HiFi shows are many things but I think their most important function is one of introductions and reacquaintance.
In terms of getting to know gear, a hifi show can introduce us to things that pique our interest, kinda like meeting someone at a dinner party—there may be intrigue but there’s no way to really get to know a piece of hifi gear or a person from an all too brief encounter, especially if there’s a racket going on all around.
Yet I picked favorites.
You may have noticed that many of my favorite rooms have gear in ‘em I’ve reviewed or other products from companies whose products I’ve reviewed. Experience, in these cases months of time spent just listening in the peace and quiet of the spacious Barn, provides the kind of familiarity that informs an otherwise compromised encounter.
All that said, there’s real value in introductions. How else would we get to know new things?
Of course the real fun comes from seeing and talking to people, something that’s uncommon in my day-to-day unless you count the Barn mice who are just beginning to get excited by Spring. When you get down to it, hifi is a wondrous industry to work within as it’s mostly filled with people who are passionate about what it is they do, a rarity in my 20 or so years working in other industries where the end of the day meant trying one’s best to forget that day as well as the next. And the day before.
In the after hours of hifi shows, we still talk music and hifi and even spend more time just listening. For pleasure.
Axpona 2025 was a great success by my accounting and I wasn’t the only one to comment on the overall upbeat vibe, which was a bit unexpected in these troubled times of great uncertainty, a self-induced state brought on by senseless tariff-related chaos whose only real outcome is making things worse. By things, I mean things like business and life.
Yet there was a real and resounding sense of enjoyment and joy in and around Axpona 2025 and my best guess is real-world woes made griping about listening to music, and the things we buy to make that happen in our homes, seem kinda silly. Kinda misguided as we are most certainly supremely fortunate to have hifi and music as an important part of our lives as it is all about joy, wonder, beauty, fear, uncertainty, love, loss, and good times. And listening to music on the hifi is a kind of communion, a constant and much-needed reminder that we are so much more than I.
A big note of thanks to the Axpona organizers and staff for providing a (big) place for us to meet and share our passions.