Capital AudioFest 2011

This room was pitch-black when I went in, so, sitting in the listening chair, I held my camera over my head, crossed my fingers and my heart, and pressed the shutter. What the flash revealed was a nicely finished pair of 2-way towers, the Carnegie CST-1s ($1999/pair) driven by an Onkyo Reference M-5000R 150Wpc amplifier. The CST-1 combines a 1"x3" Mylar-film planar tweeter with two 5.25" composite-cone woofers in a transmission-line enclosure. Carnegie's Ron May asked if I would like to hear some Nils Lofgren but to my surprise, he didn't select the track "Keith Don't Go" from the Acoustic Live CD, which has been a fixture at recent audio Shows. Instead he played me "A New Shoulder to Cry On," which sounded excellent. Carnegie is designing its products for the "Affordable Audiophile," an admirable goal.