Capitol Audio Fest '24 Nov 8 - 10 - Rockville MD

Clayton Shaw was on my list but I didn't get to that room. Will put together notes, there were a couple surprises!

 

Couple or a few standouts for me:

Acora in the gigantic TAC room. Now, in past years this room has been laughable in it's wanton excess and wholly unrealistic hyper-hifi sound. Not so this year. The speakers, although expensive in a general sense, were 2-way stand mounts, the MRB's. Yes, they were driven by a chain of .1%-er nonsense, but what those small standmounts accomplished in a room the size of a football field was truly impressive. Similarly to the $4500 slate enclosure standmounts in the (I can't recall the FL dealers name) room with the wacky 845 (i think?) (edit, no, GM70 fighter jet tubes!) tube amps, there was an "aliveness", an engagement factor there that wasn't the typical audiophile bullshit fireworks, but rather just a closer connection to the music that's typically not present in the highest of the high end rooms.

The YG + Vinnie Rossi room was the best I've heard YG's sound in show conditions. Still a touch dry to me, but at least not boom-tizz like most YG I've heard in the past.

Eastern Bay was interesting, but knowing the limits of those Mark Audio drivers is the key. I am pleased that a bunch of folks probably walked out of those demos wondering if something single driver-ish could be better than an overly complex, highly inefficient and overly mechanically damped/overly complex x-over speakers they've been conned into believing are "true hifi". Maybe some folks will choose a well done backloaded 1/4 wave horn over KEF LS50s? These were super coherent and transparent, which should be no surprise to anyone who's been in the widebander DIY space at all.

Pretty much anything Borresen was knocking my dick off. If I ever found myself shopping for $10k+ speakers, Borresen would be at the top of my list.

Losers:

Stax SR-X9000 - these just sounded like typical stax with a +9db boost at 40Hz. wow. stax with bad bass.

Focal Grande Utopia EM Evo Super Turbo DOHC VTEC Intercooled Twinspark EarthDreams SH-AWD MK LXIX. Cool. If this is the epitome of diminishing returns, y'all rich pricks can keep it.

Zu bookshelfs - stuck my head in the room and big fat nope. Maybe it gets better in the sweet spot??? The dirty weekends in the DJ room were cool, but quite bass boosted. beavis and butthead speakers.

 

The Fischer & Fischer dealer is in Atlanta, 11stereo.com. I really want to get ears on the F&F Kleins now, which are even smaller than the ones being demoed at CAPFest. That was the only room I had to go back to. If you heard Stravinsky's Firebird being played there, that was my fault.

I have a soft-spot for single drivers since I got CA Minx. I really want to hear the Curvi-BMR. That's a transmission line 6" BMR single driver speaker.

Borresen sounded good in every room. The price, not so much. Comparing the F&F standmount ($4400? $4200?) to the Borresen ($16k) I couldn't hear what the extra $12K was getting me.....

Zu has its fans. Just going by measurements, I don't see how they can accurately render music.

 

CAF Impressions
It was a pleasure to meet @gaspasser and spend some time hanging out with him at CAF. He might have been the first SBAFer I’ve met besides Eta’s Ev. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to hang out with the rest of you, I was in town with my wife and some friends from beyond SBAF.


Headphones

Madhouse Tungsten
I got to hear the single-sided and variants of the double-sided Tungstens. These are flavor-of-the-month headphones, with lots of head-fi hyperventilating and long lead times for production. There’s much to like about them: think LCD-4 but with a more balanced, less wonky tuning, with big bass that’s expansive, airy, open, reaches down deeply, and has a decent amount of mid-bass punch. The bass is nicely textured; it’s not tight, like that of an Abyss; it’s more like the bass of a Final D8000. The mids are even and full without being too forward. The treble’s free of nasties though not the smoothest or sweetest. For the price the resolution is excellent, but some of the more enthusiastic reports of the Tungstens being totl in this respect are overblown. The Tungstens are planars of the older Audeze or Final Audio ilk, and much like a more open and spacious RAD-0, and are less like the micro-diaphragm Hifimen. I couldn’t get a great handle on timbre, given the show conditions, but it seems promising.

