Show Reports

Hello and welcome to Part 5 of my Florida International Audio Expo 2025 show report. This time around, I got to spend some quality time checking out a special turntable from J.Sikora.

J.SIKORA / NOTABLE AUDIO PRODUCTS
A striking white finish on the main plinth of a J.Sikora Initial MAX Special Edition turntable ($17,250), along with its white Delrin platter and Kevlar tonearm, felt just right for Florida. J.Sikora products are made in Poland. Before they began making turntables and accessories, the company had origins in metalworking — specifically, the manufacturing of hand railings, Jessie Bentley of their U.S. importer/distributor, Notable Audio Products of Falls Church, Virginia, told me. “The father was an audio enthusiast [who] decided he wanted to make a turntable, and already had the whole machine shop,” Bentley explained, “and that’s how they got into making turntables.” The company’s knowledge and experience with the many properties of various metals contributed to their product development.

Bentley shared a few more details about that special Initial MAX table in Room 451. Its two-motor system uses DC motors and two belts per motor for more contact and higher torque; it’s said to get up to the correct rotational speed quickly — i.e., in about two seconds. The table comes with an outboard power supply along with a separate controller for consistent speed monitoring and fine-tuning. Users can also adjust the speed and lock in those settings. The Delrin platter’s inertia is said to help maintain proper rotational speed.

The J.Sikora Initial MAX turntable uses two plinths to decouple and isolate the platter further from the mechanical parts. The bottom portion is made of a combination of metals for mass and density, along with stainless steel feet, Bentley told me. The Initial MAX has a single, tiny ceramic ball bearing and spindle in its design

More color options will be available soon for the J.Sikora Initial MAX table in addition to the newer white finish, and the Kevlar tonearms can be made to match. The Initial MAX Special Edition table in this demo system had two tonearms mounted on display — one being the J.Sikora KV12TVA 12in tonearm ($8,995), a unipivot design in matching white Kevlar fitted with an Aidas cartridge with Malachite body, the other being an Ortofon AS-309R 12in arm with headshell ($3,728) with a Lithuanian-made Aidas Tru-stone Gold Web cartridge affixed ($5,995, and seen below in a similar system I’ll be mentioning in just a bit). J.Sikora tonearms come with a choice of copper or silver internal wiring in a single run.

This demo system also included a Zesto Audio Andros Deluxe II phono preamp ($8,300) and a Doshi Audio Evolution phono preamp, plus more tubed amplification from Margules ahead of Margules Orpheo Century Intermezzo speakers. ViaBlue supplied cabling for the setup.

Incidentally, another demo room that I later happened upon elsewhere on the fourth floor, Room 464, showed a J.Sikora Standard MAX turntable ($22,995) in with what appeared to be aluminum, without an added finish color. Attached was a J.Sikora KV MAX 9 9in Kevlar arm ($11,750) ended with another Aidas Tru-stone Gold Web cart. This table setup’s signals were fed into a Doshi Audio Evolution phono preamp ($19,995, seen below).

And that’s it for today. Part 6 will be on its way shortly!

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 Part 1 of Julie’s FLAX 2025 show report, go here.

For Part 2 of Julie’s FLAX 2025 show report, go here.

For Part 3 of Julie’s FLAX 2025 show report, go here.

For Part 4 of Julie’s FLAX 2025 show report, go here.

For Ken Micallef’s 15-minute video showing all sorts of great turntables and other cool analog gear at FLAX 2025, go here.

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