AXpona 2023

[admin]

Interesting tidbits. Thanks for sharing.

I'm surprised Emotiva is pulling back. Out of all the companies you mentioned, I figured they would be doing well with the most resources as well as business. Or maybe they don't need the advertising? They are more home theater than high end audio so perhaps that is the cause?

[Big Dog RJ]

Having chatted to a few more who attended and looking at it from a bird's eye view... I think the main reason W Diller did his "special invite only" demo was to gain a sense of traction. Better to start off with some prototype and see how the crowd reacts, so keep the music selections simple and don't complicate things... hence the use of a competitors brand, in this case being ML's.

Once WD has gained his knowledge and suitable findings based on that particular demo mix... he'll officially launch the Maggie's with this dsp woofer system, that's my take on it. Even my chaps are predicting on the same lines. Knowing WD anything can happen. Like he said, he's been at this for 50yrs!

Cheers, RJ

[AnotherJohnson]

Having chatted to a few more who attended and looking at it from a bird's eye view... I think the main reason W Diller did his "special invite only" demo was to gain a sense of traction. Better to start off with some prototype and see how the crowd reacts, so keep the music selections simple and don't complicate things... hence the use of a competitors brand, in this case being ML's.

Once WD has gained his knowledge and suitable findings based on that particular demo mix... he'll officially launch the Maggie's with this dsp woofer system, that's my take on it. Even my chaps are predicting on the same lines. Knowing WD anything can happen. Like he said, he's been at this for 50yrs!

Cheers, RJ

That sounds plausible. He made the point that he has spent 50 years watching the people in the demo for their subtle reactions.

Maybe he brought the MLs so that if it were a bust, he’d have no Magnepan skin in the game. No one would be able to say that his new prototype needed more work.

Interesting guy … sounds a bit cagey…

His banter about “What’s a closed baffle? Why do we call it an open baffle?” looked like it was psycho-play (psy-ops) against the interviewer.

Honestly my reaction to the first video was initially positive… but the more I reflected on the group of interviews, the secret room struck me as a manipulative gimmick.

[AnotherJohnson]

Here’s a video from 3 years ago where Wendel tells his “audio origin” story.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4t1mtsztxWQ

[Wildcat]

Interesting tidbits. Thanks for sharing.

I'm surprised Emotiva is pulling back. Out of all the companies you mentioned, I figured they would be doing well with the most resources as well as business. Or maybe they don't need the advertising? They are more home theater than high end audio so perhaps that is the cause?

You may be right. It costs less to set up a booth to show off products, and they may have enough business to where they just want to keep the brand name visible vs. doing demos to convert to customers. I also wonder if supply chain issues are a reason. If they can't ship a lot of units, no sense in pushing it hard if you have nothing to sell.

I bet that might be why SweetVinyl didn't show. Being backordered, no sense in selling more units if they can't ship.

[Wildcat]

I stopped somewhere yesterday.

PXL_20230502_205454833-01.jpeg (2.51 MiB) Viewed 4675 times

I stayed in Boulder (actually close by in Louisville CO at the La Quinta--Boulder hotels are pricey) for the night and popped into PS Audio for a look around. I haven't been there since 2018 and they've filled up the space nicely. Speaker and Sprout100 production are done elsewhere, but everything else is made there in-house.

My last visit, the listening rooms were just steel 2x4s. Naturally they are finished this time. Paul's prized IRS Vs are sitting in the hallway since they are using both listening rooms for the aspen FR30 and FR20 pairs. I listened in the main demo room with the FR30s for a bit. The room is nicely dialed in, and this is the proverbial case of the speakers sitting there unheard while the music filled in the space around and behind them. I'm a Martin-Logan guy, but these are "box" speakers I could live with, as the high and mid are ribbon drivers, with no coloration at all. The bass dips to, I think, 24Hz.

We played a few tracks, but the one I liked the best was actually a 63 year old recording--the Fritz Reiner/Chicago Symphony recording of Bartok's Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta (RCA Living Stereo, a three-mic recording--we played the second movement, the Allegro). I also played a track from the same outfit's recording of Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra (a two-mic recording). The former had pinpoint accuracy over the FR30s...I could place the tympani in a far back corner, and you could easily hear where the various string sections handed off parts left and right between their sections. That was what gave me the sense that the speakers had disappeared. The latter, recorded 3-4 years earlier, didn't have quite that same distinction but still sounded quite good.

