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Capital Audiofest (CAF) 2022 Show Report
CAF 2022 premium luxury audio event coverage.
Capital Audiofest (CAF) started out in 2010 as a very casual show and has evolved into a well-organized and well-attended event. CAF is recognized as a fun, friendly, and family-oriented show where you often see families strolling from room to room listening to music and auditioning gear. You
could also browse the multiple bins of vinyl LP records, CDs, and hi-fi accessories in the Atrium Marketplace. During the
event there was wonderful live music plus Enjoy the Music.com sponsored the
Thursday night vendor / press party with live music and free drinks for attendees!
With 92 listening rooms and over 50 booths spanning more than four floors of amazing audio gear,
this year marks the largest CAF to date! Capital Audiofest
2022 was held from November 11th through 13th at the Twinbrook Hilton in Rockville Maryland.
The Capital Audiofest 2022 Fab
Five My selection of the Top Five best sounds of
CAF 2022.
Capital Audiofest 2022 Show Report By Greg Weaver Welcome
to the reveal of my Fab Five, the five most accomplished, most musically
engaging systems that I encountered at this year's Capital Audiofest. Have you
ever wondered criteria I use to make these selections? Well, it comes down to a symbiosis of many attributes. I listen for faithful
replication of instrumental tonality, is it presented with vibrance, color, and
texture? I listen for the level of authentic dynamism that a system can
recreate, how well can it convey subtle nuance and shading in the most tranquil
of passages, and by contrast, how faithfully is it able to portray realistic
scale and dimension on the most energetic. Then too, there is the importance of
resolution and the resultant transparency that it affords. ---> The Capital Audiofest 2022 Fab Five.
Rick Becker's Extensive CAF 2022 Show
Report
Capital AudioFest Chronicles 2022 Rick Begins... 6th Floor Part A
Show Report By By Rick Becker A year ago there were maybe 45 rooms at Capital Audiofest and almost everyone wore
a mask. Then Gary Gill quit his day job and helped organize the Pacific Audio
Fest in Seattle that occurred in August. This past weekend, Capital jumped up to
the league occupied by AXPONA and featured around 92 rooms. It was a big-league
show, at least by North American standards. Enjoy the Music.com sponsored an industry get-together on
Thursday night for the people who toiled that day setting up their rigs. I
rolled into town, arriving an hour late for the event after making two wrong
turns without the aid of GPS or a co-pilot. Gary offered me several tickets for
drinks. I picked one and the bartender set me up with a Fat Tire. I milled
around, bumping elbows, and snapped a few photos. ---> Capital AudioFest Chronicles 2022 Rick Begins... 6th Floor Part A.
Capital AudioFest Chronicles 2022 Rick continues with the 6th
floor Part B.
Show Report By Rick Becker Here a Margules I-240 tube integrated power amp ($6k), operating in Class A,
produces 25 Watts into 8 Ohms per channel to drive a tall Scansonic speaker
nicely with good resolution and very nice bloom. Below that was a Margules DAC or streamer. An RSX
Max Power Cord ($1850) was identified, but the information was sparse. The
Scansonic speaker, a more affordable sub-brand of Raidho from Denmark, seemed to
be their flagship MB6 B model. In the next AV Luxury Group room was a Raidho
Acoustics TD2.2speaker driven by a Jeff Rowland 1500 Wpc Daemon Super Integrated
amp. That was a beautiful Oracle CD player on top of an Aurender n20 streamer
and on the shelf below that was Berkeley Audio Design Alpha DAC Reference Series
3 that was running with a USB re-clocker behind it. ---> Capital AudioFest Chronicles 2022 6th Floor Part
B.
Capital AudioFest Chronicles 2022 Fine music on the 5th floor Part A.
Show Report By By Rick Becker Jarred Dunkerson of Black Ice was in when I visited and this year he was running
his Black Ice gear with Klipsch Forte IV speakers, a popular speaker among
entry-level audiophiles who are likely to aspire to the Black Ice gear. Last
year I was particularly impressed with the Fusion F360 preamp which has controls
for the spatial imaging of the soundscape. The Foz Phono Stage below it has
individual adjustments for left and right channels as well as a bypass. His new introduction was the black Aries
headphone amp with built-in DAC projected to be $2500 to $3k, with two phone
jacks that will appear early next year. ---> Capital AudioFest Chronicles 2022 5th floor Part
A.
Capital AudioFest Chronicles 2022 Beautiful sounds on the 5th Floor Part
B.
Show Report By Rick Becker After
a quick trip to Massachusetts for Thanksgiving and a couple of wins by the
Buffalo Bills, let's get back to the 5th Floor of the Hilton. Alma Music and Audio is an established purveyor of high-end lines in San Diego,
CA, that has, or soon will open a store just across the Potomac River from
Rockville in Sterling, VA. The first of several Alma rooms sounded very good
with Qln Signature monitors in a piano burl walnut finish ($24k) on stands
(($2k). This was a gorgeous speaker that begged the question "Why not just
have a floorstander?" at this price. They were driven by a pair of Nagra Classic
stereo/mono amps ($19.5 each) and a Nagra Classic tube preamp with a separate
power supply ($19.5k). ---> Capital AudioFest Chronicles 2022 5th Floor Part B.
