Everybody comes away with their own impressions, of course. The Destination Audio is one of the very few stacks of massive transformers/ flea power/efficient horns that I have ever heard and I was impressed. It is audio ideology taken to the extreme, but I could hear the reason why.
I went to find a couple of demos I liked and spent most of my time there rather than hopping and missed a few, though the show is small enough to cover everything. The 800 pound gorillas of Magico, Wilson, Van Alstine etc. and their contingent electronics were mostly missing, though I am not so sure that is a terrible thing. These shows survive on making commercial return for the vendors worth the exhibit costs.
I liked the Whammerdyne 2A3 stuff again, but thought the speakers they used last year (center cone full range flanked by woofers) were much better match to the point of being my favorite sound. This photo shows those speakers, but not the Whammerdyne.
I was able to play my own music file FLAC with the other Pure Audio Project speaker with the dome and the PASS XA25 yesterday, and was impressed.
The Audio Note room was as good sounding as any Audio Note demo I have heard (never great to my mind but good), but I still have the disconnect between prices and results. I am also put off a bit by the mincing, pinky lifting snob appeal stuff they can do.
There were several quality rooms, a few OK, but overall, I thought the sound was pretty good at this show.
The Ypsilon stack with the Aelius sounded a bit micro-grainy for some reason, as did any number of Ypsilon demos I have heard in the past. The demo could have used some YG, larger Magico or larger Wilsons, but I think the best speakers I have heard at shows with Ypsilon have been YG Acoustics.
I wanted to hear the First Watt SIT3, which was on static display. I asked the Zu guy if he was ever going to hook it up. He said no, because he would have let it warm up for a full day, which I thought was a reasonable reply.
I thought the PASS XA25 used with the Zu speakers handled them extremely well, even though the Zu demo was the usual raw speakers in whatever space with whatever stuff happened to be around with no particular attention to environmental parameters. I think the PASS XA25 is a fantastic amp from the two demos I heard, and it sounds better to me than any PASS LABS amp I have heard to date, even the XA30.8.
I got the young Zu guy to play one of my records (Al Di Meola 'Casino') and had a generation gapping experience with him. I guess he expected me to defend the record in some manner because he asked me (paraphrase) "What is this?" in a slightly aggro tone (translation: are you trying to foist some senile, Alzheimer's oompah music on me?) I was a bit dumbfounded, because I just assumed that everybody knew who Al Di Meola was, so I said "From Return to Forever? Chick Corea?" which didn't register on him. He just said, "What's that? The cover looks cool, so maybe it's OK" So I just said that Al Di Meola was a jazz guitarist. He looked a bit nonplussed, but went ahead and played side 2 cut 2. When it was done, he said "I guess he can play. Do you want to hear more?" I said "yes" and he let the side run out. When it was done, he said, "Do you want to hear the other side, too?" and I said, "Thank you, that's plenty".
He is the same guy at all the Zu demos over the years, and he has gotten older, but a little hipster, and he cracks me up whenever i see him. He is generally pretty nice, but trying to talk past the generation gaps is weird.