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 

Utopia A  Legacy Audio
I wasn't at Axpona in 2024, so the Legacy Audio room looked refreshingly inviting without so many systems on display. Perhaps that was a new approach this year. This being Sunday, the crowds were thinner, as expected.

Their Masters Collection featured the flagship Valor speaker with two AMT drivers suspended directly in front of the midrange driver. The bass and subwoofers are internally powered, so on the rack was a Legacy iV2 Ultra power amp to handle the remaining drivers with the Legacy Wavelet preamp with room correction sitting below it. The iV power amps are also available in 3, 4, and 5-channel versions. An Ayon Audio CD player or transport was just below that—the only Ayon product I recall at the show. Cables were all from WireWorld.

The craftsmanship of Legacy Audio speakers is outstanding, and the selection of veneers takes them to even greater heights. The available labor pool of fine furniture craftsmen in the Midwest has enabled Bill Dudleston to produce speakers that rival far more expensive models coming out of Europe.

Another factor in Legacy's success has to be its commitment to a wide range of products that appeal to nearly the full spectrum of audiophiles. Note the dual AMT drivers on the scaled-down Aeris XD speaker, also from the Masters collection.

Inconspicuously on display in piano gloss black was the Legacy Audio Goliath XD subwoofer with dual 15” drivers and downward and rear-firing passive radiators. A 1000-Watt ICE amp is tucked away in each sub. A scaled-down version in the Foundation series features 12” drivers, and single driver subs are also available. Strangely, Legacy subwoofers have not been noticed by the high-end press. Maybe they have been skewing their marketing toward the home theater crowd.

Utopia B  Focal Naim America, Avid HiFi, Focal, Musical Fidelity, Naim, And Vicoustic
Utopia B was the home of Focal Naim America, but the inviting Focal sign is indicative of Focal's stronger branding in North America. They divided the room in half with static displays of Naim electronics and Focal speakers in the front half.

The headphone display was active, as it always draws a big crowd at any show. It was well designed with identical Naim headphone amps at each station, and the different headphones were clearly identified with all their specs. As always, Sunday is your best chance of sampling headphones at a show. The bulk of headphone listening occurred in the Ear Gear Experience on the 1st Floor, which I will visit in Part 11.

The real attraction was in the back half of the room, where a home theater audio system was set up with ceiling speakers mounted in the scaffolding. This was a formal, scripted presentation with a full house that included many women. They let me in to snap a few photos, but I couldn't spend the time for the full experience.

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