AXPONA 2025

It seems like only yesterday we were at AXPONA 2025 — well, actually, it was exactly yesterday, April 13, 2025, that we spent our last day at AXPONA, and what a deeply fulfilling show it was overall. AXPONA just seemed to fly on by this year, even though it was busier, “hustlier,” and “bustlier” (to coin a phrase) than it was last year.

True, cueing up with our fellow showgoers at the Renaissance elevator bank to get up to the next room appointment brought back memories of the long lines and longer wait times we all experienced over at the Venetian in Las Vegas during the heyday of CES, but it was a small price to pay for all the aural and visual riches that awaited us all in the listening/demo rooms above us. (Professional hacks: 1) Use the stairs in a pinch, and 2) Never select more than three floor buttons at any given time, or they’ll all reset, and at least half of your elevator-car companions will miss their floor.) Plus, there was certainly plenty to see and hear in numerous rooms down on the main Schaumburg floor and over in the Expo Hall as well.

In the coming days, our intrepid team of Analog Planet experts — including Ken Micallef, Julie Mullins, and Shanon McKellar — will be submitting their own in-depth show reports, but I wanted to start things off with the following, 59-second YouTube Short that I shot myself to give you a taste of some of their finer AXPONA sights and sounds from TEAC and Revox. You can watch it right here.

In that clip, you’ll see loads of TEAC gear, including the TN5-BB turntable (above) and AP-507 power amp that I’ll discuss and show in more detail tomorrow, plus two of Revox’s new limited-edition Alice Cooper-branded offerings — the B77 MK III stereo reel-to-reel tape recorder and T77 turntable — that I’ll get deeper into below.

The accompanying music for the balance of the time I spent working up Part 1 of this post includes the Analogue Productions 33⅓rpm 1LP edition of The Dave Brubeck Quartet’s Take Five (APJ 8192) and the Analogue Productions 45rpm 2LP version of Herbie Hancock’s Head Hunters (APJ 084-45), both of which I purchased directly at their booth/tables in Expo Hall during one of my “LP research” sessions there. In case you’re wondering, I also bought three more Analogue Productions 45rpm Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble LPs in that very same booth, and I also added Alan Parsons Project’s I Robot UltraDisc One-Step LP (No. 6444) from Music Direct/MFSL’s Expo Hall tables. Some, if not all, of those SRV and APP LPs are likely to be my aural companions while I’m working on tomorrow’s installment.

GRIMM AUDIO
Just outside the company’s main demo room on the 15th floor, Grimm Audio creative director Eelco Grimm (seen above) walked me through everything that makes the company’s new PW1 phono preamp ($4,900) so appealing. Besides looking quite classy in its black rectangular form and weighing in circa a formidable 3.3kg, it’s the PW1’s sliding panel that holds even greater appeal by making access to the load and gain settings for various MM and MC cartridge options a snap (or rather, a slide).

I also liked the mirrored presentation of the incremental settings options for both load/gain and that of the capacitors as well, as you can basically see above in the closed position. The pair of circular gold discs are what you unlock/lock to slide the panel open/closed accordingly.

We’ll be getting this exact PW1 unit in hand for testing on AP fairly soon. In the meantime, you can read more about the PW1’s specs and features in the News report I did on it back at the end of January 2025 here (and it also shows the sliding panel in the open position).

REVOX
Down on the 4th floor, Revox was standing tall, as the mounted banner outside their room immediately attested. “The return of an icon,” it announced proudly, regarding a legendary Revox stereo tape recorder, further proclaiming that it had been made “excellent even better.”

Sure enough, the first thing you encountered upon entering the room was what that banner showed/teased — i.e., the all-new Revox B77 MK III stereo tape recorder, itself a reel-to-reel marvel to behold.

Both Revox project manager/technical support maven Jürgen Imandt and marketing manager Jeremy Mörbt walked me through the ins and outs of the MK III ($19,950), which is being manufactured at their Klangwerk facility in Villingen, Germany. As expected, the MK III boasts high-quality Revox pickups, a digital counter, and it plays all common tape standards. To ensure top quality, the Revox team told me they will only manufacture 20 MK III units per month.

Also on display, and in action, was the limited-edition Alice Cooper signature version of the MK III ($27,950), which is being capped at 25 units, with shipping expected to commence in July 2025.

If you want to keep it in the family, you can also get the 1/4in, 2-track original master tape metal-reel edition of Cooper’s July 2017 album Paranormal, which Revox manufactures on demand for $495.

Meanwhile, the companion limited-edition Alice Cooper T77 turntable ($9,950) is capped at 50 units, and all of them are hand-signed and numbered by Alice himself. The T77 table also comes with the exclusive Master Vinyl The Sound of A EP. (The companion Paranormal Master Vinyl edition goes for $595, and it too is manufactured upon demand.)

The T77 boasts a highly precise electronic PLL speed control via a non-contact optical sensor. The tonearm is made of high-quality metals with a carbon-fiber tonearm tube, and its wire is connected directly to the preamp by hand. The T77’s MC cartridge is an Ortofon Quintet Black S, and the table is also equipped with a Nude Shibata diamond stylus mounted on a cantilever.

And that’s it for the first round of my first impressions of AXPONA 2025. Part 2 of my report arrives tomorrow, featuring more on TEAC and an introductory look at some cool Clearaudio turntables, courtesy the always impressive multi-room displays Quintessence Audio Ltd. has on tap right near the main escalator bank. There will also be much more to come from the other members of the AP team about what they saw and heard at the show. Viva la AXPONA!