Capital AudioFest Chronicles 2022
Beautiful sounds on the 5th Floor Part B.
Show Report By Rick Becker

Room 538 Songer Audio and Whammerdyne
The Songer Audio (not Sonner Audio that was up on the 6th Floor) was a new brand to me and it made a very favorable first impression when I saw the gorgeous wood cabinet and the full-range single-driver layout. Even more surprising, it was a field coil driver that was evident by the separate power supply for the field coil of the full-range driver.

The polished gold ring around the driver and the silver phase plug were more elegant than drivers of this type I've seen in the past. The wild, wood veneer gave this speaker an extraordinary appearance, justifying the $37k price of this S1 model. The power supply was an additional $3k but was included in the Special Offer at the show with the speaker priced at $35k. This power supply is user adjustable, allowing you to tune the sound to your preference.

Just as extraordinary was the Whammerdyne DGA-1 Ultra amp with 2A3 power tubes ($5995) putting out 4.2 Wpc. (DGA stands for Damn Good Amp and a browse through their website indicates these guys really know their stuff.) The field coil speaker is very efficient so this was plenty of power in a room of this size. (The S1 speaker has an efficiency of 93dB.) Those who know tubes know the beautiful sound that can be had with the 2A3 in S.E.T. designs.

I've had the pleasure in the past of reviewing both field coil speakers and 2A3 SET amps so this room was a real treat. The music held up to my highest expectations. But something else grabbed my attention even more. I flipped over their card brochure and discovered the Songer Audio S2 speaker, a two-way dipole open baffle speaker. They said I would have to come back on Saturday to hear it.

Saturday morning I made it my first stop. It was up and running and I had the pleasure of meeting the designer, Ken Songer. The music was even more impressive with its open baffle design eliminating any colorations from the chassis.

The woodwork was simply stunning and the architecture integrating the field coil driver in the upper open baffle with the enclosed woofer was very artfully accomplished.

This beautiful driver is their own design with the world's only dipole whizzer cone driver. In an enclosure below was a high-quality 15" woofer to supplement the bass. The frequency range is from 32Hz to 20kHz.

The Whammerdyne amp is an integrated design with limited single-ended inputs but it can also be used with a preamp. It has connections for both 8 and 4 Ohm speakers. Both Whammerdyne and Songer come from Portland, Oregon so I would reasonably expect them to appear at shows together in the future. If you have the opportunity, this is a must-see and must-hear presentation, regardless of whether you can afford these pieces or have an affinity for tube gear.

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