The single sided version at $1500 is a great deal: they punch above their price and are only marginally behind the smoother, more evenly tuned double-sided version ($2k). Alas, the listening space was ridiculously loud, including with reps of various companies standing around and yammering away too loudly, in some cases standing either side of me as they prattled on. Also, the setups weren’t the best, and the sources were garbage, as were the selection of tracks. More annoyingly, I couldn’t find a stock double-sided Tungsten. One had been modded by its owner, but he wouldn’t disclose how they were modded or to what effect. The other came with an upgraded hexagonal-patterned grill, which Ryan from Madhouse Audio explained is designed to tamp down on the treble slightly, for those who find it troublesome. That model was indeed darker than the stock single-sided pair, and the single-sided Tungsten is said to be more v-shaped, but I didn’t find its treble to be a problem.

My overall impression of the Tungstens is that they’re well worth considering if you have suitable amplification. I’ve heard them a few times now and have been impressed each time.


CRBN2
I wasn’t a fan of the original CRBN at all: it had a wonky, weird tuning. While its bass was noteworthy for an estat, it had an upper-mid/lower-treble emphasis that made it shouty and way too up-front in its staging, with singers appearing as though they were standing right in front of you, as though nose to nose. It was unpleasant. The CRBN2 are better on that front. The tuning seems more coherent and evenly balanced, although it’s quite warm. The bass is solid but I’m not sure it’s all that great: I compared it side-by-side with the original Susvara and much preferred the latter’s, which had tighter, clearer, cleaner, less boomy and bloomy bass.

I heard the CRBNCRBN from the LTA Aero and Z10e as well as an iFi pairing, the Neo-what’s-it-called vertical DAC and the combined amp/estat energizer unit.


Susvara Unveiled
This was the second time I’d heard it, and at CAF I got to try the Unveiled from the new Headamp CFA-3 and the Felix Envy. It’s ok. The mids are more forward than on the original version, making the sound a touch warmer and more forward, with better vocals, if you like them more intimate. I’m not sure the bass is as good as the original’s, and the treble lacked its predecessor’s sweetness (I AB’d the two from the same setups). The staging was smaller, more intimate. The Susvara Bareback might be more resolving but as gaspasser and I agreed, the Utopia at half the price is preferable for this kind of presentation.


X9000
The totl Stax is impressive enough even if it’s not quite my thing. It’s mellow, relaxed (or perhaps slightly dark) but not particularly exciting or outstanding, and it may be too rolled off in the treble for me. It’s not ethereal or wispy. It’s quite impactful and dynamic, for an estat, and it has some bass, to be sure, but not in a way that rivals the Susvara. I think it’s got more punch than the Hifimen HE 1000, v1.5, v2, SE, Stealth, v4, Unveiled, and the soon-to-be-released v5 SE Double Secret Stealth Magnet Unveiled headphones. It’s highly resolving and has a nice tonality to it. The staging is impressively open and spacious and airy. It’s a fast-sounding headphone, as you’d expect. The original Susvara, from the same chain, was as fast and resolving but more impactful and with better imaging, layering, and, in particular, separation.


Warwick Acoustics Bravura and Aperio
These complete headphone systems were in their own separate, quiet room, and I got to hear them on my own for a decent amount of time. Both are impressive: fast, impactful, tonally rich, with a bit of warmth, decent enough bass, and a pleasing tonality. The Bravura’s not very resolving. I’m not sure it does much to make it stand out for the price ($7k). You could do better with a properly amped HD 600.

The Aperio is a significant improvement over the Bravura: it sounds more neutral, less warm, and has improvements across the board when it comes to speed, transients, resolution, staging, etc. Its bass is similar to the Bravura’s - good but nothing to write home about, and decent insofar as it stacks up against other estats, although the CRBN2 doesn’t best it. FWIW, I thought the X9000 was much better, even from its gimped LTA chain. I’d previously heard the X9000 from the fancy pants Headamp 300b estat amp and it was much better than the Aperio then.

The Aperio is inoffensive enough and has few sins of commission. It’s just not all that impressive, and most certainly not for $40k (this was the special black DAC/amp edition). I’d take my Wavedream Edition SE -> HSA 1b -> SR1a over it any day for all but the bass, and a Susvara in that same chain would likely trounce the Aperio, for my tastes.


Atrium Closed
I got to hear this from the LTA Aero and Velo. It’s lovely. The tonality is much like the Atrium Open’s, albeit with gloriously reverberant, deep, sonorous, boomy bass. The sub-bass is superb and a lot of fun. It sounded very grainy; the LTA chain seems to be awful for this.


