Axpona 2017 - Austin Acoustic

[Ducatista47]

It occurs to me that I have not reported on the outstanding things encountered at AXPONA 2017 last Spring. I wasn’t concerned about it, but it seems no one else has covered it here. More to come soon (I hope) but let’s start with…

[Ducatista47]

Austin Acoustic - http://www.austinacoustic.net/home-12.html - was missed by almost everyone because it was 1) not listed in the program book, being a last minute addition and 2) being located in literally the furthest, last room on the main floor, on the way to nowhere. He picked up on a cancellation and drove a box truck to Chicago from Austin, Texas. Man (his name) seems to be a sole proprietor. What he brought was easily the best speakers, indeed the best sounding system, at the show. Only a handful of people heard it but those who did tended to live in that room the rest of the show. My friend Dave, who has a better memory and is much more show traveled than I, recognized famous vendors he knew hanging out all night after their exhibits shut down for the day. Guys who knew sound as well as anyone and had heard it all, for decades. They would bring their own CDs to play. No one sat in judgment after the first listen. They came back to bask in the experience and frankly looked like they were having a religious experience. I, nor anyone else there, had ever heard anything so satisfying, anywhere. Unfortunately, this was never more than a few people. We had to bail by about midnight on Friday and Saturday nights to catch the last shuttle back to our hotel. Man might have been there a lot longer for all I know, running the room by himself. He is a World Class nice guy and has interesting taste in music. He played whatever was brought in and had some great music from Vietnam and some other places, some by musicians he knew.

I will try not to be wordy about this, but it will be tough. Firstly, the room was large and difficult, with high ceilings and one side was an even higher clerestory. It could have seated hundreds of people. This is notable because the system controlled every corner, cranny, open space and doorway at least as well as I have ever heard any system do to any sweet spot. It sounded the same no matter where you were in the room. The room treatment was modest, just a few sections of absorbing material – some were raw bats – laid on the floor in front of the installation and leaned against the side walls. The floor and walls were covered maybe five or ten percent, probably less. There were bass traps in the corners, very similar to the ATS Acoustics units I use.

Except for the CD player source, the system was very old school. The speakers were very, very large four ways with a fifteen or eighteen inch cone woofer and three compression driver/ horns, driven by hand built, copper chassised amps for each transducer. The amps seemed to be Western Electric clones. Except for the woofer cones, everything was built from scratch by Man. Nothing was off the shelf.

The compression drivers were immense, one weighing about a hundred pounds. They were constructed of the most expensive magnet material out there. I don’t remember the name of the stuff, but it is proprietary. Don’t trust this, but I think it started with a “P”.

Man is kind of a purist about electronics, but I attribute 99+% of the sound to the speakers. The CD player was digitally paired with an Accuphase analog active crossover. Man wants everything after the source to be analog, but it is clearly silly to use an analog crossover from a digital source. Even so, that is how he rolls. From the active crossover, it goes to a dedicated tube monoblock for every single transducer. I have become pretty damn good at figuring out how much an installation’s sound is electronics and how much is the speakers, and I am sure this rig would sound at least as good with good solid state gear. I will even venture that its amazing resolving power would sound better with more accurate JFET/MOSFET gear. Few watts were required; the spealers were obviously very efficient.

Not that the sound needs any help. I can’t give much of a description of it because it had no weaknesses at all, including balance, cohesiveness, and integration. (I didn’t bother to critically listen for sound location and stage; it seemed totally irrelevant given the experience being offered.) A completely immersive experience as well. The speakers absolutely, completely disappeared. It was simply the most satisfying experience anyone had ever heard, no kidding. No one wanted to leave, and it was like very happy deer in headlights.

We played home mixed CDs, XRCDs, MA recordings (the best there is in my experience), regular and extraordinary commercial offerings, and generally the music was very good as well. The last point avoided the most common show pitfall, crappy source demo music, and the listeners brought in mostly good stuff. Man asked for music and played everything handed to him. Almost all the time, guest music was being played.

Being a hand built, take no prisoners affair, the system is very expensive. I don’t know how he pays for all this, but while he has sold amps I don’t think he had a speaker customer yet up to the show timeframe. I can’t locate the price list just now, but 300-500K dollars was the range. Bear in mind that the $271,000 pair MBL brought last year doesn't even crack the top 20 most expensive speakers in this insane business. He has since, as he told me he planned to do, turned it into a five-way with an even larger driver/horn for lower frequencies. That must be one big horn.

[Ducatista47]

[Ducatista47]

[Ducatista47]

[Ducatista47]

[Mr. Widget]

Thanks for sharing!

Always interesting to see these mega dollar “dream” systems. Would have lived to have heard it. It reminds me of the original Magico Ultimate horn based system.


Widget