If you're a fan of my Stereophile scribble, you know I don't consider myself a fan of stuff like DSP processing, digital amplification, spatial reconstruction, or active room correction—all of which play an important role with Bill Dudleston’s Legacy Audio loudspeakers.
Ampsandsound is perhaps best known for his amplifiers made to drive either headphones or loudspeakers. (See for example Herb Reichert's Gramophone Dreams #47.) At this show, however, Ampsandsound manufacturer/designer Justin Weber was showing his Arches monoblocks ($50,000/pair), which put out up to 65W each with KT-88 tubes or 85W each with KT-150 tubes.
The Hear This room included products from Von Schweikert Audio, WestminsterLab, Lampizator, Small Green Computer, Sonore, and MasterBuilt.
Can you judge an exhibitor's products by the music he plays? Perhaps not, but when I walk into a room playing "Hotel California," that mad percussion ditty "Music for Bang, Baa-Room and Harp," 90s grunge (footnote 1), or God No! Jazz at the Pawnshop, it's all I can do to stay put and not scream.
A dependable first stop for any show attendee, Jeffrey Catalano’s High Water Sound room got down to business and quick. Offering a similar system to last year's but with new Cessaro Horn Acoustics’ Wagner II Horn Speakers ($65,000/pair), the system had considerable jump and force paired to a liquid midrange and absolutely clean, nearly medicinal, certainly soul-enriching highs.
I have yet to hear a pair of Joseph Audio speakers I didn't marvel at. That includes the small-in-size but huge-of-sound Pulsar2 Graphene standmounts ($9999/pair) in a room commanded by Rogue Audio. I left the room saying "Crazy! Crazy" to Rogue’s Nick Fitzsimmons and Bill Magerman, but before then I sat in dumbstruck silence.
Gryphon’s highly anticipated Diablo 333 Integrated Amplifier will make its North American dealer debut on Thursday 16 November, 11am–6pm, at The Sound Environment in Omaha, Nebraska.
In room 801, David Cope of Old Forge Audio, in conjunction with Phonographe Distribution, played a joyous-sounding system that included my and Herb Reichert's current favorite loudspeaker).
Presenting the new GoldenEar T66 floorstanding speakers ($6900/pair in Gloss Black, $7200/pair in Santa Barbara Red), Ken Forsythe (AudioQuest), aided and abetted by Chet Pelkowski and Chris Volk (both from GoldenEar), got down and dirty, and insisted I join in. I did!
Like candy to an audiophile baby, Capital Audiofest 2023 is officially in full blast mode, a phantasmagorical thrill ride for listeners of all ages, and this age. The venue as in 2022 is the Hilton Twinbrook Rockville, Maryland.