The third and final video from last month's Florida International Audio Expo 2026 covers SUPATRAC, Hana, Clearaudio, Aesthetic, Magnepan, Döhmann, Elekits, Audio Note U.K. AGD, Prodigio, Innovo, VOLTI, Border Patrol Benchmark, Altai, Grimm, Wireworld, ArgentPur, Perfect 8, Clarisys, Pink Faun, MSB, and Pass Labs. There's in-depth coverage with the people running the rooms and an interview with Border Patrol's Gary Dews. Not much in the analog world... Read More

The Florida Audio Expo 2026 traditionally marks the unofficial beginning of the new audio show season. Held each winter in Tampa, it has become something of a welcome refuge for attendees traveling from colder parts of the country to trade snow boots for sunshine while spending a few days immersed in music. After the holiday rush, the show also offers audio enthusiasts a chance to refocus and reconnect with the passion that first drew them to this hobby: the pursuit... Read More

Somehow, this "small" show produced so many great video moments, so much to see (and hear) that this second 1/2 hour video will not be the final one nor probably will the third one be. And I've tried to tightly edit these. On this video you'll see the big Acora room, the Avid Relveo turntable, and Audio-Technica's complete cartridge lineup. In the Geshelli Audio segment you'll find low cost, well-engineered, versatile, and cost-effective... Read More

The Florida International Audio Expo held last weekend in the Tampa-St. Pete Brandon Sheraton Hotel caught many seasoned show vets by surprise. New and important products made their debuts, the show truly was international, there were products at every price point, youth was served. Polish loudspeaker manufacturer Pylon made its American debut at the show. It's a wide ranging line I've seen for more than a decade at the Warsaw show and it's a line sure... Read More

The third and final video coverage of the Capital Audio Festival 2025 features mostly "room walk ins" plus a few interviews. You'll walk into rooms featuring Acora, VPI, VAC, ,EMM Labs Credo, Aequo, Trilogy, Burmester, Audience, Martin Audio, Luxman, Estelon, Vitus, Crystal Cable, Sonorus, SAT, Lyra, Lampizator, Tidal, REL, Turnbull, C.A.T., Göbel, EMM Labs, Revox and THRAX.Because of technical issues related to a truly stupid function on the DJI Pocket... Read More

Capital Audio Festival Part 2 coverage begins with the final room I visited on Sunday thanks to a tip from Stereophile's Herb Reichert. A chance lobby encounter had Herb going on about the goings on on the 8th floor in the La Dolce Audio room. Herb's tastes run to esoteric tubey stuff, just as he insists mine are towards "oligarch" products. I plead guilty, though I also try to review affordable stuff. Fortunately I took Herb's word for his... Read More

Capital Audio Festival 2025 was the largest ever and perhaps the most unusual, starting with a manufacturer greeting me by grabbing my junk. Not kidding. I've been described as being "a handful", but this was too literal for my liking. I didn't give him the pleasure of a reaction. Just glad to be wearing my Tommy Johns, which put everything in a neat package. Ok, enough of that. This was the largest Cap Audio Fest ever in terms of manufacturer... Read More

The British prime minister Harold Macmillan, who was known as Supermac during the 1950s, once famously declared, “you’ve never had it so good.” Something similar could be said about vinyl lovers. As several listening events at Innovative Audio, a carefully curated store located underground in midtown Manhattan, demonstrated over the past several days, vinyl has returned to the heart of the high-end audio hobby.The first event featured two stars in the vinyl firmament,... Read More

I spent all of day 3 at the Golden Tulip and Sobieski hotels. Golden Tulip has the bigger rooms but far fewer systems, located in the hotel's second floor exhibition space. This year there were many show highlights at the Golden Tulip including the "thumbnail" photo showing the Danish Zikra Audio room featuring the company's mono single-ended triode tube amps, preamp and Technics SP-10 based turntable. Company founder Michael Zingenberg brought his... Read More

I just got a report from show organizer Adam Mokrzycki about last week's record breaking show. According to Adam, the show attracted 14,881 unique visitors. Counted as they are at the Munich and AXPONA shows that would be around 19,000 attendees as those shows count a single visitor going all 3 or 4 days as 3 or 4 visitors. In addition, the Warsaw show had 230 exhibitors--an all time high, exhibiting in 188 rooms another all time high. 71 members of the... Read More

A new Technics turntable—the SL-1200GME, a new Aspire from Polish turntable manufacturer J.Sikora, and a new Doshi Audio designed J. Sikora Reference phono preamp are this video's highlights—as far as new audio gear is concerned. There was also a graphic exhibit from Zbigniew M. Bielak, the artist responsible for all of the fantasmagoric album covers for the Swedish metal group Ghost. Mr. Bielak was there and I interviewed him as he walks us through the exhibit.... Read More

This year's just ended Warsaw Audio Video show was by far the best yet—at least among the dozen or so I've attended. The crowds at all 3 venues were large, enthusiastic and skewed young to middle-aged, with many girls and women attending—and not necessarily stringing along with their husbands. When I did spot couples, they were sitting together, listening and commenting to one another. This was refreshing!This year at the sports stadium, show organizers... Read More

Ortofon''s Leif Johanssen runs through the new MC-X moving coil cartridge line, explains the design goals and provides all of the details. At appx. 14:35 Andy Whittle, who has resurrected and upgraded the London/Decca cartridge line, shows and tells all, then at 21:10 in the hallway Whittle encounters Johanssen and shows him all of the original London/Decca blueprints—like two kids in a candy store! At 21:43Studer/Revox veteran, HSE Swiss designer/inventor... Read More

Wow! Analog went out with a big high tech bang at Munich High End 2025. This is my second show video covering analog news and it's far from the final one. Due to Euro dollar variations and a volatile tariff strewn world marketplace all prices here are approximate. The final Munich High End show—the capper to a 21 year run—was filled with new analog gear from the Airon TH1 American-made $36,000 unipivot air bearing pivoted tonearm... to a new Soulution 787... Read More

Press conferences are generally off limits to consumers, so I thought I'd "invite" you to this one hosted for the press by Marten Audio the Swedish loudspeaker manufacturer—one of the few press conferences I managed to attend. Why? There was so much new and exciting analog gear to cover, I hardly had time for press conferences—I'm working on another all-analog gear video.At High End Munich 2025 Marten introduced two limited edition loudspeakers:... Read More

2025 was the final Munich High End show. The MOC convention center is going to be "re-purposed" or torn down so following 21 great years, the show next year will be moving to Vienna, Austria. Everything all of us did had that "this is the final time" feel about it that at times felt sad and at other times felt like relief. Instead of comfort, next year will be an adventure.Munich High End 2025 was a feast for analog lovers. New turntables,... Read More

That's my plane and I'm flying out of Newark, not concerned about the problems. Life's too short, and flying out of Newark, it could be further shortened! Not worried. This should be a great show if AXPONA is any indication of the industry's vibrancy and I believe it was.Pre-show press releases are packed with interesting new products including a turntable from Soulution in which the platter moves and the arm is stationery. I hope the head shell... Read More

Yes, it's an audio show, but I'd rather cover what was new there to see rather than how the gear sounded in hotel rooms. Sure, some rooms made pretty compelling music and it wasn't necessarily based on cost, but when I hear equipment at shows that I've had at home or own, it never sounds as good in a hotel room or a hotel ballroom. So I don't think it's of much value to tell readers about the "great sound" in any good sounding... Read More