Cruisin' 'Round The Capital Audiofest 2023 Show Report
CAF 2023 was an amazing event!
CAF 2023 Show Report By Bob Grossman

Conrad Johnson And Kharma Elegance Loudspeakers
The music was presented in a breathtaking ethereal realistic, natural, and dramatic way in the Conrad Johnson room with the $100,000 Kharma Elegance DB9-DE speakers. These special Diamond Edition speakers are limited to only 10 pairs being made with Truitt Physics capacitors, diamond tweeters, WBT connectors and silver wiring, silver midi crossovers, and midi wiring.

The 20/20 Evolution Systems dealership led by Jay Truitt set up a system using Siltech Cables with the CJ Art-88 preamplifier costing $28,500 along with his custom parts modified and changed Truitt Edition of the $52,000 CJ Art-108A amplifier now costing a premium custom bespoke designer price.

Also in this system was the LampizatOr Horizon DAC with Truitt Physics capacitors. The $14,000 Kuzma Stabi Ref 2 Turntable set up with the $10,600 4-point 11in Arm and the $7,500 CAR-50 phono cartridge sounded beautiful with the $28,000 Art-88 Phono Stage. I personally use the CJ 1990s vintage Premie 8A amplifiers at home and look forward to having Jay look at them to do some modifications with new tube sockets with his wire and custom cap designs.

Now Listen Here
A special shout-out goes to the Philadelphia Area Audio Group members and dealer Aaron and Jessica Sherrick who presented a huge array of equipment and an impressive lineup of speakers in two rooms. The Vandersteen Quatro CT Speakers costing $19,200 and the Joseph Audio Pearl Graphene Speakers at $43,999 offered two different perspectives and presentations of music at different price points with a lot of quality supporting electronic choices. The quality systems they assembled along with having a personable customer service rapport have enabled Now Listen Here to expand, having two locations in Harrisburg, PA, and Falls Church, VA. Both rooms at the show offered delightful and engaging listening.

Rethm Loudspeakers And Western Electric
Jacob George was streaming music on the modest sized Trishna Speakers that had a wonderful room filling sound. I was glad to meet Jacob in person as a follow-up to having reviewed the Rethm Saadhana, his largest loudspeakers. The company distributor Angie Lisi from the famous Angie's Audio Corner came from Toronto too.

The speakers were working exceptionally well with the stunning look of the recently introduced Western Electric 91E Integrated Amplifier featuring a pair of 300B Tubes. I had a terrific talk about the music business and industry plans with Trent Suggs, director of sales at WE.

Rogue Audio And Joseph Audio
Bill Magerman and Nick Fitzsimmons from Rogue Audio set up a smaller room with some of the latest (new) upgraded Rogue introductions and variations of equipment designed by Mark O'Brien. There is a reason Rogue has a reputation for excellent value and performance from their gear. The long-running and well-emerged and popular Cronus integrated amp was heard in the latest Dark Version upgrade path of improvements. A set of the Dragon monoblocks ($5,995) was also being used with the RP-5 v2 preamplifier ($3,995).

The Rega P8 turntable ($3,495) nicely matched the Lyra Delos Cartridge ($1,995). The cabling was with Darwin, made by Bill Magerman who was available to consult and discuss his designs and hand-assembling techniques for these finely made wires constructed from exceptionally fine grades of material and sold at incredibly competitive prices. Joseph Audio PULSAR2 Graphene speakers were admirably matched for filling up and pressurizing the room when being pushed to outplay the adjacent room interfering and excessive thumping.

This was a real-life affordable audiophile system that had reasonable costs and great sound quality. It has been a few years since I reviewed the Rogue Audio RP9 preamplifier. Check out this link to read more about the Rogue company.

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