Caldera Closed
These were the headphones of the show for me. I’d not gotten along with the open Caldera with my Stratus or solid state amp, the Raal HSA 1b. It sounded flat, dull, lacking in impact or macrodynamic contrast, and overly damped, to the point of being compressed and congested. Not here with the Closed (or for that matter, with the Open, from the LTA Velo chain). I loved both: the Closed version’s bass is something truly special, emphasized but in a pleasing, fun but not overdone way: it goes down deeply, not as robustly as the Atrium Closed, but the bass is gloriously tight, controlled, textured, tonally rich, and satisfying. Frankly, it’s one of the nicest bass presentations I’ve heard. The mids were, as you’d expect from ZMF, simply lovely, and I had no trouble with the treble, which came across as smooth and sweet. I know it’s a cliché to talk about closed back headphones having the staging of open backs but this comparison absolutely works here. The open Caldera has a bit more openness and air, but the staging size of the Caldera is barely compromised; I’m fussy about this sort of thing - and abhor stuffiness - and had no trouble whatsoever with the Caldera Closed. If it weren’t for the formidable price and the need to change my chain, I’d be eager to get a Caldera Closed, although I’d love to hear it again properly on a synergistic setup.


Headphone Chains

LTA Aero (DAC) and Z10e
From this setup the CRBN2 came across as weirdly grainy and muddy. There was some of this grain from the Susvara, too, and the setup was also surprisingly low resolution and, well, shit. I’ve heard the Z10e before and have yet to like it. I’ve no idea if the Aero DAC is any good. I should note that my own system is a Wavedream Edition SE and Stratus but let’s not forget that the Aero costs $4k and the amp $7k. Whether with the Susvara original, X9000, or CRBN2, this ca $15k+ system is just shockingly bad.


LTA Velo

At $2k, I’m less critical of the Velo paired with the Aero but once again the abysmal resolution and the grain were atrocious value for money. I heard the Atrium Closed Caldera, and Caldera Closed from the setup, along with my RD-4z, and while the ZMFs sounded decent, I’m sure they could be better served by other gear. My RD-4z certainly can, perhaps even from my iFi Gryphon.


Felix Envy
From a Mytek Brooklyn Bridge, the Envy sounded very good with the Susvara and the Tungsten single sided. I can see the pairing with the Susvara being potentially solid; it bested the CFA-3, but not by much, and the Z10e (but that’s hardly surprising). The show environment was too poor to say much beyond this: the Susvara sounded nicely balanced, not overly warm, with the Envy; it had an especially expansive and open stage; its bass was excellent, and its slam, impact, and transient attacks were all great. I’d need a quiet environment to comment on tonality, decay, etc…


Headamp CFA-3
The Envy may be good for the Susvara but the CFA-3 isn’t far behind it at half the price. I very much liked this amp from a variety of headphones: Tungsten, Susvara original and bareback, and RD-4z. It’s quite warm. It’s worth playing around with the zero feedback option (I forget the name of the other setting on this switch). This setting worked for some headphones but not others, making some overly warm and textured.

My one gripe is that the amp's staging lacks depth. It’s not too up-front. But there’s next to no front-to-back differentiation. I wonder how far the Mytek DAC held it back. I heard the CFA-3 last year from some $25k streamer DAC thingy and it was more impressive then.


Speakers
I have little experience with 2-channel setups so will be much briefer here.



These modest Neil Blanchard Designs speakers were great. The smaller, 4" driver speakers were nicely room-filling and had incredible bass. At $1800 a pair, I'm kind of tempted by them. I need to do some research... I’m not sure how good the imaging or soundstage is, and I’d need more time with them to get a sense of their tuning.






These Estelon speakers look the part; the white ones had incredible punch and bass depth and rumble but had poor imaging; the metal ones were better in this respect. I dread to think what they must cost.




My first experience with field-coil speakers, the Diptyque were pretty cool; fast, highly resolving, really snappy and percussive, lots of fun, with a big, open sound. They're quite up-front, though, if you were to sit in the chairs; gaspasser recommended checking them out from the back of the room, from whence they improved markedly, having a less overpowering sound and more depth and front-to-back spatial differentiation. They're still quite forward in the upper-mids and lower-treble but not overly so.




Gaspasser also introduced me to these Volti speakers, which I really liked. They're fun, highly impactful, quite fast and open and transparent, a bit forward in their staging, but with glorious, room-filling sound. The treble extends quite high without any trouble; I heard a test track with a violin going up to its highest notes and I didn't wince or dive for cover.




