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


Just came back from the great Capital Audio Fest.

A lot of great rooms, a few surprises, missing brands, and some winners and losers.

The great:

Doug Whites The Voice that is system of Tidal gear, Innous Statement, and Tidal loudspeakers just was stunning sounding.

The big Genesis system in the Vpi room was quite excellent. 

The Old Forge room's Sound Kaos speakers were superb.

The Cat room with the Kef Blades proved the Kef Blades are a true contender with way more expensive loudspeakers.

Dadelius speakers sounded very good, unfortunately the system was $200k!

The Bad:

The $120k Devore's new reference speakers were good but not $120k good at this demo

More to come.

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ
128x128audiotroy
I'm sure you do just like you sweat for hours making sure your wires are all oriented correctly.
Ouch!! Your wit is very sharp today moopman. Very ouch! You should be careful with that thing!
I have a car with cassette player. I use CD changer. Cassette player is too advanced, it fast forwards between the songs.

Back on track, Capital Audio Fest track that is, I felt bad for Zu Audio people. I am sure those speakers can sound good, but the way it was presented there was sad. It was not room, it was a ballroom with two relatively small speakers and a few chairs tucked in one small area.
@glupson, the lady handing out cookies was mrs Katz, refreshing to see a family affair at the show. She baked the cookies herself, while Mr Katz builds.

In general, the limitations of the rooms made it impossible in many cases to discern what the speakers are doing. 
The JA’s were playing at such a high volume in a small room, I was overloaded although I was surprised by the low end output.
I was hoping to hear Legacy Aeris but just as I got there they switched to (I think) the Focus.
forgot the brand but there was a room with speakers in plexiglass cabinets. It seemed a little odd that the tweeter faced forward while twin mids faced to the sides. I found that room way boomy.
the Martin Logan 5 speaker surround set up was rather unexpected, as were Benchmark class D amps.

this was my first trip to CAF. Having experienced that, there is no need to go to NY’s Park Lane event.  There is no comparison.  If I were running the NY audio show I would hold it in NJ. Drastically lower cost to hold event, much easier for exhibitors to bring their gear and less hassle for attendees.



@jacksky, The Benchmark amps in the ML room are not Class D, they combine Class A/B and Class H. Russ and Roz Katz have transformed their home into a showroom for many great sounding audio brands and he's a wonderful source for vinyl.