Capital AudioFest Chronicles 2022
Musical mastery within the 3rd floor Meeting Rooms.
CAF 2022 Show Report By Rick Becker

Lincoln Room  DC HiFi & Home Theater
The Lincoln Room was listed in the program as being for Eikon Audio. And you're right. This is not Eikon Audio gear. Rather it is a rig put together by club members of a local audio club. The speakers were a KEF Blade 2, which is the first time in a long while I've heard any kind of KEF Blade.

The Norstone rack had a modest Rega turntable, Rega phono stage, Rega Apollo CD player, a Hegel phono stage, an unmarked component, a Rega amp, and an IsoTek power conditioner indicating 116V in the room. As motley as this rig was, it was a real treat to hear the Blade. A lot of people seemed to be coming in and having a listen to this very decent-sounding rig. Perhaps it was the modestly priced gear that they could relate to, also.

Jackson Room  Bending Wave
Jumping back into the big leagues in the next room was an opportunity to hear not only the Goebel Divin Marquis speaker ($89k), but also the Divin Sovereign Subsonic subwoofer ($29,500, ea).

There was a second sub in the room but it had been pushed aside, perhaps because the room hardly qualified for a single sub. As you can see, in comparison with this average size man, these speakers were rather large. Note the beveled vertical front corners of the sub. I want to say this is a 24" driver. It was just introduced at High End in Munich this spring and it is not listed on their website. I suspect it will cancel out the Schumann resonance in your listening room if out of phase, or if in phase, it will likely flex your walls sympathetically.

Here again, were the Hifistay racks holding a rig comprised mostly of Thrax gear. This was a big show for Thrax. The Heros monoblocks were a hybrid 100 Watt amp ($47k, pr). I'm not sure if the speakers were bi-amped or if one set was for the subwoofers. The Dionysos tube preamp ($27k) and Maximinus Silver DAC ($38,500) were in the center rack along with the Metronome tAXWO CD/SACD transport ($20k) on top. They kept the focus on the Thrax gear with this transport, rather than stepping up to Metronome's Kalista line, which would have taken it up a couple of notches in both price and aesthetics.

Goebel Lacorde Statement speaker cable was $27,900/3m. The Lacorde Statement power cables were $9k, each. And Statement XLR interconnects were $7,900. Hemingway Z Core power cords were $13,750. The total room cost was given as $617,300. This was another room put together with retailer High End by Oz in conjunction with Bending Wave USA (Goebel) and it was another very fine-sounding room.

More To Come!
I'll call this enough for now, but there are two more excellent meeting rooms to go on the 3rd Floor, plus three big rooms off the Atrium, and the Atrium itself which had several key presenters with very interesting displays. And then I will announce my selection of the Best Rooms using my atypical criterion. There will likely be some surprises here.

Until then, be safe, stay well, and enjoy the music.

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