"Where's the tweeter?" I asked after a listen to the 97dB-sensitive Soundfield speakers, shown at Capital AudioFest in prototype form. It turned out the top drive-unit is a 12" coaxial unit, with the HF unit mounted where the dust-cap would be. "So the big-ass 18" dipole unit is the subwoofer?" No, it was explained, the18" unit in the speaker's center, behind the grille, is the woofer, covering the range from 50–200Hz. The bottom 12" unit, mounted in a sealed enclosure is the subwoofer, handling frequencies below 50Hz. With the coaxial and 18" drivers operating as dipoles and the bottom12" unit omnidirectional, by varying the crossover between the low-frequency drivers, the speaker's radiation pattern can be made cardioid in the region where room acoustics might benefit. I had seen a cardioid subwoofer designed by Ken Kantor many years ago at a CES, and had wondered why no-one else had experimented along these lines.

That's the title of the book Ken Kessler wrote about the iconic American high-end audio company, and which was reviewed in the May 2007 issue of Stereophile. Shown here in the second room hosted by retailer JS Audio, next to the McIntosh turntable, which I believe is the only product not made in the company's Binghamton, the book reinforces the idea that despite changing owners several times over the decades. McIntosh has not lost its institutional memory.

Although I had seen the 4-way, floorstanding Polk LSiM 707 ($4000/pair) at the Montreal Show in April, they weren't being demmed in an optimal room. But driven at Capital AudioFest by an Audio Research stack—CD8 CD player, Ref3 preamplifier, and VS110 power amplifier—and hooked up with MIT cable, they gave great sound on Keb Mo's version of "It Hurts Me Too" from his The Door CD, with extended low frequencies and impressive dynamics.

You can see that each woofer is mounted in its own internal chamber, the ports firing down. And there's that horrible carpet again!

Ken Swauger runs a Baltimore-based company called TapePath (www.tapepath.com) that specializes in restoring classic open-reel tape recorders, especially ReVox A77s. Ken is shown here in the vestibule to the Polk room, holding a baggie with all the parts from an A77 that he replaces and upgrades. I still have an A77 in storage—perhaps I'll send it to Ken to have it brought back from the dead!

Some of Ken Swauger's open-reel recorder collection on display, from left to right: a ReVox PR99, a Stellavox portable, a ReVox A77, plus some tasty tape releases.

Driving a pair of Living Voice OBXRW speakers (from $11,000/pair depending on finish), this cute 20Wpc tube amp, from an American company run by an English ex-pat, produced a very appealing sound on a classic Louis Armstrong cut.The S20 comes with two mono power supplies, these using tube rectifiers and choke filters, and uses 300B tubes in push-pull. Price is quoted as being "from $12,750."

There was no information available on this cute tube integrated from Italy, the Synthesis Flame, except that it has remote control and costs between $1500 and $3000. But it sure is pretty! Check out www.synthesis.co.it.

It was déjà vu all over again all over again (and again).Capital AudioFest was the fourth Show I have attended this season, only to encounter MBL North America's Jeremy Bryan demming the same system he had at SSI in Montreal, at Axpona in Atlanta, and at Axpona in New York: 101E Mk.2 speakers driven by 9011 monoblock amplifiers, a 6010D preamp, a 1621A CD transport, and a 1611F D/A converter. But this time, not only was the hotel carpet different (and uglier), the room was large enough to allow the omnidirectional speakers to sing as they should. Again I listened to "The Boy in the Bubble" from Peter Gabriel's Scratch My Back CD, and the hi-rez solo piano recording made by MBL's Jürgen Reis, "Walchensee, Mondnacht," performed by Martin Vatter, from the album Klangbilder, played back from a server, and the highs were smooth and mellow without being rolled-off, just as they should be and are in real life, the imaging stable and accurately defined.

As well as listening to hi-rez digital files on the MBL system, I auditioned 15ips open-reel tapes from the Tape Project on a much modified Tascam recorder from United Home Audio. UHA's Greg Beron (that's Greg's hand in the photo) replaces the heads with low-impedance ones sourced from the company that supplies Abbey Road Studios in London, wired with single-crystal cable and silk-dielectric caps. A UHA machine costs $8000–$17,000 depending on the level of work the customer needs, and the machine is lined-up to be compatible with Tape Project tapes. Listening to a Decca orchestral recording of Suite Espanole, I was reminded how good analog tape playback could be. Even a mono Thelonious Monk cut from 50 years ago sounded fresh.