“Now for my best of show award. To me, the competition wasn’t even close, although I readily admit to NOT getting to all the rooms. The best room I heard the entire weekend was by Mark Sossa at Well Pleased AV. Hands down.”
Full report here
Photo courtesy of Stereophile
“This system had synergy and sweetness whether playing Mark’s favorite hip-hop from Gang Starr or my selections of contemporary tenor giant JD Allen or old school tenor swinger Illinois Jacquet. It played all types of music with sensuous appeal and fine ambient detail, with a dynamic range that took me by surprise on Jacquet’s high-flying saxophone shouts and the intricate orchestral shading of Camille Saint-Saëns’s Danse Macabre, with exceptional depth, rhythmic speed, and texture.”
Full report here
Photo courtesy of Twittering Machines
“Think liquid. This system was long on refinement, offering some of the sweetest sounds of music I experienced at Axpona 2024. Lovely, just lovely.”
Full report here
Photo courtesy of Part-time Audiophile
“The Well Pleased Audio Vida brands, if you haven’t noticed yet, are always supremely synergistic.”
Full report here
AXPONA 2024: Andrew Quint on Loudspeakers under $40,000 (Absolute Sound)
Qln Reference 9 ($42,000)
“Yes, I know it’s a little beyond my price category, but Jonathan didn’t get to hear it and I did. The Swedish manufacturer’s new flagship is a 3-way design with newly developed midrange and bass drivers, plus a textile-dome tweeter with a frequency response that’s said to be flat out past 30kHz. At the low end, the -3dB point is 25Hz and, on the basis of a quick listen, the Reference 9 seems ready to play with the big boys, in terms of dynamics, bass power, detail, and spatiality. The fact that it was driven by Vinnie Rossi’s Brama integrated didn’t hurt.”
Photo courtesy of Audiokey Reviews
“A track I know very well—“Take Five” (Time Out, Columbia)—and which served as my onsite comparator across AXPONA was distinguished further by this system. Wow! Historically, it has been difficult to get consistently good music, but here again in the WELL PLEASED room was beautiful music that had gravitas and weight, air and ambiance—dimensionality—and great clarity.”
Full report here