Going back to the roots of the audiophile hobby for its spring 2025 marketing event, AV Therapy featured huge, global companies like KEF, and classic manufacturers such as Linn Products and Luxman.
During an evening that also highlighted long-time audio brands Parasound, Nordost, and Jadis, the Nashua, N.H. integrator/retailer hosted a record number of guests for its annual spring marketing events. What guests experienced during the event were state-of-the-art digital products that emphasized the capabilities of modern home audio, and tried-and-true, old-school technologies such as tubes and vinyl that demonstrated these decades-old solutions haven’t been surpassed in quality by digital entertainment.
AV Therapy Spring 2025 Event Celebrates Home AV
Admittedly, John Rein, owner of AV Therapy, says the 2025 spring event does not feature a formal theme. Instead, he points out the goal for the spring 2205 endeavor was to simply showcase some brands that it hasn’t featured in some time.
“It’s a party to celebrate AV,” notes Rein. “People want an escape, and what’s better than hunkering down with a movie or some music.”
Given today’s political climate and economic uncertainty, Rein says that one of the trends he is seeing through AV Therapy’s first half of 2025 is the preference for higher end products. Rein theorizes that customers purchasing these higher end components and systems may be more insulated from some of the economic peril that some people are unfortunately experiencing.
Leaning into these current sales trends Rein comments the AV Therapy Spring 2025 event is focusing more on mid-level to high-end products and solutions.
Some of the examples of these products and solutions he continues can be seen in an active/passive system demonstration from the decades-old Scottish manufacturer Linn Products, as well as a joint demonstration from KEF and Parasound.
KEF Blade One Meta Speakers with Stacked Subwoofers Standout of Show
Taking a professional approach to sound reproduction in its demonstration, Ben Hagens, product training manager for KEF America, configured a system for the AV Therapy Spring 2025 that applied a lot of muscle to a system that ultimately delivered high levels of finesse.
The system, which includes a Naim NDX2 Network Music Player, along with amplification from Parasound, and cabling and power products from Nordost, utilized KEF Blade One Meta Speakers, along with stacked KEF KC92 powered subwoofers.
During its system demonstrations, KEF featured its Blade One Meta floorstanding speakers. (photo credit: Bob Archer CE Pro)
According to Hagens, the design approach with the AV Therapy demo system was to treat the subwoofers like other speaker products. The concept he says is to simply augment what the system is doing through the addition of the subwoofers.
“We want to take what the system is doing without the subs and take it to a level where it plays lower frequencies,” explains Hagens. “We are stacking the subwoofers and in doing so, we are doubling the cone area and power. Two subs add about 6dB of gain, and three subs adds about 9.5dB of gain. We are running the subs at lower volume levels and by stacking the subs, it’s like modularizing the performance.”
Additional Product Highlights from AV Therapy Event
Showing its latest products and providing some customer education during the AV Therapy event, Linn Products demonstrated the differences between its active and passive audio systems. In a multi-product system that included a pair of Linn 150 floorstanding loudspeakers, as well as a pair of 119 bookshelf speakers, and components from Linn’s Selekt and Majik product lines. Using Selekt and Majik products such as the Majik DSM Streamer and Linn’s Exakt technology, which is a proprietary room correction platform, the company was able to seamlessly play content through active and passive versions of the Selekt and Majik system configurations. A standout portion of the Linn demonstration was when the company played records with a Sondek LP12 turntable.
For many audiophiles, the Sondek LP12 is a benchmark turntable, and it’s lived at that status since its release back in the early 1970s. At the AV Therapy Spring 2025 event, the Scottish company explained how it can configure its modern, but classic turntables to make it completely custom based on user preferences without compromising performance to meet the latest home audio standards.
At the AV Therapy spring 2025 event, Linn Products demonstrated why its customizable Sondek LP12 turntable has been a reference turntable since the early 1970s. (photo credit: Bob Archer CE Pro)
Keep Reading:
Here are some analog audio products that enhance the playback of vinyl
How can you help clients fall in love with music? Listen to PS Audio’s Paul McGowan
And is the audiophile market stagnating?
