Capital Audio Fest 2018--show report


DAY 1

I came primarily to audition loudspeakers, so this report will focus on them. I omit associated equipment, as there was just too much to keep track of, and few rooms had handouts with the detailed list of components.

The first day of the show, I managed to visit 2/3 to 3/4 of the rooms that were of interest to me. The remaining rooms I’ll visit tomorrow morning, and then start going back for a second listen in the afternoon.

In what follows, I’m more or less transcribing my jotted notes that I took while in the room in question.

Note: the regular-sized hotel rooms being used by most exhibitors tended to emphasize strongly a particular bass range. For too many of the rooms I noted “bass boomy”. Only a few rose above this…

 

Some highlights, not necessarily in order of preference.

DAEDALUS ZEUS. Very large speaker in a large room. Very good generally, beautiful on classical. A big sound, but not overdone (like some others). Very natural. Wonderful dynamics. True majesty on large-scale classical.

DAEDALUS APOLLO. I still don’t know exactly how I feel about this speaker. It’s good certainly, verdict is out on whether it’s great. Decent imaging and soundstaging (I would have had them a bit further out into what is admittedly a small room). A good clean presentation, could be a little overwhelming on some tracks (volume of playback?, room?). Promising to be sure, and a real contender.

SALK SONG 3 BEAT. Easily my nomination for “best bang for the buck” speaker auditioned so far. Extraordinary for the price.  I repeat, really extraordinary.  A nice presentation overall, good depth of soundstaging, for the size of the woofer the bass is definitely there—and then some. Bass could be a bit boomy depending on the recording (see above). Beryllium tweeter (the BE in BE-AT), one of the best I’ve heard. On one recording it got a wee bit steely on massed violins being played back at high volume. Very impressed.  Of course the wood veneer is also fantastic.

IMC Audio. One of the true sleepers—well, perhaps not even a sleeper, as it doesn’t go on sale till this coming January. Extraordinarily fine. Look for a photo on the web—it’s unconventional, to be sure. A large slightly curved array (curved both horizontally and vertically) using bending wave drivers.  Sitting on top of massive woofers in a large cube. Very very natural sound. Good imaging, good soundstage. Good dynamic range, but not overdone. A true full-range speaker, that doesn’t overwhelm. Projected price around 20K. Dedicated crossovers with lots of adjustment, needs two power amps. I repeat: if ever a new company and a new product deserved to succeed, this is it!

HARBETH 40.2. OK, I admit it, still my favorite. One of the few in the small rooms that didn’t boom, but still produced strong, deep bass. Pure, natural, clear. Excellent timbre. Good imaging and soundstaging. Brought a smile to my face and tapping to my toe.

VIMBERG MINO. 29K. I believe this new speaker, or its bigger brother, has been commented on very positively from other previous shows, and I understand why. Big, full range, but not overblown sound, very natural, impressive presentation, sense of effortlessless.

DESTINATION AUDIO NIKA. Large speaker with horns and a massive cone woofer. The size overwhelmed the small room…..but the sound didn’t. It managed that trick of being delicate *and* full when required. Dynamic for sure. Ultimately I thought that the image projected was perhaps bigger than natural.

SONNER LEGATO UNUM. These tiny speakers with small, small, small mid-woofers seem to defy the laws of physics.  Using a 5.5” driver (it looks about 4”), every single visitor to the room was asking: where’s the sub-woofer?  *And* they could play loud, very loud. Ultimately I thought them slightly bright, slightly “hyped” overall and a little “larger than life”, though part of this could have been the volume they were being played at. Amazing engineering, to be sure.

 

Middle of the pack (for me).

What these speakers shared, was that they all struck me as highly competent speakers, doing everything right, but somehow they didn’t separate themselves from the pack. It’s as if there were a good, clean, modern sound that a number of manufacturers are converging on.

DYNAUDIO CONFIDENCE 20.

VIENNA ACOUSTICS BEETHOVEN CONCERT GRAND.

