2017 Capital Audiofest

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dex67

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Re: 2017 Capital Audiofest
« Reply #60 on: 7 Nov 2017, 04:03 pm »
i have plenty of pics. as soon as i download them from my camera, i'll upload few

Andrew JC

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Re: 2017 Capital Audiofest
« Reply #61 on: 7 Nov 2017, 04:49 pm »
I'm not in the market for speakers but the Vanatoo T0 at the sale price will be hard to pass up. My main focus was to find a DAC for my headphone system. I was able to spend a lot of time at the Schiit table so I'm leaning towards the Modi multibit.

dB Cooper

Re: 2017 Capital Audiofest
« Reply #62 on: 8 Nov 2017, 04:27 am »
I'm listening to my Modi Multibit right now on my Shure IEMs and have been very pleased with it. Great value for money spent.

gnostalgick

Re: 2017 Capital Audiofest
« Reply #63 on: 8 Nov 2017, 01:35 pm »
Anyone have comments on the Border Patrol room?

gsm18439

Re: 2017 Capital Audiofest
« Reply #64 on: 8 Nov 2017, 03:12 pm »
I visited the Border Patrol room and was pleased to see that it included Volti speakers rather than the usual Living Voice speakers. The Volti Rivals sounded great - full and rich.

I also liked the Auditorium-23 Homage 755 speakers (that used the Line Magnetic WE reproduction driver) paired with Shindo electronics; but the room was very small, and I kept wondering how they would sound in a larger (and for me, more realistic) space.

The other room that I enjoyed was Robyatt - mostly because of the rebuilt Quad 57 ESLs.

Paul427

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Re: 2017 Capital Audiofest
« Reply #65 on: 8 Nov 2017, 06:52 pm »
One room that I really enjoyed was sponsored by Linear Tube Audio, a small local (Takoma Park, MD) maker of David Berning design tube amps.  Their amps were driving a pair of Tekton Dual Impact speakers and sounding great.  I thought there was more "texture" and realistic (not etched) detail to the sound here than most of the other rooms.  I believe they were using a Wolf server and possibly a Mytek DAC, although I may be wrong on the DAC.
Another great room was Zu Audio, sporting two different pairs of their speakers (one a cost-no-object design, the other about $1000), driven by Mytek's new small amplifier.  Source here was all analog.  There wasn't that much difference (to my ears) between the very expensive and the more affordable Zu's.  Both sounded "natural" and invited the listener to keep enjoying the music rather than obsessing over the equipment.
Anyone else see/hear other more affordable gear that made them sit up and take notice?

dodgealum

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Re: 2017 Capital Audiofest
« Reply #66 on: 8 Nov 2017, 07:35 pm »
If you liked what Linear Tube Audio had going on at CAF, try to check out the new Berning-designed "Ultralinear" amp they are going to have at the NY Audio Show this weekend. I think that amp is going to create quite a stir in the audiophile community.

dB Cooper

Re: 2017 Capital Audiofest
« Reply #67 on: 9 Nov 2017, 05:02 am »
Heard Periodic Audio's Be (Beryllium) IEMs at the show and they had lots of bass-maybe too much- and the highs sounded recessed to me. It was a fairly short listen and only from my phone- but that would be a common use scenario for IEMs. Despite Dan's distaste for BA drivers, I still prefer my Shures.

Finally got to hear the Senn HD800S but couldnt make a judgment because all the vendor had on their tablet was highly processed hipster swill. Not what I'd use to make an impression. I couldn't find anything I liked- or had even heard of. A five minute visit.

Skipped the deep-end Audeze and HifiMan units because, hey, I ain't spending $4K on headphones no matter what.

Oh, and I seem to have lost my Dragonfly Black at the show  :duh:

dB Cooper

Re: 2017 Capital Audiofest
« Reply #68 on: 12 Nov 2017, 03:44 am »
One final (maybe...) thought: I wonder how much care exhibitors put into turntable/cartridge/arm matching. My guess would be 'Not enough', because thanks to the present-day custom of eschewing grille cloth, I see system after system with obvious (and often  severe) issues with subsonics. (The 2016 raffle system had it really bad.)  I noticed this a few years ago in a room which was showing small mini monitors whose woofers were flopping like a freshly boated bass. When I asked the exhibitor about it, he brushed the question off, saying "These woofers have a long throw; they can handle it." That missed the point: How well can your signal chain play when it is puking its guts out trying to follow a high-amplitude signal at near DC. His preamp had a switchable subsonic filter; I was going to switch it in to see if it made a difference, but then I figured, if he doesn't care if his system is performing at its best, why should I. Anyway, its a very common problem and this year was no exception. Especially hard to excuse such a problem when the total cost of the TT (here I go again) in some cases approaches the cost of a used luxury sedan.