At the last minute I ended up attending Capital Audiofest on Friday, November 11 (yesterday). So, creation of this topic comes quite late. I’m not aware if anyone else on this forum was there or will be there.
Many vendors participated in the event, and they took over about 4 floors of a large Hilton convention hotel. Most of the speaker demos were in suites separated by a “storage” suite or in large meeting rooms, so sound isolation was often pretty good.
I learned a lot about current headphone products, what I like in speakers, and that tastes and preferences vary a lot. Here are my random notes and impressions while fresh in mind. Take these with a grain of salt, as the audio show environment is chaotic and noisy.
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Geshelli: Even if you don’t like their products, this is a cheerful and wholesome family business. Grandpa makes the wooden cases, the son designs products, while a grandson, granddaughter, and wife have roles. They had lots of free swag too. CAF was the world premier of their speaker amp with a curvy-carved wooden case. It was running through small ELAC speakers and sounded fine, but as always, half of a speaker sound comes from the room rather than the speaker itself.
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ZMF: While ZMF did not attend, Geshelli had an Atticus and an Atrium for demoing amps and DACs. Frankly, neither ZMF was to my taste at all – both sounded extremely extremely extremely warm and boxed-in to my ears. I even asked if Geshelli was running an EQ, as Geshelli products have a neutral or even edgy reputation. Nope, both setups were neutral. My interest in ZMF products declined.
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Focal Utopia 2022 ($4,999): I tried it at 3 booths on different amps. The Utopia remains a nuance master, but also still has bursts of icepick treble that I can’t get past.
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Stax: I listened to their current flagship (SR-X9000; $6,200) and prior flagship (SR-009S; $4,545) on a $6K to $7K Stax amp and the SR-X9000 also on the HeadAmp Blue Hawaii ($6,495). My first impression is that these sound a LOT like a well-sorted HD 800 S setup. This means airy, delicate, nuanced, and open. I’d have a hard time justifying both in my fleet as they deliver a similar experience. I’d need a lot more listening time to pick out the small differences.
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Audeze LCD-5 ($4,500): I had high hopes for this one because earlier Audeze products were too heavy and bulky for my tastes. The fit and feel are much better than before. It’s a solid product for sure, but a bit too sharp-edged on Audeze’s solid-state demo amp. I liked it better on an LTA (linear tube) amp. As it stands now it’d not be my choice in this price class.
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HiFiMan Susvara ($5,995): HeadAmp had this and many other high-end headphones at their booth. It came across as fully competent and refined. Key word: refined. My impression was that nothing was out of place and everything was quite fine-grained. It’s an excellent product but also not a profile that I’d pursue. I don’t want to use the word boring, as the demo area was noisy, but…
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Abyss AB-1266 Phi TC ($6K to $10K): The weird Dr. Who Robot Men looks have visual charm, and I concur with many reports about its fun, bassy, punchy character. I enjoyed this one and went back for a second listen. The on-head fit is every bit as weird as its appearance, but you don’t buy this kind of product for practicality.
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Dan Clark Stealth ($3,499): I listened back-to-back with a the Meze Elite and was disappointed. It’s flatter, deader, and nowhere near the Meze’s performance. It should be priced a lot lower – perhaps they had those blasted in-cup cottony filters in place? I hated those filters in my old AEON Flow.
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Meze Elite ($4,000): A very positive surprise; used on an LTA amp and HeadAmp GS-X Mini. I haven’t liked prior Meze products much, but I’d give this one serious consideration. It had the right balance of comfort, detail, nuance, and punch. I’d pursue this one further.
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RAAL requisite: (1) CA-1a (closed; $2,000 to $2,500) – just okay, running off a standard headphone amp with a RAAL adapter. As always, a closed design cuts the performance. (2) SR-1b (open; $3,000 to $3,750) – WOWOWOWOWOW! They were running on RAAL’s stunning $6,900 VM-1a tube amp and an $1,100 silver cable. These burn into your brain and suck you in. They are fantastic, and didn’t seem to have weak/thin bass in my demo (but, in a pretty noisy area). A couple years ago I tried these on another amp and was not impressed. With the all-RAAL setup they were amazing.
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Linear Tube Audio (LTA): I tried amps in 3 price tiers (ranging from about $1,500 to about $7,000). These were hard to evaluate because LTA paired mediocre headphones and DACs with the cheaper amps and really strong headphones/DACs with the pricy amps. The better amps thereby sounded a lot better. All of them had a clean and spacious modern tube amp tone and timbre. I’m not hearing much value at these price points, but you be the judge.
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HeadAmp GS-X Mini ($1,795): I’d had my eye one this for a while, and used it for several headphone demos at the HeadAmp booth. It’s a really good solid state amp, and I’d like to compare back-to-back with my RebelAmp.
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Chord Dave ($14,000): HeadAmp was running this as a DAC. It’s certainly a wonderfully refined product…but a bit too gentle and almost cloying per my taste.
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Holo May DAC (version unknown; $4K to $6K): LTA was running this with their high-end amp. It’s certainly competent and less gentle than the Dave, but I need more time to say more.
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Ampsandsound: Present with speaker amps but no headphone setups.
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CheapAudioMan: I said hi to Randy the Youtube guy and shook his hand.
Speaker setups: These weren’t my focus but I learned a lot. Moving from room to room made it very clear that I usually preferred open baffle (no back) speakers and planars over box cabinet speakers. Some boxes sound tiny and boxy indeed. The open speakers need to be placed at least 1-2 meters from the wall, but resemble open-back headphones when they have space. I also reconfirmed that the correlation between price and performance is low – I liked many cheap setups better than some pricey setups. Some tube amps are really bad too, as they dirty up the sound rather than improve the soundstage. Finally, I learned that some vendors indeed have questionable hearing, as they blasted harsh treble so loud that I left their rooms in seconds.