QUAD Z4. Nice presentation, but little except a keen price to differentiate it from many others.

DEVORE GIBBON SUPER 9. Their new model. Thunderous bass for the size. Good dynamics and full sound. But everything a bit homogenized, blended/mushed together, I think this affects timbre most of all, as well as individual instrument lines. Perhaps a by-product of being demonstrated as excessive volume (compression?).

TAD E1 [not sure of model name, floorstander]. Big sound, but overlarge images. What I call a “technicolor” speaker.

LEGACY SIGNATURE SE. After that less-than-rave review in Stereophile, I wasn’t expecting that much, so I was pleasantly surprised. Rich sound, good bass. Dynamic. Believable size of image. The more I listened, the more I became aware of a less-than-totally-natural timbre, and they also got a shade steely on classical violin at high volume. Definite bang for the buck, but probably not for me.

 

Disappointments. No disrespect to these makes/models, but on the day, in the room, listening to the tracks being played, I was severely underwhelmed. They have good reputations, so likely under different circumstances they would be much better.

SPATIAL AUDIO M3. I’d been really looking forward to hearing these. Very boomy in the room (because of open baffle??), and the sound overall seem very homogenized. Timbres not distinct, and everything kind of mushed together. Opposite of what I’ve been calling pure/clean sound.

WALSH OHM 5000-series. What can I say? As with Spatial, I’d been really curious to hear these, but I didn’t cotton to them at all. Perhaps it was the unconventional set-up (even for them), perhaps it was the room, perhaps it was the source material. Other people there seemed happy. But other than being overly loud, there was no imaging at all, the sound was homogenized, not in the least beguiling, and frankly it reminded me of a quality sound system being piped into a noisy upscale restaurant. As I say, *my ears* *on the day*, as I know there are many fans of this line of speakers.

 

Any requests of speakers for me to seek out?


128x128twoleftears
I always like the DejaVu audio room. Both the modern and the vintage equipment. This was my first experience with the Harbeth 40.2, and I was impressed. Vu and his colleagues always do a good job. And if you are in the DC area, you should visit their headquarters. It is a treat. 

I did not hear much that was totally new. At least speakers that I had not heard in past years. It was interesting, however, that no one showed Audio Note speakers or vintage Quads or any of the Auditorium "hommage" speakers. Most of the speakers were either monitors or huge and meant to be SOTA. Conversely, there are many other companies that I wish would exhibit - companies whose speakers I have only read about, but never heard live.
In addition to the DejaVu vintage system, the Charney system and the Gingko system I mentioned above, I heard/saw several other items of interest worth mentioning.

For a conventional monitor speaker, I thought the Sonner speakers sounded quite nice--smooth, decently balanced, though lacking in deep bass, and lacking in any glaring flaw/annoying characteristics.  Exciting? No, but something that would probably be easy to live with.

The Emia room-- with its four double stacked Quad 57 (that is eight total quads), each biamped with built in tube amps--sounded quite good.  But, to me, their system from the previous year sounded good too, and I thought that if anyone thought that such an impractically large and unsightly system was needed to get great sound, that system gave the wrong impression (as compared to previous systems shown by Emia).

Boenicke Audio showed a micro-sized speaker that sounded really good for something so tiny.  It small size is a requirement, that is one worth auditioning.

Command had four rooms at the show and I liked what I heard from the system with the Devore speakers and the Naim/Dynaudio system.  This is sound in the lean, modern sound that I tend not to like, but, not excessively so, and I can therefore recommend an audition.

IMC had a prototype of a new speaker system that is interesting.  It has a large square, midrange/tweeter array on top of a smaller cube-shaped bass module.  The top array has something like ten small drivers handling 100 hz to 20 khz.  This thing reminded me of pictures of 1950's television sets (or maybe a radar antennae) in appearance.  The sound was promising with some notable flaws.  First, the bass was a bit soggy and over-ripe, but, that most likely was a room issue (a common problem at the show).  Over much of the range, the speaker sounded very good, but, I did not think the bass was that well integrated with the rest of the system; I don't know if that "needs work," or again, the hotel room was the source of the problem.  

