Capital Audiofest (CAF) 2017 & CanMania Show Report
The Voice That Is / Doug White With Tidal, Antipodes, And TW-Acustic
CAF 2017 Show Report By Kemper Holt

  Entering an all Tidal room superbly set-up by Mr. Consistent, Doug White, in my head I hear the Star Wars music swelling up and a snippet of Darth Vader's voice, then Doug welcomes me and shakes my hand. We talk about the visual presence of the all one brand system making a perfect unified look, and then we discuss how many friends have made the mistake of buying "Recommended Components" and ending up with a jumble of great kit that doesn't sound great, let alone good. If you are in the Tidal speaker owner category then let Doug put together an entire system that oozes synergy!

Nothing in the Tidal lineup is mass produced, everything is a hand crafted carefully and lovingly produced to complement each other and bring music into your life. I've heard Doug's rooms in Denver, Chicago, and here in Rockville, each one different in size and acoustic troubles, but every time Doug works on set-up until he's happy (or close) and what we experience is an emotionally compelling system that makes you want to stay and let the music take you away.

Overall the system is rock solid, imaging is precise, soundstage is wide and deep, speakers 100% disappear, harmonics rich, string tone gorgeous, vocals focused with great detail, and tight deep bass both on a plucked upright bass and drum kits with an easy ability to pressurize the room. I felt piano was especially well reproduced giving a full bodied natural sound on Ray Brown's Soular Energy and the plucked bass displayed the resonance of the strings and wood body. On orchestral music small low level details were easy to distinguish and dynamics could be startling. Doug certainly has the right equipment, but also the knowledge to assemble and set-up a system in different environments to sound fantastic.

Here is the mostly Tidal gear used in this room, Tidal Audio Agoria speakers ($109,000 in Midnight Black) Tidal Presencio Reference preamp ($77,900) Tidal Ferios Mono amplifiers ($67,900/pr) Tidal Camira DMC DAC ($28,500) Tidal cables speaker, power, USB, and XLR ICs. Digital was Antipodes DX Gen3 music server ($7,750). Analog included a TW-Acustic Raven Anniversary turntable ($22,000) TW-Acustic 10.5 tonearm ($5,490) and Transfiguration Proteus cartridge ($6,000).

---> Back to main Capital Audiofest 2017 homepage.