Capitol Audio Fest

I went to Deja Vu this weekend and heard the big horn system that they brought to the show in a bigger and better-suited room.  In this setup it sounded substantially better than it did at the show.  I noticed that it does not sound quite as good when the system is turned on than when it has warmed up a bit; apparently, the field coil drivers and/or the tungar power supply need to warm up a bit before the system sounds it's best (bass is boomy and ill-defined until the system warms up). 

I was particularly struck by how good the 597 tweeter sounds--the system was very airy and open sounding without even a hit of harshness; this was the smoothest top end I've heard and it was so well integrated it was like there was no tweeter present, but, the sound was not lacking in high frequencies.  The 555 midrange had the smoothness I would expect from this driver, but, the G.I.P. replicas also delivered the kind of detail that made it sound more like a Western Electric 713B driver than other 555's I've heard (a VERY good thing).  

The bass on the system is not quite what I would find ideal, but, this is always the case until the system is specifically tuned to a particular room, system and personal taste.  

LarryI, that is funny because I went to Vu's this past Friday and heard the same speaker and had the same reactions...exactly.  The speaker in question is the 3-way field coil system with GIP drivers.  I had somewhat mixed feelings about it at CAF although it clearly had lots of potential.  I was inclined to blame the hotel room as being too small for a large speaker like this, however Vu said the room at his store is nearly identical in dimensions to the hotel room at CAF.  In any event, at the store on Friday, after the system was warmed up the speaker had excellent coherency (something lacking at CAF) and excellent detail and dynamics.  I thought that perhaps the bass was not quite as full and weighty as what I heard at the show but that could have been due to the music selection.  Our listening on Friday started with the system totally cold---everything had to be turned on first---and the sound was a little disjointed for the first few minutes but it got better and better as we listened longer.  Without any doubt, this is a very good sounding system and the GIP drivers are capable of excellent sound quality.

I didn't listen long enough to the GIP speaker to be able to draw comparisons with other speakers, and I bet Vu would disagree with me on this, but as good as the GIP speaker was I think I actually preferred the sound of one of the YL speakers Vu had in the same room on my last visit.  That speaker used a big YL wood horn with YL 5500G driver, Goodmans 15" woofer in open baffle, and some tweeter (it may have been a Jensen RP-302).  The YL speaker had the advantage since it was fully warmed up when I listened to it, but I still recall how totally realistic Ella and Louis sounded that day.  

That's interesting about your reactions to the YL/Goodman system.  I can't say I heard those issues with it but perhaps if I had listened longer they might have bothered me too.  My only quibble with it was the bass wasn't quite as rich and weighty as most of Vu's designs. 

Vu said that one of the challenges with the CAF setup was the wall voltage varied quite a bit which meant he had to keep adjusting the field coil power supply voltage. 

You guys know so much more about these drivers than me its a bit humbling to hear you discuss them with such authority. I guess I need to spend more time hanging around Vu's on the weekends! Glad to hear you both liked the CAF speakers better at Deja Vu I was so impressed with them at CAF I can only imagine how good they were at the shop.