Capital Audio Fest 2016

Did not know that. 

I heard so many really good sounding systems there.  It seems to me that attention to integration and setup and personal preferences may each be bigger factors for good sound these days than most any particular product.  There are so many good ones. The secret recipe seems to be how one mixes and matches and tweaks to perfection as needed.  So many ways to make tasty soup. 

I will say the thing that impressed me most at this show, more so than any single thing I heard, was the passion of so many of the vendors there. So many of these guys seem to really put their heart and sole into realizing their visions and making the best products they possibly can all for the love of music. There were so many technological works of art. I'll take one of each please.  Hats off to them all.

I met a friend yesterday who had the same experience at this show with respect to a couple of rooms.  We both noted that the analogue setup in the room with the Brinkman table/cartridge was defective; it sounded out of phase.  I asked the vendor about this and he acknowledged that somewhere in transit, it appears that the cartridge went bad (not wired out of phase).  Still, they continued to demonstrate with a weird sounding phono setup when their digital setup sounded pretty good to me.  My friend noted the same problem but did not discuss it with the vendor.  He said that another room had the speakers wired out of phase and others in the room complimented the "wide" soundstage and really liked the sound that way.  More evidence that there is a WIDE range of opinion on what constitutes good sound.

We both noted that the analogue setup in the room with the Brinkman table/cartridge was defective; it sounded out of phase. I asked the vendor about this and he acknowledged that somewhere in transit, it appears that the cartridge went bad (not wired out of phase).

We had a turntable that was supposed to be shown fail to keep speed; a very generous Fern & Roby had a spare and lent us theirs, and we also used a modified tube-output CD player that the cable vendor happened to bring. This is the second show we've had last minute substitutions in sources. For audio shows: test a million times and always bring a backup! 

The story about the Brinkman demo is absolutely right.  When I entered the room, there was an empty seat in the front row on the center line of the speakers.  As I started to sit down, it was immediately evident that the sound was out-of-phase.  There was a hollowness in the entire bass range and a hollowness in the center image despite full-range sounds coming from each speaker.  There were only a few people in the room so I felt at liberty to say out loud to the room host that the speakers were out-of-phase.  He said they weren't but rather there was some sort of problem with the phono cartridge.  All I know is that I have been setting up stereo speakers for many years and I am quite familiar with and sensitive to the effects of an out-of-phase setup.  What I heard that day was definitely out-of-phase stereo speakers, and the sound was so strange, so disorienting, that I would have had a headache in minutes if I had stayed.  So I left.  It was most unfortunate since I was looking forward to hearing the Brinkman table.

Now it is possible the cartridge wires were connected out of phase rather than the speaker wires.  That would have the same effect.  But regardless of where the error occurred, somebody should have had enough sense to correct it before a public demonstration.