Capital Audio Fest (CAF) 2023

I went Saturday afternoon. Got through floors 8, 3, and the ground exhibits. Missed floors 6 & 7. I'm a tube, open baffle, and horn lover. Almost every room sounded good. All relative. I enjoyed the VK Audio room. AER speakers in a see-through horn, SE45 amp, and vinyl. The Heretic speakers sounded amazing for $7,300. The VanSweikart 55 room with Lampizator sounded wonderful. But the price. The Atmosphere, Classic Horn room was my favorite. Oh, the Magico, Gryphon, J. Sakora was very nice. 

There are videos on YouTube of many of the rooms FWIW. They all definitely sound different. 

@b2colchagoff Thanks for letting me know about the Caladan. I wasn't aware he had even put them out. I just had a LTA Z40+ integrated on my floor, too, as a customer traded it in for a different component. I wonder how the Caladan compares to the Spatial speakers?

@tubes4good AER is really good stuff. I saw these speakers that Victor put together at AXPONA earlier this year, but he was in the next booth to us in the trade show portion, so it wasn't great for acoustics. Did VK have a room this time around?

Attended Friday and today.  My favorite room was High Water Sound, who paired the Cessaro Wagner II horns with TW-Acustic tt and electronics.  Just beautiful music playing.  Agree with prior post that Heretics were bang-for-the buck champs.  Would also note that Fern & Roby room with his Raven IIs sounded great.  Chris H swapped out the Raven IIIs cuz he was having room integration issues; the result with his new JFET amp was pretty magical.  Lots of other good rooms though. 

@blisshifi Victor did have a room on the 8th floor.