Capitol Audio Fest

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.

Boy, I must have bad ears because many of the rooms some of you praise were horrible to me. Just goes to show how we hear differently. I disliked the Volti, Zu, Quad, Harbeth, and Tekton rooms. I came back to the Vandersteen 5 room twice. Liked every room with Tidal speakers. And really was smitten by the Joseph Audio small floor standers. I'm not sure how folks can listen to Tektons. Grating sound. And the Rethms were boring (to me).
A humbling experience putting that data into my head and then reading how others have different takes.
A small show I always wanted to attend but not sure it was worth the drive to do it again. Of course the advantage is plenty of seats and the ability to spend more time absorbing. The crowd was so small on Saturday.