The 2024 Capital Audio Fest: Inspirational New Products

Even if the crowds were down a bit (numerically and temperamentally), exhibitors were without exception pleased with CAF. That’s because, in the words of one audio exec, “the show was highly productive.” Translation: a lot of business was transacted. Companies took orders in high numbers, and that’s about the most welcome outcome they could ask for.

Because rooms at CAF are gradually transitioning from dealers to distributors and manufacturers, we’ve split up coverage a bit differently this time. To do justice to all the product introductions, Andrew and Alan focused exclusively on those intros, dividing them as usual between Inspirational (relatively affordable) and Aspirational (not so much). That freed Jacob to report on the best systems he heard at the show—and there were plenty of good-sounding ones.

So, without further ado, here’s what we found and heard at this year’s Capital Audio Fest.

There were a surprisingly large number of new low-to-moderately priced items to investigate at CAF 2024. To allow for a somewhat more expansive description of what I came across, I’ve included just two dozen of them, omitting those that seemed less newsworthy—as well as those that weren’t actually new, despite insistence to the contrary from a manufacturer, dealer, or marketing person.

Most Significant

VPI Forever Series Model One turntable ($5250)

Many of the demonstration spaces on the lower floors of the Hilton—the largest rooms at CAF—were dark places with men in suits, wordlessly standing on the periphery and operating iPads to summon up a stream of impressive-sounding, if forgettable, music. Not in the VPI suite. The lights were full-up and Mat Weisfeld, dressed in shorts, was in constant motion, high-fiving his young daughters, playing LPs from all eras and genres, and exclaiming his optimistic vision for his company, the industry, the hobby. It was the show’s most joyous epicenter. As his father, Harry—the company’s founder—watched with pride and purpose, Mat introduced the first product in the new “Forever” line, the VPI Model One, to be followed by two subsequent turntable introductions, at Munich 2025 and next year’s CAF. The Model One sports a 20-pound aluminum platter and a subchassis with a great deal of flexibility—it can accommodate a linear-tracking arm, for instance. The $5250 price includes a VPI S-Tonearm and a hinged dustcover; there’s a 10-year warranty. The new product is definitely reminiscent of the venerable HW-19, and the vibe in VPI’s rooms evoked an earlier era in perfectionist audio when anything seemed possible, and spirits soared. Mat Weisfeld’s still do.

Acora Acoustics MRB-1 loudspeakers ($7990)

Valerio Cora launched his new MRC line of five loudspeakers, priced from $5490 to $15,990, considerably less than previous Acora products. These have marble enclosures, that material being easier to get out of the ground and machine than the granite, quartz, and quartzite utilized for other models. Creating quite a buzz in Rockville was the MRB-1 stand-mount—the “B” is for “bookshelf”—a small 2-way with a front-firing port, so it really can be placed on a shelf. For demonstration purposes, Cora had the MRB-1s on stands, positioned adjacent to the manufacturer’s 420-pound, $218,000/pair VRC-1, and many entering the room, me included, were astounded to learn we were hearing the modestly sized stand-mounts and not the big guys. With VAC electronics in service, Shostakovich, Gordon Goodwin, and the most exuberant sort of rock, blew most observers far, far away.

Theoretica Applied Physics BACCH-ORC room-correction software ($1000/$3000)

As usual, Dr. Edgar Choueiri’s room was a popular destination for audiophiles who enter curious or skeptical and leave incredulous after a demonstration of Choueiri’s crosstalk cancellation (XTC) technology. At CAF 2024, however, Theoretica was also introducing BACCH-ORC, a room-correction methodology different than any other currently on the market. Instead of having a listener place a microphone at several locations in a space and averaging the in-room frequency response, BACCH-ORC employs the same tiny in-ear microphones used to make an XTC filter to create binaural correction for an individual listener—it’s listener-based rather than room-based. Head tracking is performed by an optical or infrared camera system (the latter works in the dark) to prevent degrading of the room correction by a listener’s head movements. Especially with crosstalk cancellation also running, the sonic image with ORC was exceptionally convincing and stable. The $1000 price is the cost for adding BACCH-ORC to the BACCH4Mac product; $3000 is for adding it to BACCH-SP processors.

