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Show attendees can be gruff, show exhibitors grouchy. Add a pandemic and things can get touchy. But if there’s one man you want to see at an audio show, it’s the ever-chilled Jeff Joseph, who gets my nomination for the calmest, best natured manufacturer in high-end audio.

Jeff Joseph, AudioShield, Now Listen Here, and Transparent Cable brought to the Capital Audiofest the VPI HW-40 Turntable ($20,000), VPI phono preamp prototype ($TBD), VPI Shyla MC ($1750) phono cartridge, EMM Labs DA2 DAC ($30,000), EMM Labs NS1 Streamer ($4500), Innuos Zen Server ($2999), EMM Labs PRE…

When a show room plays great music, the job of listening is easy. That’s true for civilians and press alike.

Virginia based audio dealer Command Performance AV and distributor Well Pleased AV played songs from Kraftwerk’s Tour de France, New Orleans innovator and jazz trumpet king Louis Armstrong’s Satchmo Plays King Oliver, then back to France, this time on vinyl, for the jazz-meets-electronic-grooves of trumpeter Erik Truffaz’s ReVisité.

Equipment in the room included a J.Sikora Initial MAX turntable ($12,995) with J.Sikora KV-12 VTA tonearm ($8495) and a Koetsu…

In the room of British Columbia’s Infigo Audio at the Capital Audiofest, CEO/founder Hans Looman was playing Michael Oldfield’s Tubular Bells II. Not quite new age, not “folk-tronica,” the music’s flowing, acoustic melodies and circular rhythms suited Looman, whose ponytail and pleasant banter recalled a taller, younger Obi-Wan Kenobi espousing wisdom and good vibrations. I quickly fell under the spell of Looman, Oldfield, and these attractive Infigo devices.

Infigo’s Method 4 DAC/preamp ($35,000) uses an ES9038PRO Sabre DAC chip and ARM-based controllers. The unit's “32-bit…

Tenacious Sound had several systems at the show, including those in Room 325 and the Montrose ballroom. Sunday morning, I stumbled into the smaller room, where good sounds were being made by an Audio Hungary X200 integrated tube amplifier ($6499) powering Canton Reference 7K loudspeakers ($6995/pair). A Microsoft Surface Pro laptop streamed Qobuz to a Weiss DAC. Cables were from Audience.

In the big Montrose room, Tenacious’s Shayne Tenace streamed Qobuz from a laptop to an Innuos Phoenix USB reclocker ($3499) to an AVM PA 5.2 preamplifier ($5995) with the optional DAC ($695)…

Whenever I meet a fellow Charlottean, my first question is “Do you dine at South 21?” A Greek-owned drive-in diner with the most amazing fried trout and onion rings south of the Mason-Dixon line, South 21 is what I associate with the South, not tater tots nor banana pudding. Mike didn’t know South 21, but he did fill me in on his speakers.

Kalellis's Apollo 12 line-array dipole towers and Apollo woofer modules are open-back designs. The system shown at CAF was priced at $58,000; a smaller system is available for $49,000. The towers stood 76" high, 18" wide, and 18" deep. (Each…

Capital Audiofest 2021 was a fantastic show. Everyone I spoke to—vendors, visitors, the helpful Hilton staff—was jazzed to be there. Everyone was in good spirits. While I didn’t see as many attendees in total as at the 2019 CAF show pre-Covid, every room I visited was full, and in many midday cases, standing-room-only.

On Sunday, the last day of the 3-day event, I asked show director Gary Gill about attendance, “We're all pleasantly surprised," he responded. "Sunday is a slow day, but I’m thinking around 2300 total. Typically, pre COVID, we’d have 500 on a Friday, but this…

Founder, designer, and mechanical engineer Johnnie Bergmann Rasmussen makes everything in-house in the small town of Hobro (pop. 11,000) in northern Denmark, on the Jutland Peninsula, at the head of the country's longest fjord, the Mariager. He says that his first hi-fi system, which he…

Even Rockport's ultra-costly groove compensated air-bearing arm, which eliminated annular-gap turbulence, and effectively dealt with differential horizontal and vertical masses—and, thus, different resonant…

The We Out Here Festival—named for a 2018 double-album on the Brownswood label—presented musicians from the burgeoning UK jazz scene, one of the most vibrant, experimental, and popular jazz scenes to arise since early '70s jazz fusion, or maybe since Dizzy Gillespie…

"I don't know anyone here that plays swing-…