Capital Audio Fest (CAF) 2023


Who is in attendance? What’s new and worth sharing from your experiences? It looks like Bacch is offering more intimate demonstrations. I have had the luxury of playing with a friend’s Bacch-SP and while I don’t think every system needs it, it’s capabilities are impressive.

I wish I was able to go as it seems the attitude across my industry partners seems to be overall positive, but I had to stay local this year. Help me live vicariously through you! 

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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.