Capital Audiofest (CAF) 2017 & CanMania Show Report
DC Audio DIY
CAF 2017 Show Report By Kemper Holt

  The DC Audio DIY is billed as the DC area audio DIY'ers community and they always have a good sounding room at CAF. The members also donate many hours of their time to help Gary Gill at the registration tables, thanks guys for your support. The members are as at home with a soldering iron and circuit schematics as I am with a knife and fork, and their projects are always fun to listen to. This year Roscoe Primrose manned the room for most of the show and answered questions and played music for all three days.

The buzz I heard more than a few times at the show was if you were tired of etched highs and weird music, head on over to the DIY room, sit down and enjoy. While the system was not the most revealing, it was a great room to relax and let some familiar music wash over you and put a smile on your face. The system had PRAT, tone, focused vocals, big dynamics, and bass that sounded very natural, quick, and did not overload the room with boomy one note upright bass.

Roscoe removed the Tannoy 12" co-axials from a pair of floorstanders and put them in a purpose built open baffle that featured a horizontally mounted 18" woofer in a “Slot Loaded Open Baffle" configuration operating below 100 Hz. Driving the Tannoys was a stereo clone of a Western Electric 126 design putting out 12 watts/channel, and a QSC USA400 for the woofer, a Behringer active crossover directed traffic. When I was in the room a DIY AK4497 DAC with discrete OpAmps courtesy of Shashi Aadipudi handled digital, and Joe Roberts brought in his Gates 16" transcription turntable with Schick 12" tonearm, and cartridges were constantly shuffled into play. 

I hope you got to hear this room as it was engaging to listen to, inexpensive, and proved you can build kit that sounds wonderful, great room guys!

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