As I write this editorial, I’m just back from Warsaw, where the SoundStage! team covered Audio Video Show 2025. And as I often do when I’m finished running the halls, I ask myself what we could have done better. When I’m wandering through an audio show, looking for interesting gear to write about, I find it hard to disentangle my roles. The enthusiastic audiophile in me leads me along with a finger up each nostril, looking for what I think is cool. But wait! I’m here as a journalist, looking for an angle, something to set our coverage on SoundStage! Global apart from what all the other punters are doing.
Matt Bonaccio and Jason Thorpe
While it’s my enthusiasm that keeps me going and gives me the sauce that I need to produce what I hope is engaging copy, it also blinds me somewhat. The stuff I’m drawn to is shiny! Flashy! Expensive! But some of this captivating gear is neither new nor newsworthy, and definitely not affordable for those of us who have to work for a living.
So I have to fight against the materialistic magpie inside me, the Gollum who’s always looking for a sparkling precious. Here’s a concrete example of how the two Jasons do battle: I had to force myself not to write about Göbel’s superb room. Why, you ask? Well, we covered their room last year in Munich, and Matt Bonaccio scoped out a tour of their factory that same year, so it’s not news. That said, their Divin Noblesse speakers sounded superb, and good God, they’re intimidating. But I resisted. Instead, I headed next door to the SoundClub room and spent an hour listening to and writing about their system—one fronted by a pair of Marten Parker Quintet speakers, which we hadn’t yet covered.
Was there any logic to this choice—Marten instead of Göbel? Not really. As always, it’s a matter of choices. It comes down to two things: we can’t write about every room, and I think our coverage turned out great.
But really, I just can’t help myself. When I encounter a fantastic-sounding room with hyper-cool, elegant equipment, I am entranced. I can’t achieve escape velocity.
We usually don’t spend much time at the Golden Tulip hotel in Warsaw, which is one of Audio Video Show’s three venues. There are really only five or so rooms at the Golden Tulip, and they seem to remain somewhat stagnant, featuring the same brands; typically, there’s not much that’s newsworthy.
That said, certain rooms call to me. One of those is the room hosted by Nautilus, the Polish distributor of Estelon speakers. For what it’s worth, I used to own a pair of Estelon YB speakers, which I purchased after reviewing them about five years ago. I’d still have the Estelons, but when I assumed the editorship of SoundStage! Ultra, the YBs ended up pushed to the side more often than not, and I felt sad each time I passed them in my upstairs hallway. So last year, I moved them along to a new owner.
The Nautilus room invariably features a pair of high-rent Estelon speakers, and this year was no different. The system was fronted by a pair of Estelon X Diamond Mk IIs in a crazy Violet Night Liquid Gloss finish. And the electronics really turned the room on its head. In all other such demonstrations I’ve attended, Estelon speakers have been driven by big, powerful, expensive solid-state amplifiers. That makes sense, I suppose, as a good transistor amplifier will get out of the speakers’ way, allowing them to operate at their best and—presumably—to sound how the designer intended.
This year, though, that concept was flipped upside down. All-tube Kondo electronics were driving the X Diamond Mk IIs. Of particular interest was the Kondo Kagura 2i monoblock power amplifier, an all-tube design featuring two 211 tubes per channel that—according to Kondo’s website—generates 50Wpc at 5% THD. That’s not a lot of power. Back when I reviewed the Estelon XB Mk II speakers, I drove them for a spell with the Fezz Audio Lybra integrated amplifier, which—via its two 300B tubes per channel—squeaked out 15Wpc at a hearty 10% THD. While the sound was absolutely glorious, this combination didn’t play that loud. The XB is smaller than the X Diamond, and my room is dramatically smaller than the cavernous conference room at the Golden Tulip, so running these large, moderately inefficient speakers with fruity triode tube amps was a bold move.
Cables in this system were from Crystal Cable and Siltech, including their newest, top-notch Infinite Dream and Master Crown lines, respectively.
As I walked into the crowded room, my shoulders drooped, and I felt the stress drain out of my body.
I mentioned this reaction to Ilias Koutromanos, Estelon’s chief commercial officer, who indicated a gentleman who was seated in a sofa off to the side of the room. “He’s here every year. He falls asleep and takes a nap in here for about a half hour. I think he feels the same.” Sure enough, the man’s head was tilted down, resting on his chest—he was out like a light.
Nautilus, the Polish distributor of all the brands on display, keeps tight control over the music played through its system. The Soundstage! team has often wondered why there’s so much stiff classical music at the Warsaw show, but we’re starting to come around to the fact that this is what people want to hear in Poland. And sure enough, the Nautilus room was packed—it was standing room only. As I said, the music here was sedate, but it was lovely. I didn’t recognize any of it, but that’s fine.
I pulled out my laptop and sat down next to the chap who was sleeping, and I began taking some notes. Even though I was wildly off axis, I could sense how the system was saturating the room with music that was almost physical—palpable in its texture. This was immersive sound. The system wasn’t playing overly loud, but the volume level was appropriate to the music. I would imagine that the amps might not have quite enough grip to rip out techno or metal, and I had no plans to ask for such coarse fare. The crowd was entranced, silent, and attentive, in a way that you don’t often see at shows. Nobody was walking up to the system, standing vacantly in front of the speakers, or holding loud, oblivious conversations.
This system commanded respect.
At this point, it’s appropriate to mention the Nautilus room’s acoustic treatment. Behind the equipment rack hung the world’s coolest diffusor: RDacoustic’s Silentmax3D Luxury Edition diffusor looked like a portal to another dimension. I didn’t get the price of this giant piece of art at the show, so I visited RDacoustic’s website after I returned to Toronto. At €17,520 for a panel that measures 8′H × 13.1′W × 9.4″D, it’s not cheap, but I didn’t expect it to be.
See what I did there? I just described in detail another megabuck room. I don’t think it’s necessary to price out every component in the Nautilus room—it’s likely enough to say that the total system cost was just north of €750,000. I don’t have a nose for value, and that’s a character flaw that I readily acknowledge.
Earlier this year, at Florida International Audio Expo 2025, Doug Schneider asked me to meet him in the Orchard Audio and Soundfield Audio room. Doug ushered me into one of the middle seats and called over the dude with the iPad. I requested one of my favorite Tragically Hip songs, “Fight,” from Road Apples. I was mightily impressed with the sound, with the dense, meaty way the tiny Soundfield Audio standmount speakers on demo reproduced this equally dense and meaty track.
To say I was surprised when I found out that these speakers retail for US$1200 per pair would be the understatement of the century. The takeaway here is that Doug had sniffed out a room with world-class sound and a cost just a hair over $5K for the entire system. I don’t seem to be able to do that, but I’d love to learn how.
So for the next show I attend, while I still plan on hunting down the best of the best (i.e., expensive equipment), I’m going to really, really try to pay more attention to value, and to the overachievers who produce excellent sound that more enthusiasts can actually afford.
. . . Jason Thorpe
jasont@soundstagenetwork.com
