You guys are making me jealous that I couldn’t go to AXPONA this year. Great coverage, guys!
Don’t know much about Zesto but I’d like to hear Marten speakers. I heard Gauder Akustik (previously Isophon) speakers which also use ceramic drivers and liked the sound.
Thanks for the thank-yous, on behalf of myself and pmotz re: the photos. It was fun - especially since you’re not expecting us to know every last technical detail of the systems as one would if we were reporting for a magazine. These things have to be brutal to cover, it’s gotten quite big.
Frank - I’ve heard the Martens in a number of rooms over the past few years, and they often sound great. I still have some sort of synesthetic bias operating between my eyes and ears when I see white ceramic drivers, but they nonetheless often sound great.
I recall many years ago, I had a custom install client who bought small Canton speakers. That was the first time I actually heard ceramics, and they were really impressive. Esoteric was using large Cantons in their room this year, which was crowded, and the demo guy in the midst of a long explanation, so I didn’t stay. But I’ve also heard their speakers sound great at the last few Axponas.
No, that was Sprout 100 in our room.
Well, that’s embarrassing that I didn’t realize it was the new model. I even looked closely at it and thought it was the old one. I didn’t get one so I wasn’t intimately familiar with it. My bad …
I actually didn’t plan on taking photos, but Badbeef got me in the mood! Saw a couple of rooms with PS Audio equipment and should have taken photos there, too late now. I will say PS Audio had some of best sized rooms for displaying. Most of the big rooms were cavernous and the guest rooms were tiny. In a couple of rooms I could almost touch the speakers from the front row of seats. Not a good way to demo equipment. I usually went for the back rows even though I was almost always against the wall.
I did get a chance to hear the Canton’s, they sounded very nice, but they did have an expensive Esoteric system driving them! Some dweeb on Audiogon was griping how the Schitt/Salk system didn’t sound as goos the Esoteric, well, duh, the whole Schitt/Salk system cost less than just the Esoteric SACD player they were demoing. No idea how much the Canton speakers were but I bet they weren’t cheap!
Didn’t get much of a chance to talk to Paul, he was usually surrounded by a mob of groupies! Especially on Saturday. Realized too late that he went home early, sniff. Did have a good time talking to Kevin though. Great guy!
Scroll down to Viotti speakers and you’ll see them paired with a Stellar S300:
pmotz - don’t feel bad. AFAICT, it looks the same. I only knew because I was told. Needs distinguishing features like “100” after the logo or colored faceplate, etc.
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Hi, first time poster. I had a chance to visit AXPONA on 4/15 and was really impressed by sound of the Stellar room. Were the speakers in that room the Golden Ear Triton One Towers? The room was kind of dark and crowded so I couldn’t get that close.
This afternoon my wife and I are going music room shopping… I mean going to look at houses with a realtor. My goal is to have a dedicated two channel Stellar room in the new house!
Thanks
Ed
Pretty sure they were the Reference, so quite a bit more than the One.
Bad beef is correct. You can tell from the online pictures, the reference is the only model with piano black.
I have SGCD/S300 driving Triton 3+’s and they are a great match. The whole line is voiced similarly so they will all work.