Where: Renaissance Schaumburg Hotel & Convention Center in Schaumburg, IL
When: April 10-12, 2026
Who/What: AXPONA is the global gathering of manufacturers, dealers, distributors, audio enthusiasts, music lovers, and media, fostering the growth of the high-end audio industry and cultivating the enjoyment of high-fidelity sound.
It had been many years since I last attended Axpona, and this was our first year exhibiting at the show. I had forgotten just how large it is, spreading across both the convention center and hotel in Schaumburg. From what I saw, attendance felt strong overall, with Friday and Saturday clearly the busiest days.
As the premier hi-fi show in North America, Axpona attracts many of the biggest and most expensive brands in audio, all eager to showcase their latest flagship systems. There was no shortage of massive tower speakers, monoblock amplifiers, and price tags climbing well into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
One of the most impressive systems I heard was the Dutch & Dutch setup in the hotel lobby. It featured a pair of their substantial 15c two-way speakers, each built around a 15-inch subwoofer and multiple 15-inch midrange drivers. They filled the enormous lobby with ease and authority.
Other highlights included MBL’s always striking and sonically captivating Radialstrahler 101 E MkII, which lists for $91,000 per pair. With their distinctive melon-shaped radial woofers, they created a truly unusual 360-degree sound field that was as visually memorable as it was sonically impressive.
The show also featured plenty of deeply unconventional speaker designs. One brand was demonstrating a pair of seven-foot-tall 3D-printed speakers shaped like rocket ships, driven by a mostly 3D-printed turntable. In another room, I came across a set of wild-looking horn speakers with highly phallic super tweeters that were said to function as waveguides for ultrasonic drivers extending out to 40 kHz.
It was also great to see one of my longtime favorites, Magnepan, showing the latest iteration of its acclaimed planar magnetic speakers, powered by some serious Rogue Audio monoblock tube amps.
Lastly, I was especially impressed by the Atmos demo from Third Ear. They had built a broadcast-style audio system inside a semi-trailer, and their compact but powerful studio monitors, combined with DSP tuning, delivered a highly focused and immersive listening experience. It stood apart from many of the more conventional two-channel setups at the show.
All in all, Axpona was a busy, energetic show with an enormous amount to see and experience.
