Reflections from AXPONA 2023

AXPONA 2023 has wrapped, and it was another exciting event for many. Situated at the Renaissance Inn Schaumberg Convention Center, the expo runs for three full days and occupies almost every banquet hall and hotel room of the 16 floor destination. It was likely considered a success by the event planners, as I felt it was much more crowded this year than past years. Sometimes the hallways and listening rooms were hard to navigate just because the crowds were so dense. But it’s great to see the hobby booming!

This year’s event was particularly more busy for me as I attended both in a professional and recreational capacity. It was a busy time for me, helping out often at the DH Labs booth in the tradeshow portion of the expo and networking across the rest of the show with manufacturers and distributors to help Bliss Hifi grow. One exciting outcome from the visit is that Bliss Hifi is now an authorized Vivid Audio dealer! The Vivid Audio Kaya 90 and Kaya S12 speakers will be heading to the showroom this coming week.

It was also nice to see a number of customers and friends, spending time over drinks or a meal and catching up on a personal capacity.

I did have the opportunity to explore, though I didn’t have as much time as I would have liked. Typically, I spend time visiting most rooms and taking the time to return to the best ones more than once. In this case, while I did return to a few rooms, I likely didn’t visit all of the rooms I would have liked.

One thing was in common with most rooms – the sound was a bit more subpar than I recall from previous shows. This may have been due largely to inadequate space, touch rooms, equipment that was not broken in, and inexperience in system setup and speaker placement. I cannot tell you how many manufacturers, distributors, and dealers are unable to set up a room properly, and it’s quite disappointing to see hundreds of thousands of dollars of beautiful equipment not deliver to their full potential. I did also hear from many that the rooms were indeed tough, and that they had insufficient time to set up.

I’ve broken out my experiences into a few posts to keep it clean: