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 

Epiphany  Next Level HiFi, Audio Group Denmark, Ansuz, Aavik, Borresen, And Axxess
Next Level HiFi hosted this second room featuring Audio Group Denmark's system that always draws a room full of people—for good reason. Their systems feature outstanding resolution, transparency, and dynamics. You surrender seemingly little sound quality as you move down through the Borresen speaker line and Aavik and Axxess electronics.

Unfortunately, their website is a disaster when trying to understand their product lines. I've been following Audio Group Denmark for years and still can't keep track of the hierarchies of the four companies under the Audio Group Denmark umbrella. It's as if they expect you to hear their product in person and make an impulse decision to buy it. Not everyone works that way. For their sake, fortunately, their presentations are usually outstanding. And this was the case at Axpona, where they introduced the Borresen M2 floorstander in the middle of the M Series at $190k.

A Linn LP12 turntable was fitted with a DS Audio optical phono cartridge and may have been used to demonstrate the new Aavik phono stage on top of the right rack, but I didn't notice any records in the room. Those racks, btw, are also from Audio Group Denmark and feature a lot of vibration-absorbing technology that has spilled over to those ‘handles' on top of some of the Aavik components. Some footers and little spools on the corners of components also suggested stealth technology.

The speaker was supplemented with a new subwoofer that I presume was being used. The music was seamless, so a comparison with and without the sub would have been welcome. Interestingly, it is an open baffle design with four opposing drivers visible from the backside. With two drivers facing each side of the enclosure, they cannot be huge, but smaller is better, as they will be faster and more accurate. Hopefully, the red Borresen name can be turned off by people who prefer to listen in the dark. The M2 speaker is a miniature version of their much larger and much more expensive flagship. The fit and finish of their speakers are world-class. A lot of very high-quality speaker manufacturers come from Denmark.

Euphoria  VAC (Valve Amplification Company) And Acora Acoustics
VAC and Acora have been presenting some of the finest rooms at shows for a couple of years now, and Axpona was no exception. This is due not just to the high quality of the components but also to Val Cora's expertise in setting up the speakers. I've seen him do it in my listening room. He's as precise with a laser distance measure as Wyatt Earp was with a six-gun.

At the front of the room, the Acora VRC speaker was shown in Tempest Quartz, a greenish & cream stone that became even more spectacular with the addition of internal lighting. This upgraded stone raised the price from $218k for the six standard colors to $318k. You could easily pay either price for a painting in NYC. With 94dB 1W/1M sensitivity, this speaker could be driven with a 300B tube amp in a normal-sized room if you prefer a different sonic flavor at a reasonable volume. Most likely, you will have a larger room and prefer concert-level performance, at least from time to time.

Major news from VAC included the world premiere of the massive Statement 455 iQ monoblocks driving the VRC, which showed no sign of distortion even at loud volume in this large room. Kevin Hayes lifted the hood on one to explain it for an interested fan. It is a dual monoblock delivering 230 Wpc into separate channels that can be switched to a mono mode delivering 460 Watts. It can also be switched to optimize it for single-ended playback, or as a completely balanced amplifier from input to output.

Plus it can be further optimized for amplifiers from 2 Ohms to 16 Ohms nominal impedance. The sonic improvements are said to be of increased realism, micro-dynamics, and more refined highs. These are improvements on what was already a state-of-the-art amplifier. The two-chassis design makes it considerably more maneuverable.

The other half of the rig was on Acora granite racks on the side wall. That's a VAC Preamp and Phono stage on the low rack. A SAT turntable tops the tall rack, sitting on the new Seismion Reactio 2 active vibration isolator from Germany. (Remember Seismion, as it will come up again soon.) Below it was the SAT controller, followed by an Aurender streamer and an Esoteric Streamer / Renderer / DAC on the bottom shelf.

The SAT is such a formidable design that it looks like it could refine uranium during off-duty hours. It was fitted with a Lyra Atlas Lambda phono cartridge.

Notice the separate ground wire coming off the headshell…a very interesting tweak.

A second, more modest rig featuring two of the new Acora Quartz series speakers was also aligned on the side wall and drew a lot of interest at their lower price points. That was a VPI turntable on a VPI rack with VAC amplification and a modest Aurender streamer. These were the same series as the Acora speakers heard in the lounge area of the hotel that I mentioned near the start of Part 10. Even the two standard marble colors in this series (shown here) have interesting variations, and, of course, no two are exactly alike.

Above are the components and prices for the smaller rig inside the big room.

I caught Kevin Hayes' attention as he was singing the praises of his entry-level amplifiers in a rig with the small marble monitors from Acora. This series is just as efficient as the more expensive series from Acora and can deliver outstanding sound with real-world amplification, as many people heard at the show.

Above are the components and prices for the small rig just outside the room. Note that the MRB monitors are in an optional, upgraded Eramosa finish. Base price is $8k.

If you are driven as much by aesthetics as you are by sound quality, and have some loose change to spend on Acora speakers, upgrading to a Premium or Exotic stone can create a personal work of art.

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