Capital Audiofest 2023 Show Report / Chronicles Part 9
The 3rd Floor Large Rooms Part B.
Show Report By Rick Becker

Jackson Room  Bending Wave
Bending Wave in Davie, Florida, is the exclusive USA distributor for Göbel speakers and cables from Germany. They are also authorized dealers for CH Precision, Wadax, and Esoteric products. Unfortunately, they didn't give me anything to work with and the experience here was not as impressive as I've heard the Göbel Divin Marquis speaker sound in the past.

Wadax, we all know by now is an uber-expensive digital front end. The Rivera APL01 Special Edition preamp ($47k) below it was handsome and featured dual-level controls for balance, a tape loop, and a mono/stereo/reverse control. Riviera Audio Laboratories is a young company formed by veterans of the industry in Italy.

The Riviera AFM100 Special Edition Monoblocks ($82.8k) put out 100 Watt / 8 Ohm with zero feedback in pure Class A, featuring a special hybrid design of Triode, BJT, and MOSFET components. There are both RCA unbalanced and XLR balanced inputs. I thought they were impressive-looking, fresh designs with subtle cues.

The Göbel Divin Marquis ($90k) is a 4 Ohm load featuring 92dB/W/m efficiency. Interestingly, it is claimed to be suitable for high-humidity environments, making this a perfect choice for your villa in the Virgin Islands or your luxury yacht.

Bending Wave featured a tribute to Steely Dan at noon on Friday and Saturday, presumably playing a lot of their music at that time. This being Sunday afternoon at the time of my visit, I missed the show. It was advertised on a page in the show program — an interesting concept. It would be interesting to hear how the events came off.

Eisenhower Room  Audio Group Denmark
Audio Group Denmark had two systems in the large Eisenhower room. I heard the smaller one shown above which was about a $50k system with some of the same products I heard in either Suite 750 or Room 310 earlier. My opinion here is much the same as it was last year when Acora Acoustics used this room. I've heard their gear sound much better in other rooms either here or at other shows. It seems logical that they would center the rig in the rounded corner which lies on the diagonal of the room. What occurs to me now is that I was listening too far back in the room, possibly subjecting myself to too many reflections. Not that this matters, as I've heard this brand so many times that have proven to be among the best available. As usual, Ansuz is the cabling, Borresen the speaker, and Aavik the electronics.

The big rig on an opposing wall was said by Peter Hansen to be about $2,000,000 and I didn't get to hear it during my typically brief visit. I'm sure other journalists have commented favorably on it.

The Aavik streamer on the upper left corner was a new item. I also noticed the copper-colored vertical band on the faceplates and the welcomed switch from red LED lettering to white which is neutral and still visible from across even a large room. I was intrigued by the "handles" across the top of the components here, but I suspect they are a tweak to deal with EMI and RFI noise.

The flagship Borresen loudspeaker is stunningly beautiful, regardless of what it costs or what the music sounds like. Notice the multi-layer plinth with integrated footers that are very purposeful and the subtle undercut of the chassis at the lower rear corner that accentuates the upswept motion established by the three silver ribs in the middle of each side. And thankfully, the cones of the drivers are black so they do not draw unwarranted attention to themselves. This is museum-quality work and it can be bought for a lot less than a Rembrandt.

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