The Audio Analyst's Capital Audiofest 2022 Show Report
One of the best shows on the calendar, and remarkably successful too!
CAF 2022 Show Report By Greg Weaver

Eisenhower - Ideon / Acora Acoustics
The Eisenhower was yet another massive room, some 2,280 square feet, and with only one truly right-angled corner (the others are gracefully rounded) and some unforgiving insets and cavities in its ceiling, it had presented some serious headaches for the Acora team last year.

Rather than try to force performance in ways that were likely to be just as ineffective as last year in this challenging space, Acora Acoustics CEO Valerio "Val" Cora and his new Director of Sales and Marketing, Isaac Markowitz, took a more forgiving and, in my estimation, enlightened approach. Turning the entire room into an exceedingly welcoming space, more of a "lounge" encouraging relaxed mingling rather than being configured as a more traditional showroom listening space, was a stroke of pure genius. And they were presenting two remarkable systems in this inviting space, the smaller of which was made up of entirely new, world-premiere products.

Primary System
Sources
- Cornet 3 with 12" arm and external power supply ($17,500)
- Cornet 2 tonearm ($2000 when purchased with the turntable)
- Top Wing Blue Dragon Cartridge ($12,500)
- Ideon Absolute Stream ($19,900)
- Ideon Audio Epsilon DAC ($47,000)
- Absolute Time ($9,900)

Electronics
- J-M-F PRS 1.5 Dual-Mono linestage ($34,000)
- J-M-F PHS 7.2 Dual-Mono phono stage ($22,000) WORLD PREMIERE
- J-M-F HQS 6002 Dual-Mono power amplifier ($39,000)

Loudspeakers
- Acora Acoustics QRC-2 Loudspeakers ($37,000)

Cables/Ancillaries
- Cabling provided by Cardas Audio and Ideon Audio for the USB cables
- J-M-F PCD 102 Power Line Filter ($18,000)

Second System – ALL comprised of WORLD PREMIERE products...
Source
- Ideon ESO Stream ($9,000)
- Ideon ION DAC with optional active preamp ($17,900)
- Ideon EPS Time ($6,000)

Electronics
- Hegel P30A Preamplifier ($8,995)
- Hegel H30A Amplifier ($18,995)

Loudspeakers
- Acora Acoustics QRC-1 Loudspeakers ($28,000)

Saturday morning during a press-only event, we started our listening with the second system. This session included presentations by several speakers and featured Acora's Isaac Markowitz, Michael Vamos, LA's Audio Skies president and Ideon importer, as well as Ideon's CEO, George Ligerakis, and Chief designer, Vassilis Tounas.

As I've mentioned, every product used for this impressive presentation was so new that this was their first public showing, and while I won't go into those introductions in detail, each person presented a very compelling and engaging address to our group.

The demo of this smaller system was very impressive, and it presented as strikingly articulate. Set up near one of the rounded corners to the right of the room, listening to Ray Brown's "Cry Me A River," revealed an absorbing presentation of the shimmer of the piano, with a substantial sense of instrumental body and tonality.

Bob Dylan's "Man in the Long Black Coat," which I heard playing in dozens of rooms, and on every floor, at this show, presented with its breathy and natural staging. I was also taken by the presentation of the Shostakovich Symphony No. 15, with its remarkably wonderful sense of space, including a surprisingly faithful sense of instrumental bloom and body.

But it was the markedly corporal genuineness of McKinley Morganfield's voice and guitar from his "My Home Is In The Delta," that pretty much convinced me of the remarkable voice of this less expensive, but by no means inferior sounding, system.

Moving to the larger system set up along the wall at the opposite end of the room from the entryway proved to be yet another interesting audition. Listening first to LP, I was struck by the candid delicacy of the sonic envelope, of its constituent sense of the air, space, and texture of both Louis Armstrong's voice and that of the instrumentation accompanying him on the track "St. James Infirmary."

Moving to a digital version of Nils Lofgren's "Fragile," this system surprised me yet again as it maintained an immediacy and presented a microdynamic expressiveness that was highly refined. While quite tonally accurate, its ability to create voices, instrumental or human, with such a convincing sense of space and size was remarkable. Such exceptional recreation of the space of recordings is typically only rendered when a system possesses an excellent degree of resolution, which in turn, serves its demanding master, transparency, and was unlike anything I had heard from any previous demonstration featuring Acora Acoustics loudspeakers. A most sincere well done to all involved.

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