Florida International Audio Expo reports

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 :smiley:). 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.

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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. Heā€™s got tons of stuff. Iā€™m a Suncoast member. :grin:

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Only had to wait 4 hours before finally getting checked into a room. That was fun! :unamused:

Show starts today! Last nightā€™s happy hour was good. The most important part - the food was tasty. :grin: 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.

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Looks like you are having a great time. It is always a good thing to see younger generations embrace and play jazz.

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Show opening!

I got mine before them. :smile:

Thatā€™s a lot of sausage

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Okay. Iā€™m going to say at the start of my reports that Iā€™m 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 - ā€œaudiophile soundā€ and ā€œsounds like musicā€. Both can do all the right things - go low, go high, do midrange, image well, but one just doesnā€™t elicit any feeling of musical connection while the other does. Itā€™s a purely subjective thing, so I canā€™t say what does it for me does it the same way for anyone else. Oh, and lastly, all of this is caveated with ā€œshow 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 Iā€™ll 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.

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I met Ted Denney. Kinda high intensity type AAA fellow who told me that AC is unidirectional and alternating current is bs. really.

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MBL Holy crap. Spectacular.

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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.

Iā€™m here now listening to the MBLā€™s at the UHA after hours event. Holy Carp! :smiley:

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 ā€œDiamonds on the Soles of Her Shoesā€ and ā€œTake Fiveā€.

But BS&T sounded fantastic!

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Upstream Audio

This room was comprised of


Hey, look at the cables being used! They were playing music Iā€™m not familiar with, but Iā€™m familiar with Focal speakers and these Kantas sounded as I remember. Classic Focal sound.

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Iā€™m front left

AGD Productions

For those who donā€™t know, these are not tube amps. Those tube looking things are actually plug in GaN Class D modules. Iā€™ve heard AGD before. If I was going to ever consider Class D, this is the stuff Iā€™d consider. I can never remember what speakers these are; Iā€™ll check tomorrow. The whole thing sounds like music. Very engaging. The speakers play surprisingly big for their size.

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the cables are ā€˜airyā€™ 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

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Understand that the MBL 101s are flat and dull compared to the Extremesā€¦

I can back that up.