Capital Audio Fest (CAF) 2023

Attended Friday and today.  My favorite room was High Water Sound, who paired the Cessaro Wagner II horns with TW-Acustic tt and electronics.  Just beautiful music playing.  Agree with prior post that Heretics were bang-for-the buck champs.  Would also note that Fern & Roby room with his Raven IIs sounded great.  Chris H swapped out the Raven IIIs cuz he was having room integration issues; the result with his new JFET amp was pretty magical.  Lots of other good rooms though. 

@blisshifi Victor did have a room on the 8th floor. 

For the first time in many years, I attended the Capital Audiofest and had high expectations. Have to admit. all but one or two rooms I visited sounded good - great dynamics, top to bottom balance, and good detail. But, I was disappointed by one overall experience - most of the rooms sounded the same to me. I did not find what I was looking for: a system that sounded alive, a system with presence. Even the Audio Note room disappointed. Don't understand how an elevated mid base passes for good bottom end, how 300B amplifiers sound like solid state. Admittedly I did not have a chance to hear the Heretics or the horns mentioned in other posts. Better luck next year.

Here's to Herb Reichert for opening my eyes and ears.

Odd.

I purchased a pair of the Elac active monitors on sale.  These were just for comparison with my reference Omega BAM I use in nearfield. I was curious to see how close they would sound since they sounded so good at the show.

Initial sound was boxy and rolled off on top. Nothing like I remember at show.

now that’s with only a couple hours burn in… doing a full burn in and we’ll see.