I liked these guys at c. $1500 a pair, which several people recommended. Again, a nice big fun sound, but warmer and mellower than the Voltis.




These were my first taste of Maggies, the 1.7x model. I was surprised at how deeply they descend into the bass; the sub wasn't turned on. They had a huge, unnatural sound, though; male vocals were very forward, to the point of dominating, but then my listening position was all of 7-8 feet away from them. Amusingly, the over-eager Magnepan rep was a 20-something, lanky white b-boy/hip hop kid complete with fancy kicks and tipped up baseball cap. It was like the Beastie Boys hadn't panned out as a band and one of the members had found an alternative career in audio.


The award for so utterly shite it's embarrassing speakers goes to Zu. Their standmounts were atrocious - as in so bad, I went into the room and didn't take long to realize why it was empty. The rep was thrilled to have a punter in there, and after playing something, asked me what I'd like to hear, so I asked for one of The Smile's albums (alt rock, not too badly recorded), and my god, it was as bad as I've ever heard music be reproduced. I had a Radio Shack boombox in the 80s that sounded better. I’m not joking. I was trapped as I'd chosen the song, and felt I should be polite. A guy came in and sat next to me, and looked pained. I told him he could put something else on; the rep obliged, and it sounded f'ing awful, too, so after a polite moment or two, we fled. (The Black Ice amps may have ruined the speakers. Every chain I heard with those amps sounded bad.)

The other Zu room with smaller trapezoid floorstanders was better but there was a dipshit kid in there at a dj turntable setup playing some kind of try hard dance/ambient music with, over the top of it, Joe Strummer talking about the experience of seeing the Pistols play. If only I could have given the turntable the Animal House treatment.




Finally, the award for the most ridiculous and annoying thing at CAF was this steel drum being played intermittently and immediately across from LTA Audio's headphones area:

 

Sadly, on Saturday, the headphones were all very occupied and then I got a migraine so I couldn't hear any. Next year!

The room the Diptyques were in was way too small for the big, $30k, 100kg ones. They should have been using the smaller ones that were off to the side.

 

100% this. I've always hated the ultra 11s in that room, and the (slightly) smaller von schweikerts last year felt like an marginal improvement. Both of the Acoras that they had this year were superb, but I was also impressed by the huge sound out of the standmount 2-ways. I'd generally describe the sound as detailed, but not etched or over-the-top in any way. The larger Acora gave more of the same, where "more" mostly refers to bass extension. We listened to some dead can dance, so not a lot of opportunity to figure out if they're overdoing the bass.

I think the main problem with this room was that the treble and bass drivers are too far apart to become coherent as far forward as they've placed the seats. You'll get a chuckle out of the recommended room sizes on Diptyque's website

Also the "audiophile record label" that brought steel drum guy-- if you're trying to show off your spectacular recording technique, bring some headphones that I can hear that on. I think they had a pair of studio headphones directly out of a tascam CD player, and the guy was trying to talk to me the whole time (while the steel drum rang out off to the side).



Forgot to call this one out earlier, but I spotted it going through my photos. I think the speaker in this room was the PAP Duet 15 with the Voxativ AC-PiFe. This was the first time I've heard any of the PAPs with the wide-band instead of the horn and wow, what an improvement, why do they even make these things with horns? Very skeptical of all the GanTube stuff here-- I didn't really get the point from the explanation, but I think GanTube is yet another solid state fake tubes situation. Would love to hear this speaker with something simple, like a SET amp.

 

@Tchoupitoulas Great impressions, as you always do. It is surprising to read your impression that the Sus OG sounds better than X9000 in imaging/laying/separation. To me, the Stax Omega remains the king in these stereophile aspects in the realm of headphones. I suppose that the used prices for X9000 relative to Omega headphones (1: 2.5~3) might reflect where they stand in user acceptance (with rarity being a factor too).

I also got a similar impression that Caldera Open lacks macrodynamics to some extent (compared to LCD-4). I am looking forward to trying the closed version.

 

@Tchoupitoulas thanks for the great impressions!

I concur that I (much) prefer the Caldera Closed over the Open. To me it has to be* the best closed headphone on the market today (and possibly ever? I heard the R10 a long time ago when I was still fresh and didn't know much ). To me, it is one of the best headphones period. The fact it is closed is just icing on the cake for late night listening in bed next to the wife .

