Capitol Audio Fest

Charles: CAF has grown every year and is very well organized and Metro accessible. The number of dealers and rooms continues to grow - in a good way. As I understand it, the venue will be the same next year. 

Zu was showing its new Druid VI along with its Omens. I did not pay attention to the electronics. 

@charles1dad  I hope you do decide to attend last year was my first and first ever audio show and I loved it, this year was fun also as you've read! Perhaps next year some of us could meet up and put some names with some faces. Also @gsm18439  I concur with Charles love your room so chic and modern looking and your minimalist system fits it perfectly. That cd player is very badass looking!

One of our locals was up there and had positive feelings about the Tektons but preferred the Rethms(he has paid for and is patiently waiting for the modified stacked quads that almost everyone seemed to adore, I look forward to listening to them when they are set up in Dallas)

not to be overlooked is the Miyajima 'Snakewood' cartridge - fed through their KSW SUT outboard -- it's the most musical combo I've housed in 50 years of analog playback. See my thread under Snakewood Madake. I can live happily with it for my (foreshortened)
remaining years.

I went to Deja Vu this weekend and heard the big horn system that they brought to the show in a bigger and better-suited room.  In this setup it sounded substantially better than it did at the show.  I noticed that it does not sound quite as good when the system is turned on than when it has warmed up a bit; apparently, the field coil drivers and/or the tungar power supply need to warm up a bit before the system sounds it's best (bass is boomy and ill-defined until the system warms up). 

I was particularly struck by how good the 597 tweeter sounds--the system was very airy and open sounding without even a hit of harshness; this was the smoothest top end I've heard and it was so well integrated it was like there was no tweeter present, but, the sound was not lacking in high frequencies.  The 555 midrange had the smoothness I would expect from this driver, but, the G.I.P. replicas also delivered the kind of detail that made it sound more like a Western Electric 713B driver than other 555's I've heard (a VERY good thing).  

The bass on the system is not quite what I would find ideal, but, this is always the case until the system is specifically tuned to a particular room, system and personal taste.