Got here in one piece. Waiting for my room to be ready. Walked the floors (all but one of the hotel floors has exhibitors - the show is back up to its first year premier of 77 or so exhibitors 
). First person I saw was my pal Leif Swanson from Von Schweikert Audio.
First thing that caught my eye (in one of the few rooms with an open door) - the Lansche 5.2. Looking forward to hearing them.
I like the logo to its right as well. Their smaller speakers made a huge impression on me at Axpona 2022.
will see you saturday morning
turns out the owner/founder of the expo owns Suncoast Audio, quite near. the store is never open. I emailed to get an appointment and he responded to get an appointment. Based on videos/pics, he has tons of equipment including the highest price boxes on earth.
Yep. Mike. Heās got tons of stuff. Iām a Suncoast member. 
Only had to wait 4 hours before finally getting checked into a room. That was fun! 
Show starts today! Last nightās happy hour was good. The most important part - the food was tasty. I was able to chat with some of the industry folks, and listen to the small jazz group that was playing during the get together. They were pretty good! Notice how young some of these kids are - a continuing sign of hope for jazz!
Had breakfast this morning and met another pal Kent English from Pass. Nice guy.
Looks like you are having a great time. It is always a good thing to see younger generations embrace and play jazz.
Thatās a lot of sausage
Okay. Iām going to say at the start of my reports that Iām just telling everyone what I heard, with no prejudice or preference for any brand. If I heard something that did not sound fantastic, I apologize in advance if anyone happens to own any of this stuff. Additionally, I feel there are two flavors of high end sound - āaudiophile soundā and āsounds like musicā. Both can do all the right things - go low, go high, do midrange, image well, but one just doesnāt elicit any feeling of musical connection while the other does. Itās a purely subjective thing, so I canāt say what does it for me does it the same way for anyone else. Oh, and lastly, all of this is caveated with āshow conditionsā, where it is typically by no means an ideal space. So with that all saidā¦
CAT room with Magico S5 Mk2
I have a lot of respect for CAT gear, I like the way it sounds, but for me with these Magicos I was not completely drawn in. I played my own tunes on this setup (not possible in many other rooms). I found the bass range to be somewhat undifferentiated, and when female vocals (like Eva Cassidy) got very dynamic I felt the soundstage depth flatten. I heard a similar thing with Bluesville, so I guess Iāll call it dynamic flattening. I intend to go back to all rooms over the next two days, so maybe things will be different on another listen.
Having dinner. More to follow.
I met Ted Denney. Kinda high intensity type AAA fellow who told me that AC is unidirectional and alternating current is bs. really.
MBL Holy crap. Spectacular.
Ron, are you going to be here tomorrow?
I was not impressed with my Endeavor SEs in the Synergistic room. Not well set up, IMO. Mine at home sound way better.
Iām here now listening to the MBLās at the UHA after hours event. Holy Carp!
Although they did overload the room on a couple of tracks, causing the extreme low end to get thumpy and causing some details to get muddled up. In particular with āDiamonds on the Soles of Her Shoesā and āTake Fiveā.
But BS&T sounded fantastic!
Upstream Audio
This room was comprised of
Hey, look at the cables being used! They were playing music Iām not familiar with, but Iām familiar with Focal speakers and these Kantas sounded as I remember. Classic Focal sound.
Iām front left
AGD Productions
For those who donāt know, these are not tube amps. Those tube looking things are actually plug in GaN Class D modules. Iāve heard AGD before. If I was going to ever consider Class D, this is the stuff Iād consider. I can never remember what speakers these are; Iāll check tomorrow. The whole thing sounds like music. Very engaging. The speakers play surprisingly big for their size.
the cables are āairyā but not holographic
will call you later, like the BST reference
have my priorities, including asking why refurbishing, if needed, my vintage Koetsu Onyx costs $5,000
MBL is on the listā¦to finally see/hear what all the money is about
and to poll about optimum distance from speakers
Understand that the MBL 101s are flat and dull compared to the Extremesā¦
I can back that up.
