Capital Audio Fest 2016

The show was once again an interesting venue to sample great hardware and pickup on some nice music to test system capabilities. The vendors are some extremely nice folks. Of particular note - Matt Early (Now Listen Here), Marco (Audio Note) and Carl Marchisotto (Nola) were most hospitable and educational. I could have spent hours in each of their rooms listening to their most musical systems.
The rooms that impressed me the most were the ones that contained the following speakers: Larson speakers at $2k, the Audionote speakers at $4.5k, the Joseph Audio Perspectives at $7.7k and the NOLA at $33k. The KEF, Tidal and Alta rooms were underwhelming and left me thinking that speed and analytical are not long term attributes that I could live with at any price point.

As a happy owner of both a Rogue "Cronus Magnum+" tube amp and an Ayon "Triton" tube amp, the Raven room blew me away with their "Blackhawk LE" integrated tube amp. So much so, that the show demo came home with me after the show discount. I can say that it gives the much more expensive Ayon amp a real run for the money. The Ayon has more power, but the Raven is a remarkably great deal and would still be that at 2 or 3 times it’s price.

The Larsen speakers were astonishing in how well they filled up the room with music. We heard several genres played on vinyl, and these speakers delivered the goods on all. I would not use these for sit down critical listening, but they are remarkable if you want to surround the space with music. I need to listen to these some more...

Loved Deja Vu’s setup, always a delight and wonderful. Likewise, the DIY gear was very well done and the room seemed to be permanently occupied as a result. All in all, there were lots of great listening moments and generally the matchup between the various amps and speakers was good or in a few cases (Raven) excellent.

Well, that was an interesting follow-up to the problems in the Brinkman/Tidal room.  It certainly sounded like the channels were out of phase.  I am pleased the room sponsors were able to fix the problem before the end of the show.

Now I will certainly admit that my brother knows much more about different mfg’s and product lines than I do (and he was along as well), I’m more a photography and digital renderings guy (visual, less auditory) but I know what I like when I hear it. The Josephs were punching way above their weight class and Mr Josephs was quite cool, he took time to explain some of the new parts in his floor standing units vs the Pearls we heard in NYC about 15 yrs ago. Crazy knowledgable guy and great speakers. At $7k they were one of the best IMHO and hearing a classic reel to real (LOL) was a great treat, the quality so much better than expected for an original 1955 recording on tape. The Pearl 3s would prob remove my shoes and socks, sadly he didnt have them along. $31.5k if I recall the pricing correctly.

+1 for Vond on the Zu audio room, the sound was excellent and everyone was very chill, just a great laid-back vibe and "come on in and set for a spell" was just hangin in the air.