Ready for AXPONA
It’s that time again! One of the most exciting moments at Glenn Poor’s every year is our annual trip up to AXPONA in Chicago. This expo is the premier showcase for high end audio equipment in North America, and it’s always a fantastic opportunity to get connected with old friends and colleagues, as well as a chance to discover the newest and best products in the industry. Many of our brands at the store have been brought here through meetings at AXPONA, most recently YG Acoustics who blew us away with their Tor loudspeakers at last year’s event. This isn’t just about discovery though: it’s also a chance for us to show off our products, and we've always taken pride in setting up excellent listening rooms at the show that we believe compete with the very best. AXPONA is all about innovation, and so we’re bringing a fresh lineup of equipment featuring some of our favorite discoveries from the past year.
For the speakers: we’ll be featuring new offerings from Audience, Magnepan, and YG Acoustics. All of these products have more in-depth reviews on our website already but I’ll still give a quick overview of what we’re bringing. First up is Audience’s 1+1 V5. These tiny speakers may look outmatched at first glance, but once they start playing you’ll definitely understand why they have a place. They bring a harmonic and accurate sound, and overall power and depth of these things is truly shocking considering their size. Joining them as our second speaker on demo is a favorite from last year, YG’s Tor from the Peaks series. We’ve spent a ton of time with this line of speakers over the past year and it’s honestly hard to describe just how good they are. The Tors just get things right, everything is in balance and the high end on these things is flat out incredible: vocals have never sounded better.
With those two speakers we’ll have a couple of bookshelf options with excellent clarity in our listening room, but if you're looking for more bass we have something from Magnepan that may suit your needs (times have really changed). The floorstanding 2.7x is a new product that really takes the classic Magnepan sound to a completely new level while remaining in a reasonable price range. It’s got all the detail you’d expect from the brand, but the 2.7 just plays so much louder and has a real presence in the bass ranges that was previously a bit lacking with other models (LRS+, 0.7, 1.7). The “X” upgrade just smooths things out beautifully and really brings a noticeable improvement in imaging and bass response; a impressive feat given the base 2.7i already excels in both of those areas.
In addition to their 1+1 V5 speaker, we’ll be featuring the excellent line of Front Row cables from Audience as the interconnects for the entire system. These are reliable and most importantly very fast: a crucial trait given we’re bringing 3 speakers known for time and phase coherence. The rest of the system will be a variety of pieces from Luxman, an iconic company that’s still right on the cutting edge and making brilliant products close to 100 years after they were founded. Luxman’s warmth and character have made them one of our absolute favorites at the store. At the heart of things we’ll have their new L-509Z integrated amp, accompanied by the excellent D-07x CD player/DAC. We’ll also have Luxman’s PD-151 MKII turntable for vinyl lovers, with the Luxman LMC-5 and Ortofon MC Verismo cartridges available.
We’re incredibly excited about the setup we’re bringing, and we hope you’ll be just as impressed by these products as we’ve been. AXPONA runs Friday through Sunday next week, April 12-14. Please come join us in Chicago in room 364 if you can; we always love the opportunity to get in touch with our customers who may not live close enough to come to the store regularly. Hope to see you there!
