La Dolce makes tube amplifiers, Open-baffle kit speakers, "LDA Baby Baffle" speakers, current-drive amplifiers—whatever that strikes their unique fancy. Their Capital Audiofest (CAF) room was one of the most distinctive I saw and heard. "Audio Gear for Blue Collar Audiophiles," they call it.
The most unusual component of their system was their Level 2 (HL2), a large, open-baffle speaker with a large, adjustable horn lens atop a cabinet holding a 360°ree; tweeter with two 18" drivers per baffle.
An Oppo CD player fed an Allegro UA2.5v2 preamplifier ($2800). From there, signal passed to two Allegro UA2.5m monoblock amplifiers ($4000/pair), each of which drove a kit speaker consisting of two LDA1002 tweeters ($299), two 360 Degree Tweeter kits ($429), LDA2001 Midrange Horn kit ($1700), and two LDA18 kits ($1400). "We sell the components; you make the wood baffles," the company's literature said. "Estimated cost of these baffles if you [employed a] cabinet maker: $3000. (We hope you will build your own, it's funner that way.)"
I'd love to have stayed and listened, but it was late almost closing time on Sunday, and I had more rooms to cover.
