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 enjoyed the show, even though I spent a lot of time feeling utterly lost by the confusing layout of the hotel and the unfathomable labeling of elevator buttons.  

Because of the very nature of show conditions--difficult acoustics, complete inability of separating out the inherent quality of any one component in a system of unknown components, etc.--I tend to not pass judgment when I hear "bad" sound (very common), and focus on systems that sounded good (if the system is good, then all of the components are at least capable of sounding good in the right context).  I heard a few quite nice sounding systems.

I particularly liked the Deja Vu vintage system with its ultra high end custom-built electronics and speaker system.  The speakers featured terrific G.I.P. Laboratories replicas of Western Electric field-coil woofers and tweeters and a non-replica Western Electric compression horn/driver midrange.  The electronics included a replica of Western Electric 300b pushpull amps using all vintage parts, including ultra rare Western Electric transformers; the blue glow from the four mercury vapor rectifiers was also visually appealing.  The sound was full, sweet, musical and extraordinarily seductive, while retaining the clarity and excellent micro-dynamics of horn and field-coil drivers.  If there was any shortcoming, it was a little bit of rounding off of the initial attack of a note (the kind of sweetening I commonly hear with 300b tubes).  Overall, a fantastic sound.  Hearing this system should end the debate over digital vs. analogue; the demonstration was about a 50/50 split between CDs and a table, and both sounded incredibly enjoyable.

I loved the sound of the Charney single driver system.  It was very dynamic, coherent from top to bottom, harmonically complete (not leaned out in the upper bass lower midrange as many other "dynamic" systems tend to be), and extraordinarily extended in range from top to bottom).  I have heard quite a few full range systems, but, this is the only one I've heard where no excuses are needed for shortcomings that usually attend the immediacy and dynamics of the breed.  I did not hear anything I would really call a flaw in the sound; there might have been just a touch of the upper mid-range peak and "paper" coloration of full-range drivers and it might come a bit close to having a sibilant edginess, but I must emphasize that these impressions are just so subtle and minor compared to the incredible attributes of the system.  The 8" AER driver used sounded so much better than the smaller driver used in the Charney system in last years show, and I thought last year's system was terrific.

Among the more conventional systems, I heard really nice sound from the two speakers that Gingko Audio had at the show; one was a monitor, the other a monitor sitting on top of a dedicated subwoofer.  The sound for both was well balanced, harmonically full, and very musical.  It had, for my taste, a touch too much of a sibilant edge in the upper midrange, but nothing like the unpleasant edgy and thin and bright sound of the majority of high-end speakers on the market.  Very good sound at a very reasonable price level.

These were my top three systems at the show.  
@mapman I also really liked the Fritz Carerra the imaging was spectacular and nice implementation of the Be tweeter it wasn't bright at all. Very natural tonality top to bottom and great bang for the buck.
One amusing moment in the Odyssey room wandered in lights were off weird techno music playing the room lit but little lantern things. The combo of darkened room the weird lighting and clicks and chirps of "music" made me almost burst out laughing. Track ends lights come on Klaus says "I'm German and even I don't like Kraftwerk" and hands a guy his cd back. My first and I hope last experience with Kraftwerk and no comments on the sound.
I was perplexed by the Odyssey Kismet Liquid's.  At the end of day 2, I thought they were sounding very promising indeed.  I couldn't find anything really to criticize.  On the morning of day 3 I returned, hoping to confirm my previous impression (I had lingered well past 6pm "closing time"), and was confounded.  He spun some rock that was so strident in the treble that it had me diving for the exit.  Go figure.

Also: Klaus has been selling the Liquid's since 2015, yet in his dog-and-pony he emphasized how he had only got them "just right" last week, having taken the advice of someone else and made 3 or 4 modifications at that person's suggestion.  Where does this leave the early adopters? 
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.