AXPONA 2026 Video 3—Loudspeakers and More

I mostly got to these speakers looking for turntables

The final Axpona 2026 video covers some loudspeakers and more. The more includes a few turntables, a R2R tape recorder, some cables and the usual show entertainment. Loudspeakers covered include new ones from Ø Audio, Bricasti, Dynaudio, Alvalos, ELAC, Magico, MJ Acoustics, ATC, Western Acoustics, Franco Serblin, and others.

Ø Audio YMIR

ATC EL50

In an earlier video I covered the new Acora Acoustics MRC 5.2 and the circa $60K MRC 5.2D featuring a diamond vapor deposition tweeter. I played records in that room Saturday night and no one wanted to leave. Not a single track I brought sounded less than spectacular.

The Ø Audio YMIR speaker launch featured a morning press event. There's a bit of it in the video but the two partners kind of got lost in their own rhetoric and I felt it best to not get too far into it. The speakers though, powerfully spoke for themselves, producing a super clean, fast and vast picture. The design effectively blended the carbon fiber composite compression horn and a 12" carbon fiber composite cone woofer. It put on a good show!

One of the big bits of speaker news was a new field coil based one from Andrew Jones and his new company Jones and Cerreta (Andrew will continue designing for Mo-Fi Electronics). Video coverage got fumbled (sorry). The small room really didn't make for an adequate listening experience beyond "promising" but since Andrew has always delivered excellence, don't expect anything less.

Jones and Cerreta Field Coil Loudspeaker

The new Dynaudio (book) shelf speaker sounded far bigger and more powerful than its small two way size would seem to indicate and the Rosewood finish was notable. Cost is $7000/pr.

Dynaudio Legend

The new floor stander from Bricasti sounded fine and features high quality drivers, likewise a new entry from ATC that was by far the company's most attractive. I messed up Rotel coverage at FLAX but got it right here.

Bricasti

Marten Audio showcased its super limited edition Coltrane Quintet—only one pair for North America and it was there impressing in a huge open convention center hallway powered by Goldmund amps.

Ole Siig's Treble Clef powered loudspeakers made a show debut. I had a pair in-house for a few weeks last Fall and have not had a chance to write a review so I was happy to see them at the show where a lot of people could experience this unique design. Check out the video. I couldn't move my XVXs for the listen and he said "it won't matter put them wherever you like", and he was correct! I ran XLRs from dartZeel preamp into these and it sounded great. He showed a new subwoofer at the show

Treble Clef

Many, many speakers are MIA from this video. It was impossible for one person to cover this show in its entirety. Ditto two people and I was alone. Plus I really was looking first for analog news but found much new in loudspeakers as I searched.

I hope you enjoy this final video from AXPONA 2026, probably the biggest and best attended audio show ever produced in North America, despite raging economic issues and tariffs. The people online predicting "the end" of high performance audio are just plain and ridiculously wrong. The crowd demo skewed younger than ever before, in part attracted by strong showings from headphone and car audio companies but those youngsters made it upstairs and into the convention center where they got to hear their audio futures.