A Capital Audiofest 2012 thread

I heard a few things on my to-hear list for the first time:

Daedelus: i was impressed and these lived up to my expectations in a
short limited audition with nice acoustic jazz recording.

Classic Audio Reproductions (with the field coil drivers + Atmasphere
amps: i was expecting benchmark level sound and tnis setup did not
disappoint. Would have liked to hear some good rock recordings but
acoustic jazz ruled here also as it seemed to in general at the show. The
sound was spot on and darn near perfect.

Zu - Missed the boat somewhat. Flea power amps used were nice but
seemingly could not get these hopping for more demanding rock cuts.

GT Audio Works - now here was a new discovery of note with meat on the
bones that sounded great and offered great value at 3k a pair including 2
subs. "There Will Be Changes Made" by Atkins+ Knopfler
packed the room and got my feet a tapping. Modest Bryston digital
source and amp showed they belonged in a high end audio show as well.

DIY Room: A pair of 10" full range drivers mounted in a large square open
back baffle sitting at floor level slightly angled up about 2/3 into a hotel
room run off a diy class a amp of low wattage was the shocker of the day.
How did what looked like a bean bag toss arcade game sound so full and
lifelike for $800 diy? Kinda made me feel sorry for all the megabuck
systems there competing. And they did everything extremely well from
Green Day to classical. Eye opener of the day!

Tidal: Both larger and smaller rigs sounded very good but size did matter
and did not come cheap. The DCS Dac in the one rig certainly helped
make that one shine as the DCS gear always seems to do. The smaller
Tidals sounded good but dynamics with those small drivers was noticably
compressed.

Legacy Whispers in a larger salon room showed some chops but I need to
hear more.

As an infrequent visitor to high end audio events, other than this site, these are may main takeaway observations from Capital Audiofest.

- events like this are perhaps not big enough in scale for the hardcore audiophile audience and much but not all that was there was out of reach financially for many so where does that leave an event like this? Hopefully in a good enough position to have at least a fourth annual event next year I would hope.

- the DIY guys in many ways made a statement about what it REALLY takes to make good sound, and stole the show for me in that regard.

- most of the setups sounded very good to quite excellent to the extent that the venue and rooms allowed. There was not a lot of room for products to differentiate themselves. The sound of most rooms was still very good though. Does it really make any sense to demonstrate megagear like gigantic horns in that kind of environment? Cool looking, yes, but in this case the performance was laughable for the scale of the sound solution attempted.

- Its not so hard to find good sounding gear these days. Its a lot harder to get it to sound good at home.

- Digital fared very well at this show. There was both very good digital and vinyl and very mediocre digital and vinyl demos. This might be the first event I could say that the good sounding digital was more apparent than the good sounding vinyl.

- these shows are worth it just to go shooping for cheap vinyl and reasonable priced CDs. There were a lot of good software values even if the hardware values were harder to come by.

- Nothing says "high end audio" like a SOTA ultrasonic record cleaner for sale in the lobby for the special show price of still over $3000. YEs, people, cleaning all that cheap vinyl ain't cheap. And lets not forget about the audiophile Hifi Tuning fuses. FOr those wondering, no there were no fancy fuse demos at least when I was there.

- the guys there seemed to enjoy it and looked interested. The wives, girlfriends, daughters and others they dragged along with them mostly had that bored soap opera look in their eyes.

In teh end, there a few products I discovered at CA that practically got my interest.

1) A little flea watt Glow audio tube amp in one of the rooms with on eof the many hi efficiency speaker offerings present seemed to take things far beyond what I expected or had heard with similar amps in other rooms. Gotta look into Glow Audio some more.

2) The GT audio works hybrid speakers with subs sounded like giant killers at their $3000 price point in their 10 minute or so audition. Were I looking for a good pair of large full range speakers today I would have to look there. PLus, the rep in the room who I believe is the designer as well in this small upstart possibly 1 man company was very helpful and just seemed like a talented regular guy who just wants to make great speakers at affordable prices and knows how to. I noticed the bass was a little overwhelming at first during the demo and he did as well in that without any cue or prompting he made an adjustment in quick time that nailed it perfectly from there on. THe modest Bryston amp and CD player source used in this rig also got my attention for performance/value. This was the high value giant killer room of the day for me (in addition to the DIY room).

3) I could really use an automatic ultrasonic record cleaner but not for over $3000.

4) For a price is no object system, the Classic Audio Reproductions room left little or nothing to want sound wise during auditions (all vinyl, classical and acoustic jazz, no rock/pop auditioned, but I would expect good things there as well).

5) I also really liked the Daedalus speakers and these might have been my value pick of the day if not for the GT Audio room.

6) I auditioned Cathedral horn speakers again for the second time (first time two years at initial CAF) and these are another good value, excellent sounding product with plenty of aesthetic charm (to me) that should have a lot of appeal to horn lovers

I was at CAF for several hours on both Friday and Saturday, and I had a chance to visit rooms of interest on multiple occasions. My reactions were somewhat different than expressed above. In general I thought the overall sound quality this year was pretty mediocre and not nearly as good as last year. I have no idea why that would be. Certainly there were no standout rooms like last year's Wilson Sasha/D'Agostino demo using Peter McGrath's live recordings.

The rooms this year that had reasonably good sound, in my opinion, were:

1. Audio Note room with both vinyl and digital
2. Command AV room with Devore Orangatan speakers
3. Deja Vu Audio room with Western Electric drivers in Jensen Imperial type cabinets
4. Dave Slagle's room with Lowther field coils in big Azurahorns (interesting but not really my cup of tea)
5. DC Audio DIY Club room with homemade electrostatics (interesting again, but not really my tastes)
6. Volti Vittora speakers---too loud and I didn't think they sounded as good as they did last year, but still much potential here.

I find it very interesting that Mapman and I reached such different conclusions about the rooms he named. The GT Audio speakers would have given me a headache if I had stayed there much longer. I was not impressed with the Classic Audio Reproductions demo---much too loud but beyond that the bass was thick and lacking in tonal differentiation. The Cathedral speakers might have sounded better in a much larger room, but at a 10' or so distance they were seriously lacking in coherency (same could be said for the Sophia speakers as well). Lastly, the Daedalus Athena sounded much, much better in Denver last fall in several rooms where I heard them. Based on that experience, I was really looking forward to hearing them at CAF without all the distractions and noise of RMAF. Unfortunately, they sounded too thin and bright each time I visited. I know they can sound better than this.

I had not planned frankly on commenting at all on this year's CAF show, but I have because Mapman's comments show that two enthusiasts can hear the same sounds yet reach quite different conclusions. I am not saying that my feelings are any more valid than Mapman's. I just find it interesting that we have such diverse reactions. I guess that's what keeps more than one audio company in business.

Despite my negative tone, I actually had a great time especially meeting up with people I hadn't seen for a long while. I truly hope that the show is a success and will continue for the future.

Sal,

Some of those you mentioned might have caught my ear more had i more time to absorb. Some rooms i was in and out of very fast if nothing caught m eye or ear uniquely.

The audio note room was one i was interested in and spent 20 minutes or so in. I liked them as a corner placement option and they sounded fine just nothing struck me as particularly outstanding for their size and price. I guess i had unrealistic expectations perhaps going in. Also short auditions do not tell you much about if you and the sound will get along over the long term. That can be tricky. I suspect the anotes might have endeared themselves to me better that way for some applications but again lack of dynamics for the cost was a concerrn.