AXPONA 2025

AXPONA is back, and bigger and better than ever. People packed Chicagoland’s Renaissance Schaumburg Hotel & Convention Center’s rooms and hallways the weekend of April 11-13, 2025, particularly on Friday and Saturday.

On Wednesday, show organizers JD Events provided some figures solidifying AXPONA’s status as the largest consumer audio event in North America. Based on provided stats — and the daily elevator traffic! — attendance was up again, increasing by 5% over the 2024 event to 10,910 people exploring more than 213 listening rooms across 12 floors and spaces in the adjacent Convention Center.

Music came alive all over, from the hi-fi demo exhibits courtesy more than 700 industry participants to each evening’s Wireworld-sponsored concerts — the Kyle Asche Organ Quartet on Friday, April 11, and Chicago-based jazz composer, pianist, and singer Patricia Barber on Saturday, April 12. Seminars and special listening sessions, plus the wares in the Expo Hall and Ear Gear areas and the new Hi-Fi Car Audio Showcase, rounded out the ever-expanding AXPONA show mix.

But now it’s time to dig into my multi-part series of analog-focused show reports, which will include more than a few product debuts. Here in Part 1, I’ll begin with an overview of some of the turntable-centric setups captured “on the fly” that warrant mentions.

THIELE
Distributor Wynn Wong’s large Utopia C room showed a Thiele TT01 turntable ($31,500) with a “Zero Tracking Error” double-pivoting tonearm with ebony wood accent on top, ended with an Ortofon Verismo cartridge.

The tonearm, also designed by the turntable’s German maker Helmut Thiele, is said to offer the sonic advantages of a linear tracking tonearm. A Karan Acoustics Master Collection PHONOb phono preamp ($26,000) and other Karan amplification followed the Thiele turntable in the signal chain, ahead of a pair of Vimberg Mino loudspeakers ($40,000).

REGA
Based on the Rega Planar 3 turntable, the British company’s most popular model from the 1970s, the new Rega Planar 3 RS Edition turntable ($1,795) is a special edition that comes bundled with a Nd5 cartridge attached to the tonearm and the Neo power supply upgrade. The bundle’s package price comes in at approximately $200 less than if the components were sold separately. The Neo power supply is reported to improve speed stability and help the motor run more quietly. The Planar 3 RS Edition table’s plinth has applied a brushed aluminum metallic laminate that not only looks cool but also helps increase the plinth’s rigidity. AXPONA 2025 marks the Planar 3 RS Edition table’s first time at a U.S. show, and it’s available now.

Rega also introduced a couple of new amplification separates at AXPONA — a) the Mercury preamp with built-in DAC and phono preamp, and b) the Solace power amp, a Class AB design rated at 170W per channel. The Mercury preamp’s phono section is built around the circuitry of the Rega Aura phono preamp. SRPs for the Mercury and Solace are TBD, and they are expected to arrive in the U.S. market later this year. Rega has been making amplifiers for 50 years, but this marks the first time they’ve ever made them as separates.

AVM
Up on the 11th floor, AVM — a.k.a. Audio Video Manufaktur — displayed their shiny, aptly named Rotation R 5.3 MK2 turntable with a single belt drive. Its sleek design is available in black, silver, or Cellini finishes, but here at AXPONA, it was displayed in all its silver glory as connected to an AVM Evolution PAS 3.3 + 5.3 (seen above), a multi-functional preamp/streamer with a built-in MM/MC phono preamp section.

AVM’s hi-fi equipment, which is primarily focused on amplification and digital source components, are made in Germany’s Black Forest area, and are now imported by Fidelity Imports, who hosted 11 rooms at AXPONA this year.

Part 2 of my AXPONA 2025 show report will be coming soon!

Author bio: Julie Mullins, a lifelong music lover and audiophile by osmosis who grew up listening to her father’s hi-fi gear, is also a contributing editor and reviewer on our sister site, Stereophile, for whom she also writes the monthly Re-Tales column. A former fulltime staffer at Cincinnati’s long-running alt-weekly CityBeat, she hosts a weekly radio show on WAIF called On the Pulse.

For our YouTube Short featuring cool gear from TEAC and Revox at AXPONA 2025, go here.

For Part 1 of AP editor Mike Mettler’s AXPONA: First Impressions series, go here.

For Part 2 of Mettler’s AXPONA: First Impressions series, go here.

For Part 3 of Mettler’s AXPONA: First Impressions series, go here.

For even more AXPONA 2025 coverage, go here on our sister site Stereophile.