Capital Audiofest 2023 Show Report / Chronicles Part 4
The 7th Floor Part B
CAF 2023 Show Report By Rick Becker

Room 759 Just Audio
Just Audio is a retail store a little northeast of Baltimore that also offers a concierge service that comes to your residence and helps you select a system to fit your room, your lifestyle, and your musical tastes. They offer a wide variety of brands from entry-level to high-end audio and seem to be very competitive with their pricing on their website. Their first of two rooms at CAF featured Mission 770 speakers ($5k) driven by a rack of Audiolab components and a Dual CS618Q manual turntable, all of which are on sale on their website. They also do a heavy trade in pre-owned equipment and offer a repair service.

Seen here were the Audiolab 9000A integrated amp with the waning proprietary lossy MQA format ($3k), 9000CDT dedicated CD transport ($1499), 9000N streamer ($3499), and an Audioquest PowerQuest 303 power conditioner.

Room 761 Just Audio Home Audio/HiFi Store
In their second room, Just Audio went further upstream with Spendor Classic 100 three-way stand-mount speakers ($14,800) speakers and an all-Cyrus Audio rig.

Seen here, paired up on standard-width shelves, was the current generation of Cyrus gear which I've found at other shows to be a noticeable improvement over the previous generation. Cyrus also has their own dedicated stand which stacks their components one above the other in a smaller footprint. I've also seen this gear parked side-by-side across a sofa table for a most elegant presentation.

New, to me at least, was this TTP turntable with an integrated DC motor ($5800) with what looked like a Rega tonearm. I'd like to tell you how this rig sounded, but there was no music playing at the time and no host present.

It was almost 6 PM so I drifted down to the lobby to meet some friends who had invited me to join them for dinner. On display, courtesy of Mr. Chong Ong from Fairfax, Virginia, a collector of vintage audio gear, was a selection of speakers from the horn era. The largest was from a movie theater.

Above is a tube amplifier from that era that had an output of only one Watt. With the extremely high efficiency of these speakers, that was all that was needed. When the Western Electric 300B tube was introduced in 1938, putting out a whopping 8 Watts, it was a game-changer for movie theaters.

Nine of us gathered and a decision was made to go for Sushi at a restaurant a few blocks west from the Hilton on the main drag. When we arrived, we learned it was "Take-Out" only. It being on the chilly side of this damp day, people whipped out their cell phones. Soon we were headed another couple blocks further west to the Damso Korean BBQ, a restaurant with only two $$. It was walk in, find a table, and warm.

Dr. Charles Kirmuss, of the Analog Hospital and Research Center, who has traveled frequently to Korea on business in a previous lifetime, knew the ropes in Korean restaurants and got our ship sailing in the right direction. I was fortunate to have my back to the wall so I could watch the endless stream of K-Pop videos on the screens at the bar along the opposite wall. Pretty enlightening for such a hermit as me.

In the photo above, on the left, was Julian Margules, the third-generation owner of Margules. In the middle was Bruce Ball from AV Luxury Group who showcased Margules gear in room 832, covered in Part 1. Charles Kirmuss was on the right.

Above were Carlos Smith of Margules Audio Group, USA & Canada who represents Margules tube amplifiers on the left, and Ze'ev Schlik of Pure Audio Project whose room was covered in Part 1.

On the left was Kevin Jackson, Managing Director and Partner, Kirmuss Audio UK, who was impressed that my mother had traveled to Ireland to kiss the Blarney Stone. On the right was Jeffrey Smith of Silversmith Audio, whose Fidelium Fi cables were used in the PureAudioProject room. With an apology, I can't recall the gentleman in the middle.

The meal, which came in stages with the meat being cooked on a grill right in front of us, was very good and reasonably priced as it turned out. Charles did an excellent job. A conversation about the audio industry and vacuum tubes dominated until near the end when we shifted to world affairs. Ze'ev, being from Israel, gave us his insider information and several others were well up on the news.

I dropped out on the walk back to the Hilton where I had parked my car. The drive back to the Marriott a mile east of the Hilton was easy at this hour of the evening. It was time to charge the camera batteries, study the floor plans to be covered on Saturday, and check the day's emails. Saturday was likely to be a bigger day at the show.

More CAF 2023 Show Coverage To Come!
That wraps up the 7th Floor, but there are still two more floors to go including all the large rooms, plus the Atrium to cover. These chronicles will continue well into December to give you something to dream about as the holidays approach. I'll be back in a few more days with Part 5A on the 6th Floor. In the meantime, dig out all your old Christmas LPs and deck your halls!

---> Onward to Part 5 of Rick Becker's Capital Audiofest 2023 report.

---> Back to the main Capital Audiofest 2023 show report homepage.