At the risk of sounding like a broken record, Jeff Catalano’s High Water Sound room at Axpona 2025 joins every room of his I’ve had the great pleasure of experiencing over the years on my list of favorites.
A few important things to note—Jeff carefully curates the lines he imports, he takes great care in room set up and room comfort!—something you’d expect to be common practice but it ain’t, and he plays wonderful records you most likely won’t hear anywhere else.
Axpona 2025 saw the new limited edition Cessaro Horn Acoustic Mendelssohn speakers paired with Alieno electronics and that lovely 3-armed bandit Raven LS-3 Copper ‘table. As you can see, the Mendelssohn are a hybrid affair with the familiar Cessaro horn-loaded tweeter mated with a Scan-Speak Illuminator midrange driver and 10” woofer also from Scan-Speak.
This system offered spark, energy, and speed coupled with dimensional body and plenty of beauty making for an alluring real music driven experience. I could have easily settled in for a much longer listen…
The system:
TW Acustic Raven LS-3 Copper Turntable: $25,000
TW Acustic Raven 10.5” Tonearm: $6000
TW Acustic Raven 12” Tonearm: $6500
Glanz MH-1200S Tonearms
DAVA Soul, Fuuga, Red Sparrow, Mijajima Infinity Cartridges
Alieno 6H30 Line Stage: $75,00
Alieno 250 LTD SE 300B Amplifier: $80,000
Alieno Phono Extremo: $60,000
Coda Audio 7000 Titanium Rack
Silent Running Virginia-Classae Reference isoBASE
Accessories from Shun Mook & Stein Audio
ADD-Powr Sorcer
Cables from Stein Music