AXPONA 2025

Welcome back to Part 2 of my AXPONA: First Impressions series. Today’s as-I-write-it soundtrack was quite symmetrical. Since I missed Record Store Day this past Saturday, April 12, 2025, while I was ensconced at the big show, I decided to pop out to a pair of my favorite local indie record shops right after lunch today to see if there were any key RSD leftovers I could score that were on my “must have” list.

I’ll share more about the balance of the great RSD finds that I did indeed found in a separate post (and please bear we me re that brief sentence-structure lapse, folks), but I can say that I was more than pleased to nab The Alan Parsons Project’s I Robot: Work in Progress (Cooking Vinyl COOKLP841XXX), a 180g blue-vinyl LP containing early rough demos and alternate mixes of the 1977 Arista album’s 10 core tracks. And that APP RSD LP was, of course, the perfect precursor to spin before cueing up something I mentioned yesterday that I had bought in Expo Hall at AXPONA — namely, The Alan Parsons Project’s I Robot UltraDisc One-Step (No. 6444) that I found the only on-hand copy of at Music Direct/MFSL’s tables. Comparing/contrasting the full I Robot before/aftermath was quite a treat, let me tell you. But now, back to the show!

CLEARAUDIO & QUINTESSENCE AUDIO LTD.
As briefly mentioned in yesterday’s post, Quintessence Audio Ltd. of nearby Morton Grove, Illinois, had set up shop in both the vestibule area and listening rooms adjacent to the Renaissance ground floor’s main escalators, so you’d have to be completely oblivious to your surroundings — as in, with your eyes in the downward and glazed position while scrolling on your phone — to miss the scope of these always classy AXPONA presentations.

Garth Leerer, president of Musical Surroundings Inc., had already given me a pre-show heads up about the five systems being shown in the Quintessence zone that featured gear from their companies, so I instantly zeroed in on some important AXPONA premiers in what was dubbed Vestibule System No. 2.

As soon as I took a hard left turn after coming down the escalator, I was immediately struck by the staging area you see above, featuring the Clearaudio Al Di Meola Celebrity turntable ($4,900) as its centerpiece.

This numbered, limited-edition table was designed in conjunction with Di Meola to resemble his legendary Gibson Les Paul guitar. Some may have seen it previously at High End Munich 2024, but this was an AXPONA premier nonpareil. Al’s table comes complete with Profiler-inspired tonearm, special Celebrity MM cartridge, and the red vinyl version of the artist’s forever brilliant 1977 Elegant Gypsy LP, via Impex Records.

Look again above, and right under the watchful wall of those eight faces, you can see the red Gypsy LP residing on the table itself with Al literally presiding over it, arms folded on the classic album cover stationed up and behind it.

Supporting Al’s Elegant table were Dynaudio’s Contour legacy loudspeakers ($14,000/pr) and the Dan D’Agostino Pendulum integrated amp ($18,000).

Doing a literal 180, I turned my back on Al (no offense, brotha!) to direct my attention toward Clearaudio’s Smart Double Matrix two-sided record cleaner ($3,500) positioned on a white table on the opposite wall. The SDM RCM’s platter-less, non-contact design is said to quietly wash and vacuum-dry both LP sides at once. This new Smart model is based on the Double Matrix Professional Sonic, and it also features a space-saving footprint.

Meanwhile, over in what was dubbed Vestibule System No. 1, Clearaudio’s Signature turntable ($5,000), as fitted with a Hana Umami Blue cartridge ($2,500), was flanked by Fyne Audio Fifteen loudspeakers ($39,999/pr), Audio Research LS2 preamp ($8,450), Audio Research S200 power amp ($12,950), and a dCS Lina DAC ($29,150), with cabling provided by Transparent ($12,400) and racking courtesy the Critical Mass Gateway ($6,500).

During this particular playback session, the wonderful tones of Nat King Cole’s 1957 Capitol LP Love Is the Thing enraptured those both seated and standing in the open-air demo area. I didn’t dare wander into the soundfield to pick up the sleeve, but I’m reasonably sure, based on the light white frame around the main cover image, that this was more than likely the 2010 Analogue Productions 2LP 45rpm version of Love — but I will of course stand corrected, if need be.

And that’s it for the second round of my first impressions of AXPONA 2025. Since I wanted to keep Clearaudio as the main focus of today’s post, my next installment will center on TEAC. Other members of the AP AXPONA edit team may be filing some of their reports in the interim, however, so keep your eyes peeled for what’s next. Viva la AXPONA, aux deux!

For Part 1 of our AXPONA: First Impressions series, go here.