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Capitol Audio Fest Speakers?

So what did everybody like at CAF?

I've never heard Tidal speakers before but was very impressed. No doubt they stoles the show. Both the ones for $20k and their big brothers. Amazing.

In the $4k range I was impressed with the Audionote J series. Granted they had $20k in electronics behind them but really sounded good. There was another $4k speaker floor stander made from carved reclaimed looking wood. Seemed like a prototype from a new company but I thought it was impressive looking and sounding for the price. Would have brought it home if I had the dosh.

In the Everyman category I thought The Clue speakers showed a lot of potential especially with their new bass module. But the room was way too small having to sit 4 feet in front of them. And once the rum started going later in the day the volume kept going up and up. But I have a feeling they could sound really good in the right room with good setup. The bass modules were just clue speakers without tweeters, but really increased bass authority and dimensionality. Really like adding two subs.
larrybou
elevick
2,439 posts
 
Grimace-I'm driving an SUV. You could have packed almost anything into it! Imagine driving home with the Tidals on the roof rack?

My feelings on Odyssey amps: They sound good when driven hard. I just had one in my house that sounded like crap on Coincidents but sounded great with 84db speakers. Synergy or tempermental amps???

Finally, do headphones count as speakers for this post? The headphone amps at the show were more than just over the top. If felt like such a whimp with my my AKG's.
dopogue
1,767 posts
 
Pops, those amazing little speakers were designed by the Soundsmith (Peter Ledermann) himself and sold by them. Not cheap ($3,000/pr. for the littler ones and $4,000/pr. for the slightly larger ones), but I could have sworn there were subwoofers somewhere in that room. My favorite room of all the ones at CAF.

As a tape fanatic, I was pleased to see all the open reel decks at CAF this year.
trelja
3,215 posts
 
This year's show featured many outstanding rooms. The change in venue, along with some serious attempts by the exhibitors made for significantly better sound that we've heard in past DC efforts.

Overall, traffic was quite heavy early on Saturday, but dissipated through the day. On the good side, this year's show seemed far busier than past one I attended. Though on another note, the headphone crowd on the 4th floor dwarfed the much older high-end audio folks.

Mostly, I liked a lot of what others have mentioned. Beyond those the TAD loudspeakers in the Backert Labs room impressed, Gingko Audio ClaraVu 7 surprised, nicely restored Apogee Duetta Signatures in piano black lacquer left me recalling some of the most beguiling sound of the high horsepower solid state era, and Robin Wyatt's 2 (one OTL, the other solid state) rooms of Quad ESL57 further convince me of how far the speaker craft has not progressed the past 60 years.
charles1dad's avatar
charles1dad
6,996 posts
 
Salectric and Larryi,
I always look forward to comments by you two, as both of you gravitate to "natural" sounding products..Your different opinons of the Horning speaker caught my attention.This speaker interests me as it would seem the type(high efficiency, easy load) that would suit good low powered amplifiers.Given the split decision I'd be very curious to hear it with a high quality tube amplifier. It seems Highwater's Tron amps would fit that description well. Forcing too high a sound volume can mask and degrade a good system's true beauty
Charles,.
pops
1,847 posts
 
Dopogue, thanks for the clarification on those speakers. I too could not believe the output they were putting out! His complete system really sounded great and was one of the memorable systems of the show for me.
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