Great to meet you finally @tony22!
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Yes, you too Paul! I was just overcome with Al’s luminance.
The light! It was so bright! 
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I was surprised at the sound of the Pure Audio Project speakers with the horn loaded tweeter and the First Watt SIT4. What a sweet, musical sound. It surprised me.
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AND I didn’t like the sound of my speakers (Wilson Watt Puppy 50th) in the room with Boulder amps. Nope. Not a bit.
But sheesh they sound gorgeous right now in my room.
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It was a fine treat to finally meet you Tony! I enjoyed our conversations a great deal!
As always, while listening to various speakers, if I loved them, RonP hated them! The world is still spinning the same direction.
By the way RonP, I listened to the Big Big BIG Wilsons and did not care for them. The big Estelons? I still adore them. Oh. My. Goodness!
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These are great pictures and saved me for a trip to the show. 
I am happy to report that nothing looks better than what we have at home now, according to the rest of my family. 
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Being a Pass Labs fanboy, I will say that their room with the new XS preamp sounded awful.
There had to be a problem somewhere in that system.
The Technics room was just unlistenable. And they seemed to think that higher, painful volume was the solution. 30 seconds max.
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Yeah, I was also disappointed with the sound in the Pass room. It’s almost like they treat the listening part as an afterthought. This is not the first time I’ve heard a Pass listening room setup (they don’t do it too often themselves) sound like it isn’t showing off their gear very well.
On a different note, I’m so happy being back listening to my own system. It kills most of what I heard at the show, even in many cases against systems at considerably higher costs.Sure, the good systems in the bigger rooms could do things that the physics of my smaller room limit to some degree, but I’ve worked hard to get the best I can from what I’ve got. To my ears most of what I heard at the show just didn’t measure up. Yay me! 
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Yup. Totally agree. Heard some horrendously expensive set ups sound just awful.
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Although I have never heard your system, I agree with you that your system sounds better than most, if not all, of what you heard at Axpona. You’ve spent time adjusting and perfecting everything in your system, something the exhibitors cannot do in just one day, no matter how experienced they are at setting up systems (and you have decent gear and speakers too).
One room with Pass gear that did sound better to me this year was the Gershman Acoustics room
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Thanks Paul. There was a time, though, on the path to where I am now where I’ll admit that many things I used to hear at shows made me a bit envious. Now? Not so much.
The Gershman/Pass combo is often very good indeed. I just wish they wouldn’t play the music so loud.
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There were a lot of rooms with Pass amps this year. If I remember right, even the MOFI room powering Andrew Jones’ newest speakers.
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At CAF a few years ago wood horn PAP speakers with a Whammerdyne Heavy Industries amp was sublime. Not surprised that the speaker matched well with First Watts. Came very close to buying some PAP speakers.
Love my Pass XA160.8 mono blocks with my FR20’s…great combination…
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I just did my post Axpona survey. I brought up the elevator access again or lack there of. Gold pass was pricey but worth it for second row seating to the Patricia Barber show imo and Lori the super cute concierge at the gold pass desk. 
Next year I will drink more Corona’s at the happy hour event to try and recoup my Gold Pass investment.
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Lori Lori Lori. She is why I do the Gold Pass.
The Patricia Barber seats were an excellent bonus!
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