What’s New

Earlier this month, I joined our U.S. sales team in Chicago for the 2024 AXPONA audio show. AXPONA (Audio Expo North America) has grown to be the largest hi-fi audio show in North America and, unlike other industry shows, it is open to the public. This year’s show took place once again at the Renaissance Schaumburg Hotel and Convention Center over the April 12-14 weekend and welcomed more than 10,000 attendees from 42 U.S. states and 31 countries around the world. This was a 14% increase in attendance over 2023. Attendees experienced more than 200 listening rooms across 12 floors of the hotel where more than 600 audio brands had products on display via manufacturers, retailers, and distributors. Show goers also enjoyed seminars (including one from our own Dr. Sean Olive), live music, shopping for vintage vinyl, and much more.

Our team demonstrated our latest products in two rooms in the hotel tower. Our first room focused on products from our JBL Classic Series including some of our newest models – the MkII versions of the L100 Classic and L82 Classic. These were powered by the SA750 and SA550 integrated amplifiers with the CD350, MP350, and TT350 as source players. The L75ms and L42ms music systems were also on display in this first room, as was the new Roon Nucleus Titan in the wood finish. The Classic Series products always draw a crowd at a hi-fi show, and this was no exception with consistent standing room only demonstrations throughout the event. I also met up with our friend Carlo Lo Raso from Secrets of Home Theater and High-Fidelity where I was able to receive the physical 2023 Product of the Year award for the JBL 4329P Studio Monitor that we won a few months back. Thank you, Carlo and team!

Our second room highlighted the new ARCAM Radia series hi-fi components and consisted of the A25 integrated amplifier with the CD5 and ST5 source players with high-resolution streaming audio served up via Roon. For vinyl listening, we demonstrated the JBL Spinner BT in the black/gold finish. The new Roon Nucleus Titan was also on display in this room in the metal and stone finish options to show a more contemporary finish to match the Radia industrial design. Loudspeakers for this system included the Revel M126Be and F226Be from the Performa Beryllium series. The combination of the A25 powering the F226Be was superb and left many listeners asking us where we had hidden the subwoofer! (There wasn’t one of course. Just a great sounding loudspeaker doing its thing in a proper sized room.)

Traffic was very good at the show this year and represented a broad demographic segment of music lovers there to see and hear the latest products. It has been great to see this show grow over the years into what it is today. And it is always wonderful to demonstrate our products and share the love of music with people from all over the globe.

Next up for me is the world’s largest hi-fi show. I’m off to Munich for High End 2024 where we’ll be revealing some exciting new products for the world to see and hear for the first time! I’ll be back with a show recap for you next month.