Part 1: 8th Floor And More CAF 2024 Show Report
A great way to start the day at an audiophile / high-end audio event.
Capital Audiofest 2024 Show Report By Rick Becker

819 Hear This
Surprise! Surprise! I never expected to see my friend Steven Norber at Capital Audiofest. Steven is based in Colorado and we've only met in person a few times – like at Rocky Mountain and Axpona, but we've been long-distance friends for years. We both ride vintage motorcycles, but Steven's has an aftermarket parts list that would put an All-In-One component to shame, and there's no way I could keep up with him at my age.

I've admired his expertise in merging amplification with speaker design with his own line of PranaFidelity products which has remained at the boutique level, primarily for customers out west.

This was a good-sized room and it sounded great, as Von Schweikert rooms tend to do. They've moved far beyond the VR-4 era when I reviewed some earlier designs for Albert. Yet certain themes remain the same: tweeter, midrange, bass drivers from top to bottom, and the rear-firing tweeter to create a more three-dimensional representation of space – even with solid-state components. The styling of the VR-30 here is clearly in the Von Schweikert mold with a relatively narrow front baffle and generous depth, but it is slimmed down and simplified.

The Porsche Chalk Gray finish (you can't paint a $59k speaker creamy-white, after all) had a calming effect that visually blended with the Westminster amplifiers allowing you to ignore the technology and appreciate the fine music. The Southwest landscape pictured on the front wall and the minimal floral pieces contributed to the perception of quality in this room. This same speaker would come up later on the 8th Floor in a bold finish in a contrasting environment.

On the back of the speaker, you see the adjustable rear-firing AMT driver, a large port for the bass drivers, provisions for bi-wiring, and an AC input for the powered woofers that Steven worked on. The white hoses are from MasterBuilt, the house brand of Von Schweikert and yes, they are expensive. VIABLUE and other cable risers were prominent, and also expensive.

The LampizatOr Horizon 360 DAC added a touch of tube sound to the rig and triggered thoughts of how these speakers might sound with tube amplification. I didn't get into speaker specs with Damon, but that is territory for future reviewers. I also didn't think to look for the counter-acting subwoofers he has used in smaller rooms to defeat bass boom. In a room this size, they probably were not necessary…or perhaps that was Steven Norber's wizardry at work. That was a Heed CD transport below the LampizatOr DAC, a brand I would encounter near the very end of my journey here.

It looks like a Sonore Signature Rendu SE sitting above the Westminster Lab preamp at the side of the room. As good as this room sounded on Friday morning, it was even better on Sunday afternoon when Steven treated me to a piece from Todd Garfinkle's Sera unaNoche, La Segunda, music akin to what I hear on Hearts of Space on NPR. Beautiful.

Tucked away in the back room of this suite was a small system that I did not hear. It was comprised of Von Schweikert Model One speakers along with a bright blue (Porsche Shark Blue?) Trafomatic Audio integrated tube amp with KT120 tubes and a separate power supply. A Lumin P1 Network Hub was situated below it. The Model One appears to be a reworking of the Endeavor model. With some crisp beveled edges and serious-looking footers and extenders it takes on a fresh look. The tubes were cold so I passed on an opportunity to listen to this rig. The VIABLUE Rocket XL cable lifters were $364/set of 2.

821 Gramophone
Gramophone is an audio retailer with brick & mortar stores in Timonium, Columbia, and Gaithersburg, MD that seems to be an outgrowth of Kitchen Design Center in Hunt Valley, MD. They were showing two models of Totem speakers from Canada: the Tribe Tower 2-Way Floorstanding Speakers ($ 6,300) and Element Metal V2 ($17,850). The rig was comprised of a Chord integrated amplifier (Great Britain) on top of the rack with a HiFi Rose streamer below it. On the bottom shelf was an Audioquest PowerQuest 707 power conditioner with a Chord Qutest DAC on top of it. They were playing some non-descript rock music at the time that didn't allow me to get a grip on the sound here. Next time I'm down to visit my brother-in-law in Cockeysville I'll have to drop into one of their stores.

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