Capital Audio Fest 2016

Darn, I think I missed Larsen as well and that was one I went in thinking I really wanted to hear.

Only had about 5 hours to spend there Saturday. A lot to digest in such a short time.

I spent a lot of time in the Benchmark room enjoying listening and chatting with the vendor reps. Theirs was a reasonably priced setup (by high end standards) that delivered big with smaller profile products that would fit nicely into many peoples homes.

The other "affordable" product there that hit really big and got my attention were the new Gershman monitors and stands for under $5K.

Overall, it would be nice if there was someway for someone to navigate through these shows based on cost. In other words have more low cost entry type systems that newbies might be more comfortable testing the waters with.

The room geared around headphones is a nice starting point.

Years ago at Tech Hifi when hifi systems were actually popular with the masses, most people still came in looking to start on a modest budget and go from there.

Nowadays at these shows, its mostly a no holds barred attempt to have the best sound in each room at any price.

That’s fine but I think if these things are actually to grow in popularity over time, an approach better suited to drawing more people in is needed.

There should be rooms featuring Bluetooth source enabled complete systems for easy entry at various price points for people with smart phones and tablets who like what they hear at the show and aspire to good sound at home.   There will always be people who want good sound.    The high end world need to connect with them better  in order to grow IMHO.

Were the Studio Electric speakers in the Benchmark room the ones that show as discontinued now on teh SE web site?

That site references the Benchmark site for the newer version. Benchmark site shows their monitors, which were at the show but not playing when I was in the room. The other monitors which I think were referred to as the Studio Electric monitors were. There were no grills on the ones playing.

Benchmark was also offering a show special 10% off on their electronics which was a nice bonus for going to the show.  

There should be rooms featuring Bluetooth source enabled complete systems for easy entry at various price points for people with smart phones and tablets who like what they hear at the show and aspire to good sound at home. 

That's a good idea. At the table we had one setup using the Jriver app that lets you connect wirelessly to a tablet, which led to a few conversations with people who wanted to get their system connected. A/V installation companies and dealers could definitely capitalize on this. I know the Daedelus Audio/Border Patrol room was also using a wireless system for playing music, and probably some others, but I don't know how much that was talked about. At the SoCal CanJam a few months ago, Riva had a very successful showing with their new bluetooth speaker. 

I noticed many rooms streaming from laptops as a source.

I noticed at least one headphone setup streaming from a tablet.

I did not see anyone streaming from a smartphone.

I had my Iphone 6s that I run Plex app on with me. It can connect to my music server at home. I’ve used it at some dealer shops for listening to gear with very impressive results even from analog out.

I asked a couple vendors  if I could connect to their system DACs and try but no takers on that. Understandable at a show environment.  But I would have loved to play some of my stuff on some of those systems though.