Part 9: Capital Audiofest 2024 Large Rooms Part 2
Extensive CAF 2024 coverage of the large exhibit rooms.
Capital Audiofest 2024 Show Report By Rick Becker

Jackson  Bending Wave USA
Bending Wave in Davie, Florida, just west of Fort Lauderdale, is the importer of Gobel speakers from Germany and a retailer of numerous very high-end lines from Europe primarily. This year the room was finely dressed and it was a pleasure to listen to the new Gobel Divin Comtesse speakers ($60k). In the past, the speakers from the Divin series have been way too big for this room. Their huge state-of-the-art Divin Sovereign subwoofers ($34.5k) with 18" drivers, 2500-Watt amplification and DSP could not be tamed for use in such a small room on one occasion. But here, this year, the music was right. I heard both a classical piece and William Fitzsimmons singing "Angela" from In The Light: Mission Bell Alternate Version with an in-the-room presence with just an acoustic guitar streamed from Tidal.

In the rack was the Wadax Studio Player ($39,800) streaming music on top, the Riviera Audio Labs APL-01SE preamp ($52k), a Shunyata Denali power distributor ($6k), and a Shunyata Typhon T30 power conditioner. Riviera AFM-100SE monoblocks ($82,800/pr) flanked the rack on thick plywood amp stands. Shunyata cabling was used throughout including T30 power cable ($2k), Alpha X NR power cables ($2850 ea.), Theta interconnects ($1370, 2m), and Theta speaker cable ($2150, 3m).

The Riviera monoblocks are a hybrid design with triode input and Mosfet output of 100W into 8 Ohm with zero feedback in pure Class A. It has both an RCA and a truly balanced XLR input. Smaller monoblock versions with 50W and 25W are available as well as a 32Wpc stereo version. At 77 pounds each, the 100SE is a serious brick.

The more expensive Divin series speakers have 92dB and 95dB W/m efficiency, so I would expect the Comtesse to be 90 dB or a bit higher. They did not strain the amplifier in the least. There is a lot of technology in Gobel speakers and it is nice to see a speaker in the Divin line that works in medium-sized (and probably larger) rooms.

AV Room Service provided the aluminum clad platforms for the speakers ($600 ea. four total), and the smaller ones for the Wadax Studio Player ($119 ea.) The wood platforms for the monoblocks were $239 each. Bending Wave has been using these consistently over the years so they must be making a significant contribution to the excellent resolution I heard here. But even more than just the resolution the rig drew me into the music with a presentation that was very close to the real thing from a multitude of measures.

Eisenhower  Audio Group Denmark
The Eisenhower room has frequently been problematic, possibly due to its unusual shape but I've heard good and not-so-good from multiple very high-quality speaker manufacturers in this room. Audio Group Denmark likes to set up their speakers far apart and angled sharply toward the listening position. Whether this is because they use wide dispersion drivers and want to minimize the reflections from the side walls, or because they are narrow dispersion drivers and they want to make sure people in or near the sweet spot hear the music full-range, I don't know. I've never had an opportunity to play with them at home or seen them arranged differently at shows.

In this room, the large rig was aimed at seating that was quite a bit farther from the speakers than is typical. But then, the room is quite a bit larger than typical, too. To give you an idea of the size of this room, the rig in the photo above is on the short wall and the length of the room is well over twice the width. The one certain thing is Audio Group Denmark has a very consistent house sound, perhaps because the entire rigs are comprised of their own products and that's the only way you can hear them at shows with very few exceptions. You can scale up or scale down depending on how much you are comfortable spending.

Without a press sheet, it is difficult to figure out what models are being shown and unfortunately, their website has a lot of visual bells and whistles but is not structured to understand or confirm what models are offered in which series. And that's not to mention pricing. I was sent an email before the show that suggests this might be the Børresen T5 speaker but don't quote me on that. What you need to know you can see in the photo – it's gorgeous and extremely well made and finished.

There is also a lot of technology in each Audio Group Denmark brand because there is a lot of cross-fertilization of technologies among them. The sound is also very tightly controlled resulting in a consistent house sound as mentioned, that also can seem slightly prominent in the upper bass and lower midrange, mostly neutral and highly resolved with a very low noise floor and very good dynamics.

They use a lot of vibration-absorbing technology and an example is seen here with the small footer sitting on top of the U-588(?) all-in-one integrated amp. You can see they added one to the right front corner of each component to quell internal chassis vibrations. This technology is seen in footers beneath all their components as well as incorporated in the chassis and the equipment rack in one form or another. If I'm correct, their D3 series of cables was used here. Ansuz power conditioning and distribution were on the middle and lower shelves.

The "smaller" rig sounded quite good, too, while taking a very significant price drop. (I know from other shows that their products cover a wide price range right on down to the high-value Axxess line they have developed in recent years. We've seen Axxess gear elsewhere on the 7^th Floor and in a small room on the 3^rd Floor. Here again, you will notice the wide separation of speakers with substantial toe-in to the listening position.

If my pre-show email is correct, this is the Børresen C3 speaker, exceptionally well made with a band of carbon fiber exposed down each side. We saw a white stand-mounted monitor earlier (or was that at the Toronto show?) from this same series.

I believe this is their U-288 all-in-one amplifier with the same Ansuz power conditioner and distribution units and vibration-absorbing devices on the right front corners of each component.

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