J.Sikora Aspire
The J.Sikora Aspire turntable (including a separate power supply and record weight) with Aspire tonearm package priced at $10,600 had an Aida Tru-Stone limited-edition cartridge mounted feeding a Doshi Audio Evolution SE phonostage, preamp, and monoblocks powering Joseph Audio’s new Pearl Graphene Ultra loudspeakers in a system wired with Cardas cables. The sound from several of my personal LPs (brought along for contrasting level-playing-field evaluations) sounded excellent. Spoiler alert: The Aspire turntable with the well-crafted support of the system configuration above narrowly edged out the stiff competition from some exceptionally good and grandiose sounding big systems at the show in terms of palpable resolution, instrumental tone color, and imaging, along with depth of stage and an ease to its musical flow while staying dynamically solid from pianissimos to fortes.
This system produced my best sound (cost no object) for AXPONA 2026 with my music selections.
— Andre Jennings, theabsolutesound.com