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
@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.
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.