Qln One (v7) loudspeaker ($12,000)

Some things in audio really do get better over the time and the Qln One is a good example. The Swedish manufacturer presented the original version at CES in 1981, the world’s first “truncated pyramid” design. (Yes, five years before the WATT.) The v7 update has a proprietary 5.5** mid/woofer and a 25mm textile-dome tweeter with a large roll surround that’s said to result in exceptional off-axis dispersion. Powered by another notable new product, the Audio Hungary Qualiton 300B integrated ($11,000), orchestral sonorities were appealing and well-recorded rock/pop material had gratifying weight and punch. It was hard to keep one’s eyes off the gorgeous walnut burl finish of the pair at the show; stands add $850 to the asking price.

Volti Audio Lucera loudspeaker ($11,750)

Volti Audio introduced a new product to their line of horn-based loudspeakers, between the Razz and Rival models. The Lucera has a 15** dynamic woofer complementing two horns (the midrange sports a 2** compression driver mounted concentrically)—the speaker is specified as having a frequency response of 32 to 18kHz. At CAF, power was provider by a Cary Audio SLI-80 integrated, rated at 40Wpc in triode mode, though Volti feels that 8Wpc will do the job. If your belief is that large, wooden, super-sensitive horn speakers must sound colored and roughly diffuse, hearing the Luceras should cure you of that. With varied musical content, there were nuanced dynamics at both ends of the loudness continuum and quite natural instrumental sonorities. Though the company maintains a small inventory of completed loudspeakers, Volti has only two employees, other than owner/designer/builder Greg Roberts and his wife. You can get a custom finish but be advised that a wait time of three to six months may be required and there could be an associated upcharge. Such is the nature of bespoke audio.

Auspicious Debuts

Chesky Audio LC1 loudspeaker ($996/pair)

Lucca Chesky—son of composer/pianist/producer/HDtracks founder David; twin brother of rising jazz vocalist Paloma—has, at age 17, launched a new loudspeaker company, its only current product the LC1 Bookshelf Monitor. Lucca, a musician himself, spent time with audio scientist Edgar Choueiri at Princeton University. He built eight prototypes of his bookshelf/standmount before settling on a final design that utilizes a proprietary HD polymer for the cabinet material and a driver complement that includes a wide-dispersion 1** dome tweeter, a 6.5** bass/midrange, and two side-firing 8** fluid-coupled woofers. Chesky asked: “How good could I get it for under $1000?” and the answer seems to be “pretty good.” With familiar Reference Recordings material, the spatial presentation bordered on immersive when listening in the nearfield. The speaker will be sold directly by the manufacturer.

Eastern Bay Sound Southwind loudspeaker ($1459/pair)

Eastern Bay is a new Maryland company, located on the Chesapeake Bay that manufactures what they call “farm-to-table loudspeakers”. The cabinet is exquisite, utilizing locally sourced hardwoods: a pair on display in the hotel lobby attracted considerable attention. The Southwind is a small—8.5**(W) x 17**(H) x 12**(D) transmission-line design with a single Mark Audio CHR1P-90 full-range driver. Sensitivity is given as 89dB and frequency response is 45-20kHz (±3dB). There’s a matching subwoofer, the Skeg, available at $600 each, $950 for two. EBS expects to begin shipping product in the Spring.

PrimaLuna EVO 300 hybrid power amplifier ($7195)

Generating 100Wpc into an 8-ohm load (at CAF 2024, a pair of Harbeth M40.3 XD bookshelf speakers), the EVO 300 employs six 12AU7 input tubes in a circuit said to be quite responsive to experimentation. The power stage features factory-matched MOSFETs and hand-wound transformers, potted and otherwise thoroughly protected from mechanical sources of distortion. With orchestral music, tonal nuance and subtle dynamic gradations were preserved with playback of the best recordings.

Orchard Audio Starkrimson Mono Ultra Premium amplifier ($4999.90/pair)

Utilizing gallium nitride (GaN) power transistors, the Starkrimson Ultra Premium monoblock is an exceptionally refined sounding switching amplifier, delivering 250 watts into 8 ohms and 500W into 4. The amp’s linear power supply features a 1000VA toroidal transformer with 133,600uF of capacitance that the manufacturer says is responsible for its superior bass and transient performance. At CAF, the amps were driving various Philharmonic Audio speakers with excellent results up and down the loudspeaker line. Production will be limited to 33 pairs.

