Lone Star Audio Fest 2012 Show Report
Report By John Semrad

 

  The Lone Star Audio Fest (LSAF) was held May 4th through 6th, 2012, at the Embassy Suites Dallas Park Central hotel in Texas. Any and all audio enthusiast and manufacturers were welcome to exhibit. Manufacturers simply booked a guest room directly with the hotel. Show up, then they set up their exhibit within the room. Yes, it really was easy! Attendees simply showed up and enjoyed the LSAF 2012 for free. No hassles and no registration or ticket required. Enjoy the Music.com's coverage of the LSAF 2010 can be seen at this link. And with that said, here is our LSAF 2012 coverage.

 

The 2012 Lone Star Audio Fest was much improved over the previous year and featured a host of new exhibitors as well as the familiar LSAF stalwarts. First up this year is the Affirm Audio room hosted by the affable Bob Spence. Bob always puts on a good show and once again offered up his excellent Lumination loudspeakers, this time driven by the KR Audio VA340 amplifiers.

The VA340 is a hybrid single-ended DHT amplifier that uses a transistor front end to drive the KR 300BXLS output tubes.

 

Next up was Paolo Audio who displayed beautifully-crafted bespoke amplifiers and speakers hand-made from solid hardwoods. The drivers are Tang Band full-range units and the amp uses KT-88 output tubes.

 

Steven Solazzo of Stereo Clarity had several pairs of speakers on display including his Line Arrays and the OneSource. They are available as easy-to-build kits for the intrepidity audiophile.

 

A guy we are always happy to see every year is John Busch of Manzanita Audio from down in Kerrville. His open baffle speakers have a very natural sound and this yearthey had gigantic 18" co-axial two-way drivers.

 

John used Michael Mardis' DAC.

 

In room 232, designer Johan Van Zyl was back with his Frontline speaker. This amazing little rear-loaded horn puts out a prodigious amount of bass considering the main driver is a full-range Jordan JX92 that is only 4" in diameter.

 

An Aurum Cantus ribbon rounds out the top end and power was from a vintage Leak amplifier.

 

Brad's House o' HiFi featured a pair of Zu Audio Soul Superfly speakers.

 

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