Capital AudioFest Chronicles 2022 Thoughts on the 3rd floor listening
rooms.
CAF 2022 Show Report By Rick Becker I promised I'd be going to the big rooms in this chapter but I forgot about the
ten hotel rooms on the opposite side of the Atrium from the Lobby &
Registration. Let's deal with those first. At the Toronto show, I got to see a real Audio Note UK Ongaku amp and lamented that
I have never heard one. I almost had my wish come true here with the Audio Note
Tomei integrated amp ($59,600) which is identical except for using silver-plated
copper instead of all silver wiring. At the front end was a TT Three turntable
with PSU1 ($9410) equipped with an Arm Three/II tonearm ($2465) and an IQ 3 MM
phono cartridge. This trickled down to their R Zero phono stage ($2035). On the
digital side was their CD5.1 integrated CD player ($30,850). ---> Capital AudioFest Chronicles 2022 3rd Floor.
Capital AudioFest Chronicles 2022 Musical mastery within the 3rd floor
Meeting Rooms.
CAF 2022 Show Report By Rick Becker In
this edition of the Chronicles, I cover the meeting rooms on the 3rd
Floor, following along in a logical path starting in the lobby over by Olive's
Restaurant. There were three basic room sizes here. The first few, including a
dozen of the total, were what I call 'standard-size' meeting rooms. Most of
these were very good-sounding rooms as they were put together by
long-established companies with many of the best names in High-End. If I
didn't identify the size of the room, assume it was a standard size meeting
room. Then, at the other end of the spectrum were what
I call 'large' rooms. There were four of them and three of those four were
problematic while the fourth was somewhat below their typical performance. ---> Capital AudioFest Chronicles 2022 3rd Floor Meeting Rooms.
Capital AudioFest Chronicles 2022 3rd Floor Meeting Rooms, Atrium, Plus
The Best Rooms At CAF 2022!
CAF 2022 Show Report By Rick Becker I've heard Acora speakers at RMAF, Axpona, Montreal,
Toronto, and the previous
Capital Audiofest and in most (if not all) instances they've been among the Best
Rooms I've awarded at each show. Valerio Cora has done a very nice job of
mixing up the rig and selecting which of his three speakers to present according
to the size of the room he was in. At Axpona earlier this year the rig was over half-million
dollars. Here at the Capital Audiofest 2022 show, it was toned down considerably. And while it was a
very fine-sounding room, it seemed to fall below his normal excellence. This was
one of the four big rooms and I felt none of them were outstanding. From my past
exposure to Acora speakers, I have no doubt the room was the culprit. ---> CAF 2022 3rd Floor Meeting Rooms, Atrium, Plus The Best Rooms!
Enjoy the Music.com Sponsors Capital Audiofest
2022 Happy Hour Enjoy the Music.com, high-end audio's celebrated online site since 1995 and a leader in providing industry news, gear reviews, and show reports is pleased to announce that we're sponsoring Capital
Audiofest's 'Happy Hour'. Vendors and members of the press will join us for complimentary food and beverage on
Thursday night.
Enjoy the Music.com loves luxury premium audio, and so we're inviting both
exhibitors and members of the press to join us from 6:00 pm through 8:00 pm at the Hilton Hotel
Olive's Restaurant / Bar on Thursday night. We look forward to seeing you there! --->
Enjoy the Music.com Sponsors Capital Audiofest 2022 Happy Hour.
Pre-CAF Video From Our Senior
Editor Greg Weaver
More About CAF 2022
CAF has opened up many new floors
during 2022 with over 150 exhibitors representing hundreds of premium luxury
audio brands from around the world. There
may also be over 50 Atrium Marketplace vendors including at least two dozen vinyl/LP sellers, making the
show a veritable
Record Fair. Qobuz may once again set up a Listening Lounge in the Plaza II Ballroom, for show-goers to sample streaming and turntable set-ups with headphones, and just hang out and chill, with free
Wi-Fi.
Amazing Prizes And Giveaways!
Various giveaways every night and many of the exhibitors will have special Demo times, Show Specials and other promotions.
Qobuz Sponsors Capital Audiofest 2022
Qobuz, the music lover's go-to for true lossless Hi-Res Music streaming and download platform, will be the official sponsor of the Capital Audiofest in Washington DC. Qobuz will be featured in many of the best rooms and VP of Business Development and Chief Hi-Res Music Evangelist David Solomon will be working the floors, giving a seminar, and performing multiple flash DJ sessions a day. For this conference, David
Solomon's seminar will cover the topic of getting the most out of lossless Hi-Resolution Music streaming. After the session, attendees will be invited to a special flash DJ session in The Audio Company room (which consistently wins Best of Show at events nationwide), featuring the best from Von Schweikert speakers and VAC electronics.
Show Schedule
Show Day 1
Friday, November 11
12pm to 8pm: CAF Open to General Public
Show Day 2
Saturday, November 12
10am to 6pm: CAF Open to General Public
Show Day 3
Sunday, November 13
10am to 4pm: CAF Open to General Public
Where Hilton Hotel Rockville
Located at the Twinbrook Metro Station
1750 Rockville Pike
Rockville, MD 20852
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