This was much more stable than the demo at AXPONA, for sure. Well worth stopping in if you visit Boulder!

[admin]

Paul is very proud of the new PS Audio speakers. Rightly so it sounds.

[AnotherJohnson]

Those new speakers represent a huge investment.

I’m sure they’re great, especially with Paul’s background with Arnie Nudell (sp?). Paul knows what great speakers sound like.

PS Audio has a large and loyal fan base. He needs to use his fan base and his street cred to move the inventory. All the better/easier if they’re really great speakers for their price point.

[admin]

Considering all the hype I think they will do well with the speaker. Also considering that they do direct sales they probably make twice the profit per speaker vs selling it at via a dealer.

[Big Dog RJ]

Ah! That sounds more like it.

When they had the FR30's... I think it was, over here at our last Melb hifi show, it wasn't a great sound at all. I think I mentioned this somewhere before on another thread. The room was a major let down and the PS Audio dealer really didn't know what they were doing. I think they just wanted to create awareness but those FR series were around 50grand AUD. That's certainly not very affordable and definitely wasn't worth even half that!

However, I knew straight away where the problem was, not so much the matching gear but the room was a huge factor.
Glad to hear that these were upto the task. After all, PS Audio is quite well respected. They don't do mediocre gear.

Thanks for the update.
Cheers, RJ

[SteveFord]

A friend of mine has been assisting in the development of Magnepan's tower of subwoofers, this has been in the works for quite some time.
Like years.
One thing I've noticed is NOBODY will mention an actual dollar figure or an actual ETA.

[Big Dog RJ]

Correct! Even if you were to drug or inject Wendell D with one of those tell all truth cerums... the old bugger wouldn't budge!

Mags have been developing this for a while now, and they were supposed to introduce it in their new MG studio series speakers, which is supposed to have a ribbon panel mated with a dynamic driver or an array of drivers. This is the first time ever that Mags would be doing this, especially when they never incorporated dynamic drivers, only third panels to augment more bass. Anyway, many others have overtaken them in this area; ML, Inner Sound, Sanders ESL's, GT Audio works, there's even an Aussie brand called Ambience that looks bit similar to what Carver did with one of his ribbon-woofer system. Magnepan better hurry up!

Best, RJ

[SteveFord]

Here is the latest on the tower of woofers:
It's in production engineering as we speak, so I'd say not long -- certainly by AXPONA next year, when Wendell Diller expects to show the full spouse-friendly system (12" panels and the woofer -- the combo that was shown as a rough prototype in their market research tour a few years back).

So, in Magnepan Time not long equals under a year (maybe), price to be determined on everything but I wouldn't expect any of it to be inexpensive.

I would have gone with 1.7+ and 3.7+ models instead of this but whatever.

[tonye]

Wendell mentioned the new Maggie Condo speakers which are a narrow, tall ribbon. Designed to mate with the Maggie Dipole Woofer which has been in the making now for a few years.

So, likely the closest to the Condo speakers is the ML panel... so they mated it with the prototype ( closer to reality ) Maggie Dipole Woofer to show how such a system would sound... and let's face it, the ML panels are a lot smaller than the 1.7s, or even the 0.7.

I do wonder... they must have told ML about the plan.

Oh, and ML has never had a woofer like these... if you search the Internet, there have been ongoing discussions for a while about this.

[Wildcat]

Considering all the hype I think they will do well with the speaker. Also considering that they do direct sales they probably make twice the profit per speaker vs selling it at via a dealer.

I don't know if it applies to the aspen FR20s or lower, but Paul and a PS Audio technician fly out to help the customer set up the FR30s optimally in the home. And I would imagine said tech would be on the burly side to more easily move those beasts. Shipping those crated speakers is also no small cost these days and without checking, I think the price you pay includes everything all-in.

Having seen the prototype FR10s and an even smaller bookshelf speaker up on Chris's monitor that is still in the design stage, that FR30 is of course the flagship and its ideas are being spread further down the line.

