AXPONA 2018: Best Loudspeakers at the Show

[gene]

The AXPONA audio show had another huge turnout in both exhibitors and attendees this year, and we were lucky enough to get front row seats to see some surprising new products. In this part of our coverage, we focus on a handful of loudspeakers below $6,000/pair as being some of the relatively affordable setups there. Read on to see what speakers were on display at AXPONA that could possibly be owned without completely shattering your bank account.

Read: AXPONA 2018: Six Interesting Speakers under $6,000/pair

 

[Matthew J Poes]

Good write-up James! I was, of course, with you for most of this listening and we have shared our opinions of all of these products. They were certainly among the best value sound at the show.

I might add that the HRT Stage was an interesting concept, but at least I did not find it's sound all that great. Key to your article is that you mention these as interesting, not necessarily great. The HRT needed some work, in my opinion, to optimize sound. I even wonder if a CBT approach might have been better by curving the stand and shading the level. Still wouldn't fix that spacing problem and in fact the curve would introduce gaps.

The LSA and Salk Sound's were outstanding values. They both blew me away with their impressive sound. With the LSA, when we listened, they started us out with the monitor you referenced (which I knew nothing about). Without any point of reference they sounded good, but hard to tell how good. Then a switch was made to the tower from the lower end signature line, the LSA-20 signature. I wasn't paying attention at the time to what the host was doing and didn't realize he had made this switch (I thought he was playing with the subwoofer) and was disturbed by the sudden degradation of sound. It didn't sound bad by any means, it just didn't sound as good as it had, specifically the treble range sounded less detailed and revealing of the instruments. I asked what he did and he shared it was a switch to the towers. That the towers were a lower end speaker. What! Never have I heard such a distinct difference in the resolution of a speaker between two adjacent lines. It's usually subtle at best. That Copper-Beryllium tweeter from Dan Wiggin's is something special (as is the crossover I'm sure).

So when James says interesting, my opinion is maybe leave the HRT's in the oddity department (unless you need a good computer speaker) and take a listen to those LSA's and Salk's.

James I hope we don't suddenly see a bunch of companies stacking their cheap speakers into make-shift line-arrays. We may need to then educate them of how a line-array operates.

 

[shadyJ]

Good write-up James! I was, of course, with you for most of this listening and we have shared our opinions of all of these products. They were certainly among the best value sound at the show.

I might add that the HRT Stage was an interesting concept, but at least I did not find it's sound all that great. Key to your article is that you mention these as interesting, not necessarily great. The HRT needed some work, in my opinion, to optimize sound. I even wonder if a CBT approach might have been better by curving the stand and shading the level. Still wouldn't fix that spacing problem and in fact the curve would introduce gaps.

The LSA and Salk Sound's were outstanding values. They both blew me away with their impressive sound. With the LSA, when we listened, they started us out with the monitor you referenced (which I knew nothing about). Without any point of reference they sounded good, but hard to tell how good. Then a switch was made to the tower from the lower end signature line, the LSA-20 signature. I wasn't paying attention at the time to what the host was doing and didn't realize he had made this switch (I thought he was playing with the subwoofer) and was disturbed by the sudden degradation of sound. It didn't sound bad by any means, it just didn't sound as good as it had, specifically the treble range sounded less detailed and revealing of the instruments. I asked what he did and he shared it was a switch to the towers. That the towers were a lower end speaker. What! Never have I heard such a distinct difference in the resolution of a speaker between two adjacent lines. It's usually subtle at best. That Copper-Beryllium tweeter from Dan Wiggin's is something special (as is the crossover I'm sure).

So when James says interesting, my opinion is maybe leave the HRT's in the oddity department (unless you need a good computer speaker) and take a listen to those LSA's and Salk's.

James I hope we don't suddenly see a bunch of companies stacking their cheap speakers into make-shift line-arrays. We may need to then educate them of how a line-array operates.

Yeah, you can't just make a stack of horizontal bookshelf speakers and call it a proper line-array, but I believe that a bookshelf speaker could be make that could also fulfill that function. It would take some engineering. The HRTs didn't really do that, but it could be a step in an interesting direction for a manufacturer that wants to get a little crazy. Honestly, out of all the nutty ideas out there, I am surprised it hasn't been done sooner. It could work though.

 

[Matthew J Poes]

Yeah, you can't just make a stack of horizontal bookshelf speakers and call it a proper line-array, but I believe that a bookshelf speaker could be make that could also fulfill that function. It would take some engineering. The HRTs didn't really do that, but it could be a step in an interesting direction for a manufacturer that wants to get a little crazy. Honestly, out of all the nutty ideas out there, I am surprised it hasn't been done sooner. It could work though.

