like their top series of speakers.

The MRC-2 is a 2.5-way speaker at $12,990, base price. The Forest Brown marble is an upgraded finish, adding $3500 to the cost of MRC series speakers, turning it into an intricate work of art that will enhance even the most expensive homes. It filled the large room with ease, belying its modest size and small footprint, though, to be fair, this space had a ceiling above it, unlike the previous system open to the Atrium. It sounded great with the front baffle of the speaker placed only a couple of feet into the room.

With Accuton ceramic drivers, 4 Ohm impedance, and 92dB/W/m sensitivity, it will play loud without distortion with little power. In this series, there is one larger and one smaller floorstander, a center channel, and a stand-mounted monitor, which I saw later in the day. At this quality level, I'd say it has huge value. Reviews should be trickling out before the end of the year. Hopefully, the tariff insanity will not affect the prices.

From the hotel end of the Renaissance to the conference center, an elevated walkway crosses above the registration desk and the entrances to the Schaumburg Ballroom, which was divided into East for the audio conferences, and West for the Ear Gear Experience. I'll get to that in Part 11. Exiting the walkway from the hotel on the 2nd Floor, I turned to the left to begin my tour of the largest rooms at the show.

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