I know Paul won't get into soundbars but...I want a TV soundbar that sounds halfway decent. The MartinLogan Vision that I have sounds good but has an odd digital sync issue where the sound drops out for a second or so every time an input goes to silence (and that's either out of an NVidia Shield, or a Nintendo Switch). The replacement Vision X also had the same issue but allegedly that one is capable of a firmware update and the issue can be fixed that way.

Off on a tangent, I know...

[Wildcat]

However, I knew straight away where the problem was, not so much the matching gear but the room was a huge factor.
Glad to hear that these were upto the task. After all, PS Audio is quite well respected. They don't do mediocre gear.

They did OK in the AXPONA room--the FR30s were uncolored and had good bass, but I didn't want to take up seat time for showgoers for what was a demo that anyone would admit is compromised, even as well as they treated the room with what they brought with them. (Which isn't that much, but the use of display panels diagonally behind the seating area did break up the room a bit.)

PSA's main listening room has a lot of treatments, but the room is not overly treated. It's just enough of the right kind of absorption or diffusion where needed. In that ideal environment, I had the sense that this was the very room the speakers have been tested in for months if not a year or two, which got us to the final product. So it was a direct way of hearing Chris Brunhaver's "vision" of the system as he heard it in the design process.

PSA's president joked with me that I was required to buy a pair of the FR30s before I could leave the building. (We'd had dinner after the show on Saturday night with the PSA gang--pizza and beer were involved. ) I told him for now, the best I could do were the pair of ELACs they had sitting off to one side of the sales office. But that's what is so nice about getting a tour and hearing a demo. There's no sales pressure to buy anything, but they'll gladly show you around and let you hear something in either of the two demo rooms if either or both are not being used. (Soon to be three, as they need a third room for the ongoing speaker development.) Paul has a wall that I think they call the PS Audio Museum where there are one each of every component they've ever made, even going back to their first product, the phono stage that Paul and Stan developed when the company started.

[Wildcat]

I'm possibly heading to AXPONA 2024. (Depends on my better half's surgery, whether or not she moves it up at all.) Due to room cost and availability (a story in itself), I'm only staying over Friday and Saturday nights--Marriott's prices have more than doubled since 2019. (The room I got in 2019 with the AAA discount was $91/night at the Springhill Suites across I-90 from the convention center, and this year's rate is $224/night.)

A different spin this time, however--I'm going to see what options are available for low-cost systems. I'll still have a few favorite rooms to visit, however, and am always on the lookout for CJ gear in the wild. I don't see that they have ever officially had an AXPONA presence, and I've been going since 2016. (It's usually been a dealer bringing the amp as part of a system.)

[admin]

If you do get to go please give us an update. As you mentioned, prices have really gone in the last few years. Things are getting a little crazy.

PS- best wishes to your wife. Hope all goes well and she makes a quick recovery.

[Big Dog RJ]

Nice one WC!

Yes, as Admin stated, please post some pics if possible. I know sometimes you need permission from both parties, dealers and the owners of the rig... that being said, always an issue in Spore & HK. Otherwise, I would've had an entire album!

Have a good matey, and enjoy the show!
Cheers, RJ

[Wildcat]

We're lucky at these US audio shows--there isn't an issue with photographing equipment, as the press usually photographs most everything anyway. AXPONA even has a disclaimer saying that we should expect photographs or video will be taken where we might appear in them. With a press pass, that opens the doors a bit and the reps are always the ones starting conversations with me, which is nice.

I'm avoiding most of the high dollar rooms but will visit a couple of favorites. I offered to find components at the show that the other 99% of showgoers can afford. I still have a few favorites, as I'll stop into any room that has Martin Logan speakers and as an extension of that, if Gayle Sanders makes an appearance this year, he'll be happy to know that I finally own a pair myself. And if I see C-J listed anywhere, you can bet I'll get everyone here a photo of the setup.

And if there's anything you've read about that is worth taking a look at, let me know and I'll try to track it down. I think the show has overtaken 12 floors of the hotel, and there are numerous meeting rooms as well. The only thing I don't really look at are headphones.

I've always debated taking my DSLR to photograph the show, but the camera in the phone has a "night" mode that is perfect for very low light conditions. The pictures aren't quite as clean and detailed as a proper DSLR but for print/web purposes, they are good enough.