I like what I saw of the Backert tube linestages at the show.  I will not comment on sound because I was not more familiar with the rest of the components, but what I saw was neat, beautifully constructed, and sensible; it had those things I require in a linestage--a balance knob and remotely controlled volume.  I also liked the fact that the various models had identical basic circuitry, with price differences reflecting different quality parts; different power supplies (some models having the same power supply, but, in a dual mono configuration) and different quality of case work; this just seemed like a logical approach to offering a line of products.
Morning all,

We just got back from CAF 2018 last evening, it was a hectic but exciting 5 days for us.

Our system consisted of...

GT Audio Works GTA3r planar ribbon speakers
 

Sound Insight SI 600 open baffle sub woofers.          
                               

Pass Labs XS line stage and phono stage and XA 60.8 amps
                                                                                                   
Esoteric Audio CD Player/Transport
                                                       

VUJADE DHT 101d tubed DAC
                                                       

Semper Sonus Te1 idler wheel drive turntable
                                         

Schick arm with Lyra Kleos3 cartridge.
                                                       

Triode Wire Labs cable for everything from input to output to power


We didn't get things set up and playing till 2am Friday morning, so it didn't start to warm up and gel till Saturday
Hope some of you had a chance to come out and hear our room.
We had a great time playing all types of music.
For me the best part of the show was after it officially ended at 4pm on Sunday at which point we let our hair down with some most definitely non audiophile music like Iggy Azalea, Robbin Thicke, Kendrick Lamar, Meghan Trainor and a bunch of other pop tunes at 112 db !!

Thanks to all the contributors to our room at CAF, and especially to my dealer and buddy Steve Rabitz of Sound Insight of Huntington Long Island NY.
Looking forward to next year to do it all again.


Regards,
Greg
GT Audio Works

My wife and I spent a few hours there on Saturday and had a great time. Picked up some records and heard some awesome equipment.
For us the highlight were the Deja Vu rooms and the Emia room. We live near Deja Vu and the vast majority of my system was bought there so I might be biased but their vintage room was phenomenal.
The massive self-powered quad-based electrostats in the Emia room were very impressive as well and the source custom Garrard 301 was outstanding.
As someone who is not a jazz fan I was starting to go insane but I was thrilled when Command Performance played Enter Sandman through their Divore Fidelity speakers.

Dislikes: As mentioned before the never-ending sea of jazz got old quick. I would think more displays would bring more acoustic classic rock or more universally beloved songs that can show off a system. I get that a jazz quartet is ideal for exhibiting the imaging of a speaker but after hearing that many saxophones I had more than enough.
The VAC room was impressive to look at but the sound was completely unremarkable. Anyone who pays that amount of money for THAT system should instead invest that money in a good ear Doctor. 
I was really looking forward to hearing the Tech Das Air Force III turntable but alas it did not arrive at 20/20 Evolution in time.
The Backert Labs Fleetwood Mac presentation made us laugh, the presenter tried to showcase his pre-amp with Fleetwood Mac's "Dreams" by pointing out Stevie Nick's additional background vocals and the acoustical guitar as if anyone who had ever listened to the song had not noticed they were there. I am sure his gear is fine but he needs to work on his salesmanship.
Finally the biggest lowlight was the guy who was taking my wife's picture as she browsed for records, not one or two but dozens right up in her face. That guy was lucky I was in the process of buying some rare metal LP's or I would have broken his camera.

Overall we had a great time and look forward to coming back next year!
Hey All, 

Just wanted to jump in and thank everyone who made it out to the show. 

Most vendors did struggle with a bit of a boomy room. I had significatn build up from about 55 to 65 hz. That being said everyone seem to enjoy the show and as a manufactuere it was really great :D.

All the best, 

Trevor Fedele
Amphion Louspeakers Ltd
trevor@amphion.fi