Audio Troy Capital Audio Fest the good, the bad and the ugly!

Im literally kicking myself for not seeing the Spatial and Salk rooms, how did i miss it?  

For anyone who has heard the Spatial's, are they good all arounders, considered them to be pretty detailed also? Or are they more of a gimmick that does a huge sound but loses things in the mix as a tradeoff? 

How about the salks which i believe are the models that sell for around 6k with BE tweeters (if i saw the photos correctly)? Are those winners at that price point?

tomic601
@pops would love to hear more on your impressions of the strain gauge system Sonics... what arm and table ? Thanks

Peter was using 2 tables made by a friend of his I believe in Germany, the arms were his, a collaboration with Reed. The amp and speakers were his and the speaker cables were Transparent, not sure about the IC’s.

For speakers, he was using his 8K Monarchs I believe they are called and they sounded great, no need for a sub.

To his credit he spun records like a DJ on 2 tables alternating between the strain gauge and his Hyperion cartridge. Both were luscious!  The strain gauge left nothing in the grooves, total detail and resolution, purity of tone,  without being in your face.  The Hyperion was very similar, organic sounding with just a touch and I mean a touch of warmth compared to the SG.

GT Audioworks were my favorite speaker last year.  I dropped by early on Friday and one of the Pass Labs mono's was not working and he was using a different amp.  Compromised his sound a bit.  Sounds like he got it together but I never got back the next 2 days.

As I mentioned above, Salk sounded good and credit also goes to a McGary integrated amp - made the Salks sing.

Also forgot to mention Joseph Audio - Perspectives were great, airy and transparent.

@pops thanks for the callout above.  Really appreciate it.  
Since I was working the show, I didn’t get to many rooms but the guys next door to me at MC Audiotech had a really different speaker.  I got to hear a couple different instrumentals on it and they sounded great.  
In regards to music choice, we played everything from Mahler to Dream Theater. If the room was quiet we asked most consumers what they wanted to hear and learned a lot of great tracks.  Instrumentals and soft vocals were what was being requested.  When nothing was requested I am biased toward 70s to early 90s lighter rock (ELO, Cars, Murray Head, 10,000 Maniacs) because you can hear a lot of detail.  We did play an abnormally large amount of Cars in tribute to Rick Ocasek bit that was my choice.  

Sometimes shows like CAF are good because they remind me to be happy with what I currently have at home.