If we pull from how it's done in the pro world, we would want to see a horizontal waveguide or ribbon speaker which could then be used in the vertical if stacked. Some modular arrays also have either DSP settings or crossover switches that modify the response depending on their position in the array.

I think relying on the spacing with a dome tweeter will always place the tweeters too far apart. When domes are used in arrays they are typically no more than a few inches apart at most, and even that can be problematic.

Most speakers have diffraction reduction edges, which would in this case, cause diffraction by creating little wells between the drivers.

So I do think you are right that it can be done, but it would require a radical departure from traditional speaker design and adopting pro style design techniques but optimized for good sound in small domestic rooms.

 

[Bad Kitty]

Gene, did you hear the M126Be in the Revel room? For $4k/pair I'm surprised these didn't get a mention.

 

[Matthew J Poes]

Gene, did you hear the M126Be in the Revel room? For $4k/pair I'm surprised these didn't get a mention.

@shadyJ and I were at the Revel room, but I believe we only heard the Revel Towers. Revel's engineering is so far beyond most other companies that we were not surprised in the least that the speakers sounded great. There is next to nothing they have produced in the last 20 years that I didn't think was better than nearly all the competition.

I had thought these were from the Ultima line originally, the sound was that refined. I couldn't figure out what happened to the nice sculpted enclosures until James informed me this was actually the PerformaBE line.

I don't want to speak for James, but at least in our conversations, I think these "interesting" speakers stood out for more reasons than just good sound (In fact the HRT did not sound that good). We heard a ton of good sounding rooms. These were interesting to me more because the experience with them was somehow unexpected. There is a back story to the SalkSound speakers which I included in my write-up at AVNIRVANA. That room was loaded with everything Audioholics is against (and myself for that matter). It was loaded with questionable products and setup decisions that could not have helped the sound (a thin insulation speaker cable not far off from enamel coated magnet wire was coiled many times behind each speaker. A power cord was then run across this coil and coiled itself next to the speaker wire coil. I would imagine there was at least some inductive coupling going on, it certainly wasn't good cable dressing practices.). Yet once you suspend your disbelief and ignore the silliness in the room, the sound itself was outstanding. Sure, you could argue it was all the "silliness" that lead to great sound, but as I said in my write-up, I tend to believe it was the really good speakers.

Contrast that with the Revel room, and while it certainly had exorbitantly priced Mark Levinson gear and high end cables, none of it was that offensive. As such, walking in and enjoying the sound was uneventful and unremarkable.

 

[Bucknekked]

The LSA and Salk Sound's were outstanding values. They both blew me away with their impressive sound.
So when James says interesting, my opinion is maybe leave the HRT's in the oddity department (unless you need a good computer speaker) and take a listen to those LSA's and Salk's.

Did somebody say Salk speakers sounded great ?
I went and checked and its been more than a week since I put in a shameless plug for my Salk speakers.
I just did a great demo session for a friend of mine. We had an outstanding time and once again the Salks impressed.
Consider this my shameless plug for the week.

 

[gene]

6 Interesting Loudspeakers above $6,000/pair at AXPONA 2018

 

[Matthew J Poes]

I just have to add that the TAD speakers were pretty amazing and that room was a lot of fun. It's probably my most memorable experience. When everyone left the room and it was just James, myself, and the folks from Primare, I fell into a kind of audio bliss. I really wanted to dislike the TAD speakers, they were just too expensive for a bookshelf. They really are impressive. They sound way bigger than they are.

 

[mtrot]

Among the ~$10K options at AXPONA, I felt that the Revel F228 sounded fantastic. And it was such a simple system, comprised of a streaming device, integrated amp, and the F228s. I do think the Mark Levinson 585 integrated amp had a lot to do with the quality of the sound.

The new Focal Kanta No. 2 sounded OK, but it was in a huge room with all sorts of other Focal speakers playing at the same time. The Paradigm Persona F3 also sounded great. I wasn't as impressed with the new Magico A3, but the room was so crowded that I did not get an optimal listen to it.

At higher prices, the Tidal Piano looked and sounded fantastic, as did the Joseph Audio Pearl 3.

Focal Kanta No. 2

Persona 5F

 

[shadyJ]

View attachment 24183

Nice picture of the Revel speakers, I found it very difficult to get good shots of them in that darkened room. Your pic is a lot better than mine.

 

[BRIAN_PDX]

I enjoy reports on affordable equipment. Thank you.