I thought that the CAF was really fabulous. Going over all three days made the show far more relaxing. Most valuable to me were the many pleasant and informative discussions that I had with manufacturers and attendees. I really enjoyed an extensive conversation that I had with Valeria Cora and his wonderful wife Sheree about the materials used in their speakers as well as buying (and saving!) Audio Research. Truly great people and a truly great speaker company.
I really enjoyed the sound in the Gershman Acoustics room. Most of the top end systems had an unnatural hardness and brightness to them. This room did not! The Command Performance room had a demonstration that really bore this phenomena out. Playing background music from her last album, a lovely Canadian jazz singer (whose name I am struggling to remember) sang without amplification 10 feet in front of me, providing a useful reference for how the human voice actually sounds. Not hard or bright, like so many systems that I heard. I will add that the Command Performance room, like the room I mentioned above, featured a lovely coherence, combining great spatiality and dynamics with an accurate and natural sound. Ie, not bright and hard!
With a nod to an earlier comment, the singer sang immediately after Mikey taking over the room to play his music. How he uses his musical choices to evaluate sound left me wondering, but he is quite the entertainment!
Finally, I wanted to give a shout out to the speakers and discussion sessions. I attended a really interesting one on DAC design, learning much. The Border Patrol, Lampizator, and LTA designers and reps were all interesting to listen to, and their products all very natural sounding. Thanks to them and to Herb Reichert who presided!