Part 6: Rooms 637 To 661 At Capital Audiofest 2024
More wonderful music on the 6th floor at CAF 2024.
Capital Audiofest 2024 Show Report By Rick Becker

641  American Sound Distribution
American Sound Distribution gave me pause, but once I saw the Avantgarde Acoustic Zero iTron three-way active loudspeakers, I knew it was Angie Lisi's wonderful American Sound Of Canada which is the North American distributor for Avantgarde Acoustics.

Being an active speaker, the Zero needed only the Aurender streamer / DAC / headamp / preamplifier sitting on an HRS platform to drive them. The smaller black boxes were Transparent Cable power conditioners with surge protection.

New and intriguing was a black Colibri and subwoofer that was introduced at the HIGH END show in Munich during 2023. It is a compact horn design with a couple of tubular stand options that also combine it with the subwoofer seen above. It struck me as a design intended for commercial applications such as at a disco, but when your name is Avantgarde, it can be used anywhere. The Colibri can be mounted either vertically, as shown, or horizontally directly above the subwoofer. The subwoofer alone is $5490 each and the stand for it in chrome or black is $590 each, so that gives you a ballpark idea of the overall price.

A white version of the Colibri was also on display. I wish I could have heard it but I was in the right place at the wrong time.

644  Eastern Bay Sound
The Eastern  Bay Sound monitor on display in the lobby of the hotel caught my attention with its ornate and finely executed woodwork that includes inlays, etchings, and engraving. It sounded quite good and I had to double-check with the host to be sure "ye old sub" was definitely "off". That's what can happen with an expertly designed single-driver speaker without a crossover.

Look at the marquetry on this thing. It doesn't get any better than this, just more ornate. It definitely has a coastal aesthetic with the waves and the compass points. Those rectangles are side pipe vents and these are handcrafted from solid wood (maple, cherry, and walnut), not veneers.

That's probably the longitude and latitude of the manufacturer's shop but I bet you could get it decorated with the location of your crab shack or buried treasure. The price was so reasonable I thought surely there would be an upcharge for the decorated version. The Southwind monitors were $1450 and the Skeg subwoofer was $600 each, $950 a pair. Has this guy been making these while shipwrecked on an island somewhere for the past couple of decades? So where are these guys from? Well, with a really good cannon, you could fire across the Chesapeake Bay and hit their shop from Annapolis.

The rig was priced more upscale with Linear Tube Audio Aero DAC ($3950) and Ultralinear Amp ($7650). It also included a HiFi Rose RS250 streamer and was strung with AntiCables Cables.

An LTA banner gave the story on the new DAC. All-in-all, this was a very fine rig that revealed the excellence of this unique speaker.

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