Part 8: Capital Audiofest 2024 Large Rooms Part 1
Lovely sounds at CAF 2024's large exhibit rooms.
Capital Audiofest 2024 Show Report By Rick Becker

  After finally getting back to the office, return with me now to those thrilling days of yesteryear, circa November 2024, where I proceed on the 3rd Floor to the large rooms overlooking the Atrium floor. I'll start with the Twinbrook room, closest to Olive's Restaurant.

Twinbrook   United Home Audio And MBL
MBL (or mbl, as the Germans like it spelled) is one of the most elite major brands in the industry. There is a timelessness to this brand, anchored by the technology of its omnidirectional speakers, that evolves slowly only as the technology of the industry itself evolves. I can imagine that most customers see mbl gear as their "forever" purchases, allowing them to target other luxuries with their wealth. It doesn't show up on the used market very often…except for a DAC or CD player being displaced by a new streamer.

That new streamer would be the C41 Network Player ($11k) from their Cadenza line, which is their "entry-level" series. They boast of a state-of-the-art DAC inside as well as their proprietary volume control which allows the C41 to serve as the control center of a digitally based system, driving power amps directly without a preamplifier.

The 911 monoblock amps ($128k/pr) are both impressive and intimidating, requiring professional delivery and placement. They also illustrated the white finish mbl offers in addition to the piano gloss black they have used over most, if not all of their 45-year history. Make sure your vacuum cleaner has an attachment that will fit between them when they are set up. The mbl speakers are relatively inefficient so you will need powerful amps to drive them at their finest. And their finest can be very rewarding with the 101E Mk II speakers ($91k) shown here throwing sound in all directions allowing almost everyone in the room to have a great seat to enjoy the music.

The dimly lit room was very well set up as in previous years with the speakers and amps defining the front wall and the front end components along the side wall opposite the doorway. That was Jeremy Bryan, CEO and President of MBL North America who was selecting the music during the show. Left to right were the C41 Network Player, 6010 D Preamplifier, and the United Home Audio Ultima Apollo tape deck.

The 6010 D preamplifier is from their top Reference series. The 24-carat gold lettering on the lacquered acrylic faceplate is one of the reasons this will become your "forever" preamplifier. Audio components don't get any more elegant than this.

The United Home Audio Ultima Apollo tape deck was playing during my visit but I was not familiar with the female vocal recording that exhibited a lot of reverb. It was interesting to see WireWorld Eclipse, Series 10 cables were used here.

Montrose   Odyssey, Graham Engineering, And DS Audio
Klaus Bunge's Odyssey room was dimly lit, as usual, with fake candles creating a special atmosphere designed to focus our attention on the music. It is a magical setting that frequently produces magical listening experiences as it did with me a couple of years ago. I like to listen in the dark, but perhaps I should borrow a few of my wife's scented candles to see if they contribute an extra $100k worth of sound quality to my rig. That seems to be what Klaus gets in his room with his very reasonably priced amps.

Klaus offers a reasonably priced stand-mounted monitor and a 2-way floorstander on his website but the large speaker he has been using at shows recently is the unlisted Liquid model, starting at $5900/pr. It is appropriately named. I expect the beautiful wood veneer shown here would be somewhat more. He was driving them on Saturday with his top-line Kismet monoblocks, each sitting on a stack of Symposium Acoustics Isis platforms. And they sounded very fine, as always. The spec sheet listed Stratos monoblocks, starting at $2700/pr, so you might have heard those on a different day. Regardless, Odyssey amplifiers are highly rated, high-value amps, no matter which model you choose.

Atop the rack was a VPI turntable equipped with a Graham Engineering tonearm fitted with a DS Audio optical cartridge, and a DS Audio ION-001 Ionizer.

Below the turntable were the Symphonic Line Erleuchtung Reference Mk 3 HD tube preamplifier and Symphonic Line BelCanto CD player. Further down in the rack was the DS Audio Phono preamp for their optical cartridge and a power supply for the preamp. Cabling was by Magnan Cables, a company specializing in the use of micro-thin alloy ribbon technologies along with air space and PTFE dielectrics. They use a variety of metallurgy and connectors in several series of cables at different price levels.

This room was an acoustical oasis once again with Stevie Ray Vaughan playing "Tin Pan Ally" when I entered. I received thanks for pulling out my Rickie Lee Jones LP and MoFi's One-Step pressing of Santana's Abraxas sounded mighty good to my ear too.

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