AXPONA 2024

With AXPONA now only just a few days away, we’re continuing onward with our new-gear preview series, right up until we arrive at the show itself. Today, we zero in on some exciting news from the Poland-based company J.Sikora, who have announced the unveiling of the 15th Anniversary Edition of their Standard Max turntable as a “worldwide premiere” at AXPONA.

Some background is warranted here. Back in 2009, company founder Janusz Sikora completed the design of his first turntable, which wound up becoming the basis of the company’s current Standard Max model. To celebrate their 15th anniversary, Sikora wanted to see how much technology from the company’s higher-end Reference table could “trickle down” into the Standard Max Anniversary table, so he experimented with the idea of replacing many of the Standard table’s aluminum components with brass and bronze.

According to the company, through “iterative prototyping, measurements, and listening sessions with his son Robert,” Sikora ultimately landed on what is now dubbed the Standard Max 15th Anniversary turntable.

More specifically, in the new version of the Standard Max table, the suspension’s aluminium elements were replaced with brass, while the separating layers at the base of the platter are now made of steel, copper, and solid brass plates. The motor housings, as in the Reference turntable, are made of 1cm thick stainless steel with improved internal damping, and the bases are made of a 2cm thick layer of brass.

Also, the new armboard is made of brass, steel, and aluminium. The anniversary version of the Standard Max will be bundled with the company’s Reference power supply, which offers input voltage options of 230V or 115V, and output voltage of 24V.

We’ve also been told that Notable Audio Products, J.Sikora’s U.S. distributor, will showcase this special table in the Nirvana A room at AXPONA. More specifically, the Standard Max 15th Anniversary table will be used as the analog source for a high-end system in that room, a system that will also consist of an Aidas Mammoth Gold "Tusk" Limited Edition cartridge (another new product that we’ll take a closer look at on Tuesday!); Doshi Audio’s EVO preamp, monoblock amps, and phono preamp; Berkeley Audio Design’s Alpha DAC Reference 3 and USB Series 2.0; Aurender’s N30SA music server; Joseph Audio Pearl Graphene Ultra speakers; Cardas’ Clear Beyond cables; and HRS’ EXR rack.

Finally, each 15th Anniversary limited-edition table will be duly numbered, and a followup model is expected to enter production sometime after they’re sold out. The SRP for the J.Sikora Standard Max 15th Anniversary turntable has yet to be announced — though, given the SRP of other Standard Max tables and this version’s limited-edition cache, we expect it to be in the five-figure range. Regardless, we are quite looking forward to experiencing this table in person in the system that’s set up for high-end playback in aforementioned Nirvana A room at AXPONA.

For more about J.Sikora, go here.
To find an authorized J.Sikora distributor, go here.