Capital Audio Fest 2016

Larry,

I am a little confused by your description of the Deja Vu speaker as "open baffle."  The cabinets I saw appeared to be completely sealed front and back.  Did Vu switch speakers during the show perhaps?  The ones I heard on Friday and Saturday were rectangular boxes about the size of a medium refrigerator, very nicely finished, and had a black grill on the front.  If we are talking about the same speakers, I certainly agree this was a very fine system.  It also improved significantly in sound from Friday to Saturday by the way.  By Saturday it had a very smooth, warm, detailed and dynamic sound that suited to a T the jazz LPs I heard during my visit.  Aldo said the speaker used all vintage drivers but not Western Electric.  The midrange horn has an elliptical front and according to Aldo was made in Japan in the 1960s.

I say two rooms with Voxactiv speakers in them and I liked what I heard--very clear and dynamic sound, minus the shrill and peaky quality that is often heard with wide-range drivers. The big Voxactiv speaker at the show had to be listened to at quite some distance to not sound shrill and peaky, but, when thus accommodated, it was very nice sounding.

The smaller room with the Voxativ speakers (the other room had Gary Gill's horns built around Voxativ drivers) was one of my favorite rooms to sit in, and Holger was great to talk to. That room (309) had a great custom David Berning amp that had switches on the front for class A or class AB as well as for feedback (labels hand-engraved on the spare aluminum chassis), and a Linear Tube Audio MicroZOTL2 preamp. The digital end was processed by the fairly new, proprietary R-2R DAC the Metrum Pavane, which Holger seemed to enjoy as much as the vinyl played on the Fern & Roby turntable. We've been using NOS DACs (Metrum, Wavelength, Augio-gd) whenever we can–they seem to be a perfect match with our tube gear. Hard to judge a DAC at an audio show, though, unless there's another source in the room to compare it with. 

I was really impressed by the Benchmark room and those Studio Electric monitors. The room I found the most enjoyment in was with the Larsen 8 speakers. Also nothing wrong with those Focal Sopra 2 speakers!

I recall David Berning related amps in a number of rooms at the show.   Very well represented and a very good showing overall. 

Darn, I think I missed Larsen as well and that was one I went in thinking I really wanted to hear.

Only had about 5 hours to spend there Saturday. A lot to digest in such a short time.

I spent a lot of time in the Benchmark room enjoying listening and chatting with the vendor reps. Theirs was a reasonably priced setup (by high end standards) that delivered big with smaller profile products that would fit nicely into many peoples homes.

The other "affordable" product there that hit really big and got my attention were the new Gershman monitors and stands for under $5K.

Overall, it would be nice if there was someway for someone to navigate through these shows based on cost. In other words have more low cost entry type systems that newbies might be more comfortable testing the waters with.

The room geared around headphones is a nice starting point.

Years ago at Tech Hifi when hifi systems were actually popular with the masses, most people still came in looking to start on a modest budget and go from there.

Nowadays at these shows, its mostly a no holds barred attempt to have the best sound in each room at any price.

That’s fine but I think if these things are actually to grow in popularity over time, an approach better suited to drawing more people in is needed.

There should be rooms featuring Bluetooth source enabled complete systems for easy entry at various price points for people with smart phones and tablets who like what they hear at the show and aspire to good sound at home.   There will always be people who want good sound.    The high end world need to connect with them better  in order to grow IMHO.