Received the AxiomAir Beast yesterday.

First impressions are that it is built to withstand a Winterfell Winter and Walking Dead apocalypse. Quite bomb proof so far. Only safety issue is that the edges of the wood veneer top cover are a little acute and sharp. When I was playing with propping the front edge of the bottom up for better directionality, it dang near cut me between my fingers when the item slipped forward.

Beware if you have inquisitive kids around the house. It's heavy as well so double caveat axiom-airer.

Was so excited after waiting a year for this that I didn't check for any online manuals. If there aren't any, it usually means that the unit is plug and play.

So I went ahead to turn it on, and try to stream music from my Iphone 6 Plus. After some not surprising glitches, I found the AxiomAirXXXX netwwork on wi-fi and eventually connected to that.

Err, now all I can do is connect that way, which I found by belatedly looking up the online manual, is the hotspot mode. This effectively means that I can't use the internet on my phone while I stream music.

This is the blue blinking light mode.

Is there a previous step I missed which the online manual seems to say in terms of connecting to the home wi-fi network first? I recall something popping up asking me to set up AxiomAir as an Airplay speaker, I can't remember if it was on the home wi-fi network setting or the AxiomAir hotspot network.

In any case, the first few attempts to set AA up as an Airplay speaker failed. I kept getting a fail message. I had to reboot the Iphone and also turn off the AA and restart to finally get Airplay set up - or so I thought.

So, how do I now connect to home wi-fi with the AA and be able to use the internet on my phone?

The Airplay set up dialogue no longer appears. I can't get the blue steady light mode. I surmise that this is the mode that most gets used ...?

Do I have to get the phone to 'forget' the AA hotspot network? Then set up again?

I have posted this to Axiom's support web form, so if the same person is dealing with that, one reply would be fine. It would be better for the AA owners to see the reply here though.

I had quite a few drop outs in the first hour or so of using the AA on the hotspot mode. My phone was literally next to the unit, and the bad drop outs made the AA quite unusable. I thought it was the battery getting weak, so I plugged in the cord. Still the drop outs continued.

Then after repositioning the AA in my lounge, the playback became very stable. This in the hotspot mode.

While the unit was working, I have to say that the sound is very balanced for a relatively small unit. Vocals especially seem very life-like. and present. A little unnaturalness on some very high level demanding bass tracks, but utterly commendable for the footprint. Some great tuning has gone into scaping the sound.

I plugged in a TV output. Hmm, not as compelling as I thought it would be from the stand-out musical vocal performance from the AA. These are just first impressions though, and I will test more thoroughly later.

With my Pono player, I also did not get as much of a wow factor as I would have expected from the high-end ESS Sabre DAC output. Strange that. Might have to let the electronics and drivers bed in.

The last two were analog inputs, so there could be something that needs to bed in on that front. The wonder of hi-fi electronics is that systems that are well designed and manufactured work synergistically after a bit of seasoning to yield sweeter sounds

However, the wi-fi hotspot sound was engaging and fulsome. Methinks the AA has been tuned to maximise sound from wireless sources. Thoughts?

Anyone know what DAC the AA uses?