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

This was my very first audio fest experience and we had a great time. We started early on Saturday morning since we were staying in the hotel. I noticed that most of the 'early birds' were older folks but as the day went on, there were more younger people there. It was great to see so many young people visiting the larger conference rooms. We had to checkout at 1 and head back home so unfortunately we didn't get to go to all the rooms.
My favs were the following:

1. Sanders Sound Systems--Beautiful sounding electrostatic speakers and amps. I was quite impressed.
2. Raven Audio--I never heard of them until the show.
3. Fern & Roby/LTA/Modwright--I finally met Dan Wright, super nice. The Fern and Roby Raven speakers sound great. Loved their new audio racks and TT.
4. LTA Headphone room--Super friendly folks there. A lot of fun.
5. VAC room--Amazing! It was like being in a museum. The equipment looked too beautiful (and expensive) to touch! 
6. Zu Audio. I wish they had more speakers but the Dirty Weekends were excellent. I was impressed that they were playing something other than jazz.

All in all it was a fun show---so happy I got to go this year. I will try to go to some of the seminars next year. Hopefully I'll be able to get to Axpona next year.

My wife and I spent the majority of our time listening to the Sanders Sound System Model 10 and the Tekton Design Moab speakers. Both rooms featured lively sound that was affordable and emotionally binding. The LTA rooms were visited several times and always delivered a holographic image. I attended the show looking for a streamer and ended up purchasing the Lumin U1 Mini from Command Performance. For sure CAF 2019 was a strong success and looking forward to CAF 2020!

Totally correct Pops:

We  thought the Devore/Luxman room was underwhelming, way too big a room, and too low a sounstage for such an expensive rig.

VPI's new statement piece Vanquish was very interesting driven by Krell electronics, wired with Nordost.  I think the Kef Muon's did the system a slight disservice, was not a fan.

Agreed

 The room was challenging also - I wasn't impressed with the Blades room either  

Totally disagree the Blades sounded like a big electrostat, huge soundstge good bass excellent resolution.

The issue was a bit more liquidity in the midrange would have made this sound great. Needed some acoustical damping in this big live room, also The CAT gear the ampliifers have never been our flavor, their preamps are amazing. 

The VAC/Von Sweikert room was excellent, better sounding than last year.  But for 1.5mil, Yikes.  

God No this is an example of a way too big a room to fill, no room lock in the bass, the system overall is clean and big but not magical.

Contrast this with Tenacious sounds small room with the Eggleston monitors the speaker is rated to low 40's but the bass coupled with the room made you feel the bass more than the disjointed Vac room.


The CJ/Kharma room was another treat.  The Kharma's for me were the best speaker in the show - wish I could afford them.  The GAT and a new 36 watt power amp were driving them and they were simply outstanding.

Agree on the sound being excellent, expecially for the room size, there was a well positioned image, huge soundstage but still a bit small sounding and not enough bass for a $30k+ speaker.


Callout to startup Verdant.  Beautiful stand mounted speakers and great sound!

Wow don't know what you were hearing the $7k monitors were okay and had no bass, and the $4k ones were good but not outstanding.

This room was super dissapointing considering the $17k amp and the rest of the expensive gear. 

The Tektons were a total reversal of last year, no treble detail in that setup with the Di, and with the Moab the top end was sizzly and nasty and the room was way too small and the image disappered if you moved your head even a few inches.

Big sounding, just aweful.

Surprise:

Alta audio finally got their sound right. The companies last $10k speakers sounded decent and the $4.5k last years setup set of speakers was also very good.

This year the new Alec totally knocked a lot of guys socks off, a gigantic soundstge, coupled to a sweet midrange with excellent treble detail. 

Just amazing sounding for the price.

The MC speakers were indeed very good as well as the audio necs, the ESD horn speakers, the issue is price,size, and value for dollar with some of these.

The MC speakers that looked like a giant 1950's TV were really cool but their size and polarizing looks and of course price will make them a very niche player compared to more conventionally sized and looking reference speaker systems. As per comparing them at $35k to the Muraaudio as one guy said not really a fair comparision the Mura audio are $15k and are amazing for a $15k set of speakers.

The Saunders room sounded for the first time to us actually good, Saunders speakeres are very directional and usually has a one person image. 

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ

Sit in the Roger's correctly placed chair and Sanders ALWAYS sounds
better than any other speaker at these shows. Amazing product for
the $$$. #1 on my 

Gotta love the Love/Hate reviews always present with Tekton. 
Seat for every derrier as they say.

Was CAF well attended this year? Saw a video shot there and it looked dead. Could have been shot in off hours though not sure.