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

Room 553 Fidelity Imports (Audia Flight And Alare, Neo)
Audia Flight from Italy had a prominent rig here featuring the new FL CD 3S CD player with DAC and multiple digital inputs. A laptop computer on top of the rack may have been the digital source here. A new Strumento No.1 preamplifier and Strumento No.8 power monoblock were used here, though the "monoblock" nomenclature here refers to a single chassis stereo amp. The speakers were the Alare Remiga 2 ($50k), the larger of two speakers from this new division of Audia Flight. It is a 3-way transmission line design with a diamond tweeter, Accuton ceramic midrange, and carbon woofers. The front baffle reminded me of Andrew Jones' new speaker seen earlier on this floor. In my video, I noted the Neo equipment rack from Slovakia as being nicely styled, but I seem to be lacking photos in this room.

The music playing at the time was chorale music, a genre that I seldom listen to so I won't risk an evaluation here. In the past, meaning many years ago, I used to frequently see Audia Flight gear at the Montreal show. It's nice to see them exhibiting in North America again. We need to keep them in our vocabulary. I also noticed that the Niagara 3000 power conditioner had its extreme voltage led glowing red, indicative of the low voltage in the hotel during show hours.

Room 555 Fidelity Imports (Cyrus And Diptyque)
It has been a while since I've seen the small-scale Cyrus electronics mounted in their proprietary slim rack. I've often said it looks classier when placed side-by-side on a credenza or full-size rack, but there is no arguing with the rack when it comes to saving floor space and keeping the equipment close to the speakers for shorter cable runs. They didn't take advantage of that in this room, which seemed rather sparse, lacking décor. That's a shame because this was a fine-sounding room.

What I didn't realize at the time was that Cyrus has come out with new products. Typically, I see them at the Canadian shows, but I must confess that I haven't been paying much attention to this British brand. New here was the Pre-XR preamp ($5499) and Mono Signature power amps ($4k, each?) putting out 319 watts into 6 Ohms. This goes a long way to explain why the Diptyque speakers sounded so good. Anyone who is space-challenged should take a serious look this line and I will investigate them further at future shows. The component on the bottom of the rack appeared to be an Innuos Zen Mini streamer.

The Diptyque speakers were new to me and I was impressed not only by their sound quality but also by the build quality. The thin membrane is very light and loosely mounted. I could see it flapping behind the grill as music played. It is also very fast and very transparent as you would expect from this type of speaker.

It is a combination of ribbon tweeter and magnetic planar driver, much like Magnepan, but with innovative, patented technology. One of the gentlemen from Fidelity Imports whipped out his phone and showed me a photo of the inside construction of both brands. The Diptyque was more refined as you can see even from the photo above. My most recent experiences with Magnepan have been with their entry-level models that are far less expensive than this. On the other hand, I wondered how much better the Diptyque might be with components that I'm more familiar with. This room was a real sleeper. To be continued...?

Room 557 Fidelity Imports (Acoustic Energy, English Acoustics, Neo, And QED)
Acoustic Energy AE20 speakers ($5k) were driven by the new English Acoustics Stereo 41c tube amp ($10k to $11k) with EL34 tubes seen in red on the lowest shelf of the elegant Neo Quattron rack ($6k). Note the spacing of the pillars on this rack are wider at the front than the back to give more exposure to the electronics and facilitate loading and unloading your gear.

On the top shelf was a Michell Gyro SE turntable with the Technoarm tonearm ($5498/both). An Innuos ZEN Mini was the source and the new Cyrus preamp ($tbd) was to the left of it. The unit on top of those two with the arched tube guard was a phono stage whose identity escapes me. As you might have guessed from the mat on the floor, most of this gear was from the United Kingdom.

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