jond,
The Channel D room was a touch bright, but, I took into account the nature of that kind of reverberant space. I think you would have really liked the Charney and Rethm speakers. Neither were bright and they were also, like the Auditorium, not cursed with a prominent peak in the upper midrange. Did you get to hear the Volti speakers? This is, for a horn-type system, a reasonably compact system that delivered good sound.
I also should have mentioned the Burwell and Sons horn system. I thought they sounded quite good too. They were warm sounding and delivered the saturated harmonics that I like from old school systems (tube electronics, pleated paper surround woofers, compression drivers, etc.). They were also surprisingly compact and nice looking; I thought they were monsters from the pictures I have seen. But, at its price point, Deja Vu can build a custom system that is precisely what you want (and hopefully can afford).
I should also give favorable mention to the DC area DIY group and their room. This time, they only displayed one setup instead of rotating several systems so they were not as ambitious as in prior years. But, the system was quite nice sounding. It was essentially a cube without a top and a back (open baffle design). An 18" woofer fired downward and the front baffle held a coaxial midrange/tweeter. The box was made rigid by using round dowels across the open top and open back (great idea for reducing interference with the back wave of both the woofer and coaxial drivers). The speaker looked to be quite easy to build and the parts were quite inexpensive. This makes it a classic DIY product--clever design substituting for expensive parts and construction.