(*) I haven't heard every big boy closed headphones because I generally find they have a wonky frequency response that make them genre-specific and typically have way too much bass (or too bloated). I used to own the Focal Stellia and had a loaner Verite Closed for an extended period and both were clearly not even in their presentation. The Atrium Closed was the closest to even (at least from the mids to lower treble, which is most important to me), but I didn't care for the elevated bass. I was hoping to get much of the Atrium Open (my favorite ZMF of all, well, until I heard the CC), but it was too much of a departure for me and I sold it to try something else (DCA E3). The Caldera Closed is much more even and the slight bass elevation is very tasteful and not at all overdone. It has all the best attributes of my Susvara, Atrium Open and JAR660S.
Its technical abilities are another standout and I don't feel like I'm missing much of anything compared to Susvara (driven by LTA Z10 Integrated or Vinnie Rossi VR120) and the closed nature allows it show all the details in a not-totally-quiet environment, which is great for WFH or with the kids around.

I think this is @zach915m's greatest achievement and, whilst expensive, it should be at the very top of your list if you can afford it! I know I'm getting one and will walk into the sunset with it!

Note: I know I sound like a shill, but I'm being genuine. I don't usually listen to music all day while working from home. I quickly end up putting my AirPods Pro 2 in and watch YouTube on the side. Since getting the CC demo I haven't watched a single video and just wants to listen to music and dance on my chair while I code or do some "inventing" .

 

time for some very late and off the cuff impressions of CAF from me.

Other than some clouds/rain later on Sunday afternoon, the weather was brilliant for the weekend. my walk to the show both days was really nice


I knew that I would be disappointed in most rooms going in, but it's still a bummer how many rooms struggled just cause of poor setup/no treatment or poor electronics. I really wish more vendors would treat the damn rooms. I made sure to tell many of them the rooms would sound much better if they'd bothered to treat them even a little.

Another disappointment was the two megabuck rigs I was looking forward to. I was hyped to hear the big boi Tidal speakers, but the electronics in this case really held that rig back, even with the huge 250k speakers. upstairs in the Bricasti room they had the smallest Tidal speakers and it sounded way better. Another disappointment was all of the Soulnote rooms, they were all YG speakers and none of them was setup well. the megabuck room with the 250k YGs with the most expensive soulnote stuff was tiny and didn't sound great at all.

This wasn't surprising for me, but none of the Boressen rigs was good, these speakers just aren't good imo, the danish audio group is trying to make this huge splash, and I guess it works for some people, but none of their rooms has ever impressed me, specially not for the money.

On to the few rooms I did enjoy!

My favorite room at the show was easily the Cinnamon Audio OBs brought by Gestalt Audio


this was an all analog rig, SM1X integrated and Cinnamon Audio phono pre, I don't remember the turn table specifics. but this room sounded great. fantastic immediacy, the speakers just sounded free in a way ive gotten used to at home. I would love to hear the bigger Cinnamon OBs



OCD Mikey's room was actually good. The setup was great and the small Fisher and Fisher speakers were impressive for their size.


The slate speaker cabinets were impressive, the woofers were fighting for their lives playing some Tool for me and you could barely feel anything on the cabinets. The GM70 amps from NAT Audio were neat too



The other room I liked was a YG room with their biggest 3 way, the Hailey 3 I think? and Vinnie rossi electronics, it was actually setup well, better than all the ones downstairs with Soulnote unfortunately.


Even with the disappointing rooms, the show was a blast. spent quite a bit of it rolling around with @Pocomo , was great to see him again after the Austin meet several months back. met up with some other SBAF'ers for drinks after the show Saturday as well, fantastic chat about the show and life and all sorts of shit, good times. I just enjoy spending a weekend soaking in the audiophile enthusiast vibes even if I know im not gonna find anything that shakes up my audio world.

 

I had a fantastic time rolling through my first 'professional' audio show with @SoupRKnowva and @yotacowboy as spirit guides. Both of you guys have great ears and I learned a lot. I too was surprised by how many rooms suffered from poor setups, but that's all part of the experience. As @yotacowboy said "sure, I'm always up for listening to shitty music on hyper-expensive gear" (or something that way).

It was also great to hang out and have a beer with @supertransformingdhruv and @gaspasser, supremely affable locals with lots of interesting tales to share (of both audio and life adventures)

SBAF comes through IRL once again Thanks friends.