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Capital Audio Fest 2016

Just got back.   Did not see a thread for this yet so here it is.  

For me  lots of very good sound this year.    The best as a whole I have heard.   Very few disappointments.   Some old favorites enjoyed once again and a few new finds.   Will report more when I get a chance to digest it all a bit.  

I'm of course very interested to hear about what others thought and may have discovered?




128x128mapman
salectric
747 posts
 
Larry,

Thanks for clarifying the open baffle design.  The second time I visited the room Aldo was demonstrating the system to Art Dudley and he had removed one of the speaker grilles.  That's how I saw the drivers on the front panel.  It has a horn tweeter mounted in the middle that appears to be a Jensen RP-302.  The 15" woofer looks like an Altec but that is just a guess.  The three drivers blended extremely well.
jond's avatar
jond
5,689 posts
 
@larryi  Thanks also for the info on Deja Vu and my mistake up above I could have sworn Vu said the drivers were all WE but I was obviously mistaken. And I never noticed they were open baffle either even after walking behind them! Good catch! I have to say I found the Voxativ room with the big horns to sound really tipped up bright and peaky, plus when I was in there they were playing some terrible new age music. The smaller room with the David Berning gear was much better sounding.
vrao81
58 posts
 
I’ll throw in my impressions:

Tidal Diacera G2 and Bricasti - One of my favorites at the show, the finish is absolutely beautiful and must be seen to be believed! The Agorias playing in the next room sounded even better!

Kef Muon - Stunning to look at but I didn’t care for the sound - too analytical

Legacy Aeris with Raven Amps - Surprised no one mentioned these yet, they offer terrific value with deep powerful bass, sweet highs, clean midrange and a high level of detail.

Joseph Audio Pulsars with LKV electronics - Very sweet monitor with a nice rich sound

Gershman/VAC - As stated earlier they are sweet sounding but a bit dark. Perhaps too much warmth coming from a combination of the speakers, tube amps, and vinyl.

Daedalus - Didn’t care for these that much (Athena V2). Sound musical, but pricy, and competition is stiff at this price.

Alta Audio - Best bargains at the show IMHO. The smaller Rhea is a bargain at $4.5K and the Lelantos is even better. Nice detail, good bass, clean, sweet highs thanks to the ribbon tweeter.

Zu Definition - Didn’t like these at all. Sounded quite colored to me - midrange was ’off’.

Spendor SP100R2 - Nice warm sound, but the bass was a bit boomy to me and price for the overall system was quite high, $97K
tom_hankins
928 posts
 

My favorite rooms in no order were.

The odyssey room

Deja Vu room with the Nolas

Classic audio when playing tape

Vac/Gershman

The Legacy Aeris, first time I've heard Legacys sound really good

All in all most the rooms were sounding pretty good.

larryi
3,760 posts
 

Jond,

I agree that the smaller Voxactiv sounded particularly good; the big system was bright, but, if you sat WAY back they were quite good and not so bright.  The big horns need to be in a big room that allows one to be quite far away from the speaker.  In this respect, that system is unlike vintage horns which, although large in size, sound terrific in smaller rooms (which accounts for the crazy-looking Japanese setups with monster horns in tiny apartments).

vrao81,

I thought the Joseph Audio Pulsars and LKV electronics sounded quite good too, something I was surprised to hear because I have never liked Joseph Audio speakers when I've heard them in other setups.  The Spendor SP100R2s did sound nice; as for the bass, all of those bigger rooms seemed to have bass problems, mostly boomy sounding but with severe bass suckouts in certain spots in the room.

Tom Hankins,

we are petty much in agreement.  The Odyssey room sounded really good with reasonably priced gear.  I did not stop to hear the Legacy Aeris because I have never liked the sound of that speaker, but, as often is the case, the right setup probably made a huge difference.  The other room with decent sound and not too pricey stuff was the Fern and Roby room with gear made by a furniture maker/blacksmith (great looking table with cast iron legs in the room too).

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