Capital Audiofest 2024: November 8th to 10th, 2024

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This thread is to discuss Capital Audiofest 2024. Please see the link below for more information.

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I attended CAF 2024 on Friday, November 8. I never plan in advance for this show, and don’t have precise listening comments, but it is “happening now” as I write. Most of the vendors were the same as when I attended in 2022, but there were a lot more headphones this time.

Notes:

  • Sadly, the HeadAmp booth suffered from a lack of electrical juice – they had brown-out conditions because of 100s or 1,000s of audio devices running in the hotel at once. This may explain why the setups often sounded muddy in that part of the building. Weak power may have affected the ModHouse booth next to them too (see below).

  • Three regions of the show had many headphones: HeadAmp’s booth in the basement, the LTA Headphone Lounge on the ground floor, and Geshelli’s rooms on the 6th floor. LTA was across the walkway from a big Audeze table. Sennheiser, Focal, and other products could be found near both HeadAmp and LTA.

  • ZMF headphones were common. In a dramatic change from 2022, there were a at least a dozen sets to demo across the show. Given the noisy environment, I was only able to hear coarse differences. As always, open backs sounded better than closed backs. I preferred the Atrium over the Caldera, and didn’t like the closed Bokeh, Atrium, and/or Caldera much (undetermined sometimes, as the lighting was poor and as the booth staff often did not know which product was which). All in all, ZMF build quality is great and their performance is “typical” for the type of driver used and the price range. I’d personally not select anything I heard over competing brands for sound quality per se, rather, they excel with build quality, style, and the luxury vibe.

  • I could not stand the Dan Clark E3, as its closed-cup pressure was just as bad as my old AEON Flow Closed. Thirty seconds of testing was enough to say no.

  • The HifiMan Susvara and Susvara Unveiled were common and I tried them several times. I was not able to distinguish between models in the noisy environment. The Susvara is a highly-refined rounded-off product in either case. It’s not my cup of tea and I’d never consider buying one, but it is surely capable.

  • The HifiMan HE1000 Unveiled made a great first impression in the noisy show conditions. I’d need more time to test, but it seemed to have more (better) definition and felt more encompassing than the (IMO) too refined Susvara family.

  • Audeze’s LCD-5 sounded very good to me this time (fresh ears, early in the day), and it may be their best product. Smooth, full-range performance, and never harsh. I tried the CRBN / CRBN2 electrostatics at the LTA and Audeze booths, but found the treble to be harsh and unpleasant. The CRBN is a hard no.

  • While I previously liked the Meze Empyrean a lot, it seemed rough this time and didn’t wow me. The Meze Elite had intense treble, so that’d a hard no too. I am unsure whether the Empyreans were E1 or E2. The 109 Pro sounded like a fine product in its price class…physically too small for my head and ears, and just okay.

  • Feliks Envy amp: This seemed to suffer badly from brown-out electrical conditions at the HeadAmp booth. First, the tubes did not glow in the slightest but generated heat. Second, it sounded incredibly bright and thin at first (warm up?), but then thick and muddy. This was a big disappointment because I sought to evaluate it versus my Decware. No final decision.

  • Modhouse was next to the HeadAmp booth and the guys came across as a bunch of mad-scientist garage engineers. There were piles of cables and electronic devices all over their tables. One prototype amp was in a plastic project box driving a Tungsten, and another Tungsten was driven a massive 3-piece Black Ice setup (DAC, preamp, amp). The Tungsten feels like a very high quality product, but sounded too warm and muffled (i.e., brown-out conditions). One of the mad scientists was tweaking the setup as I listened to a second set right next to him. They seem like a fun bunch of guys.

  • The LTA Z10E ($6,950) amp is a combination electrostatic headphone energizer and general headphone amp. I liked it better than any other LTA amp and used it to demo a bunch of headphones at the LTA booth.

  • The LTA Velo ($2,100) headphone amp has four tubes on top and is…weird, weird, weird. I did not enjoy and heard some strange timing or harmonic issue. Weird treble. I moved back to testing on the Z10E.

  • LTA’s Aero tube DAC ($3,950) was competent and the source for both LTA amps above. There was some bloom in the high range with all headphones tested, and I was unsure if it came from the LTA DAC or amps (with tubes in both, I was hearing all double-tubed chains).

  • LTA shared its tables with a local headphone builder (I don’t recall the name; will try to look it up). They were open back with nicely made wooden grill covers and (out of place) 3D printed headbands. The sound quality was fine for the audiophile class, but I had to leave and didn’t listen long.

  • Warwick Acoustics had a private room to demo their $35K to $50K Aperio and $7K Bravura electrostatic systems. I couldn’t hear any differences between them frankly, but my ears were shot near the end of the day. They said the Aperio is sold with a gold finish and $10K price bump for the Chinese and middle-eastern markets…so consider image versus sound quality if shopping… Both systems fully, fully, fully outclassed the Audeze CRBNs. They were delicate, detailed, airy, and have typical electrostatic qualities. I’d consider the Bravura in the future…but in the show environment it didn’t come across as much different from my HD-800S setup (also, prior Stax comparisons sound similar too).

  • Geshelli has moved heavily into speaker systems versus 2022. Their amps and speakers were fine and fall into the ultra-clean low distortion category, but that’s not why I went to the show. Geshelli had a very dark and crowded room with headphones (8 seats and demo setups). There were several ZMFs, Focals, etc., and I tried four ZMFs there. Open models = good to excellent, closed models = not worth my time ever.

  • Zu Audio had two rooms. One had their high-sensitivity retro concentric driver speakers (Soul 6; $6,200), with none other than Sean Casey demoing and DJing with two turntables. The Soul 6 was mid-heavy and retro, and of course it lacked the detail and punch of a modern design. Their other room had a new stand speaker product ($1,300 I think I heard), which sounded quite modern and not much different from other modern speakers.

  • I attended a Herb Reichert (of Stereophile magazine and frequent associate of Steve Guttenberg aka The Audiophiliac) panel discussion of DACs. They had reps from LTA, Border Patrol, and Lampizator. Lots of Q&A and general discussion. My main takeaway was that no one on the panel or in the room could say that any measurement method or number equates to better sound quality. (ASR SHUT UP)

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Thanks for the great synopsis!

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For general interest, CAF sent an email with summary info about the event:

CAF Facts:

  • We had over 60 registered media individuals putting the word out.
  • Approx. 4750 show attendees.
  • Nearly 400 brands.
  • 125 vendor rooms.
  • Approx. 60 booth vendors.
  • Several new vendors and brands to put on your wishlist.
  • Overflow of friends and volunteers
  • Two nights of Great Music!

Attended by 4,750 people? I thought there would be more.