Capitol Audio Fest Speakers?

I was impressed with two speakers at the extreme ends of the price range. At $500 for a very small bookshelf (or large desktop) speaker, the Vanatoos sounded quite good. For this price, the buy gets a built-in amplifier and DAC; just plug it into your computer. It may not be the last word in bass response and detail retrieval, but, it was fundamentally musical sounding.

At the other extreme, pricewise ($80k was the quoted price), I was impressed with the Surreal Sound system. They were displaying in a very large conference room, with 35 watt Atmasphere amps for power (the woofers are powered by an active amplifier). The midrange/treble (133 hz and upward) was provided by a single driver--a Lowther driver modified by Dave Slagle with a fieldcoil electromagnet instead of conventional magnet structure. I have heard this Lowther driver before and found it, like its regular Lowther brethren, to be too "peaky" and uneven in the uppermidrange and treble. In this particular Surreal Sound implementation (very thick wooden enclosure with a rounded interior chamber) and particular tuning of the system, the peakiness has been substantially tamed. The astonishing speed, liveliness and clarity of this driver was retained while most of its objectionable qualities (to me) were substantially ameliorated. I was equally impressed with the Surreal Sound's bass response. An earlier iteration of this speaker had a BIG and impactful bass response, but, this version is substantially improved in that the bass is better integrated and more naturally "tunefull" rather than just impressing the listener with gross impact. The whole sonic picture from top to bottom is much more complete and natural. While a version of this system without the extra subwoofers used at the show would be quite compact and reasonably nice looking, the price quoted ($60,000 without the extra subwoofers) seems a bit high for a company without a major reputation (to be clear, soundwise, it impressed me much more than other ultra expensive systems in terms of sonics). As I stated above, Surreal Sound has substantially tamed the peaky Lowther driver, but, to my ears, there is still some peaky quality to the sound. I understand that the system has a LOT of tuning capability--changes in subwoofer settings and changes in voltage to the fieldcoil electromagnets--so I plan to hear it in a none show setting where these controls can be manipulated.

I also enjoyed the sound from Deja Vu Audio's "vintage" system. This system employed a big bass reflex box housing an 18" JBL woofers and a small dome tweeter. Sitting on top was a Western Electric 713b midrange driver. This was an extremely musical sounding system--warm, harmonically full, and extremely good at dynamics at lower levels. This is, to me, the kind of system "mature" listeners will fall in love with--by that I mean listeners who have grown tired of "impressive" speakers that deliver wholluping bass and extreme detail--and are looking for something that is musically communicative. My only issue with this, and many other vintage systems, has to do with bass response which is a bit too inarticulate and a bit "phasey" sounding for my taste. Still, a terrific sounding system. (Sort of as a disclaimer, I own a system with a Western Electric 713b midrange bought from Deja Vu and whole lot of other gear bought from them).

Pops,

At home I listen primarily to digitally sourced material from a music server. I listen to my vinyl rig only where I don't have something on my server (chalk it up to extreme laziness). But, I was struck at this show at how much better vinyl sourced material sounded, particularly where a sort of comparison could be made because the setup included both analogue and digital source components. Good rooms sounded good with both types of sources, but, there was a bit more "life" with records, compared to digital sources. In the Surreal Sound setup, you could easily hear the difference, with vinyl sounding particularly good, some hi-rez digital also sounding very good, and CD or CD resolution material sounding good but "missing" something in direct comparison.

I also liked the Tron gear and vinyl only setup in the Highwater room. The sound was quite musical and engaging. I should have mentioned the Horning speakers in that setup as being among the better speakers. The system had the kind of dynamics and "speed" that I like, although it was a bit more strident and peaky in the upper treble than the Surreal Sound speakers (smaller room with speakers closer to the listener might account for this). Still, this was an enjoyable system.

I have heard the MBL speakers sound very good at times, and they were pretty good at the show. Their strong suit is imaging (very expansive soundstage without sacrificing specificity of placement of instruments), incredible stability of imaging and consistency of tonal balance over a WIDE listeing area (good imaging even sitting outside of the right or left speaker), and ability to play at high volume. Bass in the MBL room was a touch one-note boomy (I have noticed that this speaker is hard to get the bass to sound right, but, I know it is possible because I've heard it sound better). For my particular taste and requirements (particularly the ability to maintain "liveliness" at low volume levels) the Surreal Sound and Deja Vu vintage system is more to my taste but I can easily see someone with different priorities thinking this was the best system at the show.

Grimace,

The Deja Vu room was running "new" electronics that are built around vintage parts, and in the case of the amplifier, based on vintage cicuits (the DAC was obviously NOT vintage Western Electric). The gear is based primarily on Western Electric design and parts. The 300b amp used vintage Western Electric input and output transformers. There was another room that had monobloc amps that appeared to be old Altec amps (they were green in color). I also agree that most exhibitors played gear at way too high a volume. Some do that because many modern speakers actually sound lifeless unless they play loudly. I tend to like higher efficiency speakers because of their ability to sound lively at lower volume levels; as I've made improvements in my system, I've tended to play it at lower and lower volume levels. An example of a very nice system at the show that is extremely dynamic and did not need to be played at high volume, which, unfortunately, is where it was played most of the time, was the Horning speakers in the Highwater room.

Larrybou,

I also liked both of the big Zu systems at the show--one in the big conference room and the other in one of the tiny upstairs room. That top-of-the-line speaker delivers full range sound and great dynamics. My only big issue with that speaker is the over emphasis of the midrange that tends to make both female and male vocals stand out prominently--it sounds impressive at first, but, it is a bit unnatural. Still, I agree that this is a very good sounding speaker that appears to be suited to both large and small rooms.

Rawhit,

At almost every show, I am impressed by Oddyssey systems for what they deliver at reasonable prices. I was not quite as impressed with their higher priced speaker as I was with last year's showing of the Lorelei, but, that was because the Lorelei really set a high bar.

Charles1dad,

I think most of us would like "natural" sounding systems, but given the limitations of ALL gear, we differ in priorities and compromises we are willing to accept (or find intolerable). I demand systems to be very dynamic and lifelike at LOW volume levels. I am somewhat intolerant of systems that have an artificially hard initial attack to notes and truncated decay of same. This generally means low-power tube-based amplification and high efficiency speaker systems (usually horn/compression driver midrange systems). The challenge for me is finding such fast and lively horn systems which manage to reasonably avoid horn colorations and excessively sharp peaks in the upper midrange. The system I have assembled manages this balancing act reasonably well, but it still does have horn coloration and it does have a tendency to "shout" if pushed to high volume (I rarely listen at high volume, but, I know this is a "problem").

The horn driver in the Deja Vu vintage system at the show utilized the same midrange driver/horn that I use and sounded very good, to me, at the show. That system was never played at high volume and it certainly did not need to be played at excessive volume to get one's toes tapping. I think Salectric and I probably appreciated the same qualities of the midrange on this system (his profile indicates a use of very similar horn and midrange drivers).

To some extent our differences of opinion on the Horning system has to do with tolerance of the upper midrange peakiness of the system. I described it as a peak, he describes the sound as a lack of midbass; because perception of frequency response has to do with relative levels of different parts of the spectrum, we are probably talking about the same thing. I did not like the peakiness, but, I found it tolerable when the volume of the system was lowered. I also tolerated it because I really appreciated the great dynamics of the system. Like Salectric, I like my own system more so I would not consider the Horning, but, it is, to me, something worth auditioning for someone in the market. I would have liked that display at the show a lot more if the volume level were kept lower; but then again, the crowd often requested higher volume levels in rooms that I thought were already far too loud.