Wireworld Cable Technology Series 10 audio cables (price varies)

After five years of product development, Wireworld has replaced its Series 8 cables with a new range of Series 10 products—nine levels of analog interconnects (including five tonearm cable models), six levels of digital cables, twelve speaker cables, and several power cords. Series 10 wires feature additional strand groups, without necessarily an increase in the amount of metal, which Wireworld says reduces signal loss due to eddy currents. The company also reports utilizing an improved insulation material to lower triboelectric noise. If judgement of the audible merits of electronics—and even loudspeakers—is difficult at an audio show, it’s pretty much impossible with cables. Fortunately, Wireworld founder and product designer David Salz offered to replace the one Wireworld cable I use every day, the company’s previous top-of-the-line AES/EBU digital interconnect, with the Series 10 version so I can, in a familiar context, hear for myself any sonic advantages to using it between server and DAC.

Infigo Audio Inc. Streamer Model IS-1 ($5000/$7000)

The Canadian manufacturer Infigo Audio introduced a new streamer—two new streamers, actually, as the Model IS-1 is available in Signature ($5k) and Cryogen ($7k) versions. Both are designed for use with USB DACs, utilizing the interface that permits the highest sampling rates. The IS-1 has a built-in linear power supply to assure a very low noise floor and is supplied with an “armored” gigabyte fiber-optic cable connection that isolates the audio chain from network noise and jitter. Infigo’s streamers are quite versatile, with the capacity to operate as a UPnP endpoint, Audirvana server, Roon endpoint (or, in the case of the Cryogen version, a Roon core), and as an HQPlayer Network Audio Adapter. That pretty much covers the waterfront when it comes to commercially available music players. Infigo’s streamers are readily controlled with a network-installed browser.

Altec Lansing Iconic Series: I-1 loudspeaker ($13,000/pair) and Iconic 300B monoblock amplifier (initial price $3500/pair; subsequently $5000/pair)

Altec Lansing, in business with that name since 1941 and better known for its pro-audio products, has a new line of components for the home high-end market, but the segment of that market where the sky is not the limit, pricewise. For AL, the prototypical customer will be a household where “the wife is a schoolteacher, and the husband is a BMW technician.” (I wish that I could have been at the sales meeting when they came up with that.) The ported 3-way I-1 floorstander has a ribbon tweeter and a 12** woofer, with a 2** dome between them. It’s specified as having a frequency response of 29 to 40kHz and a sensitivity of 97dB—which makes it a good match for the Altec Lansing 300B amplifier that has a power rating in the 8–10W range.

In Other News

Yes, $6k is an expensive price point for headphones and the Audeze CRBN 2 headphones ($5995) could be considered an Aspirational product. But Alan didn’t get to hear them, and I did—and was very impressed. Since I was a teenager living with my parents who craved quiet, I’ve never been much of a headphone listener. But the experience of listening to familiar music of several genres through the new Audeze electrostatic CRBN 2s was pretty extraordinary. With these substantial but comfortable phones, orchestral weight and detail was as involving as a good speaker-in-front-of-you experience. When the time comes that my living situation necessitates some “personal audio,” Audeze will be a consideration.

Making its North American debut was the Vienna Acoustics Mozart SE Signature loudspeaker ($7495/pair). This two-and-a-half-way floorstander is the latest iteration of a design developed nearly 35 years ago. The current version employs three bespoke drivers—a hand-coated silk-dome tweeter, a midrange fabricated with the manufacturer’s proprietary XPP cone material, and a 6** version of VA’s “spidercone” bass driver. Driven by the Class D JAVA Hi-Fi Carbon Double Shot integrated amplifier ($12,995)—first heard in Munich this past May—the Mozart SE Signature’s tonal accuracy and soundstage presentation were excellent, even off-axis.

Philharmonic Audio, based in Maryland, showed two recently introduced loudspeaker models, the ridiculously inexpensive True Mini ($380/pair) and the Ceramic Mini ($850/pair), a 2-way ported design with a 1** ceramic-dome tweeter and a 5** ceramic woofer. Bass was nicely articulated, and there was plenty of “sock” to snare drum. On a favorite Bonnie Raitt cut (“Storm Warning”), I heard excellent separation of the lead vocal from the rest of the arrangement.

Triode Wire Labs introduced a new AC power cord, the Digital American II ($549).

It’s designed to lower the noise floor on any kind of digital electronics—DACs, disc players, servers, music computers. TWL reports an approximately 20% increase in the amount of conductor in the Digital American II, which helps ameliorate the usual culprit—electronic interference that can translate into audible hash accompanying the musical output from an audio system.

Belleson Audio Products is currently located in South Carolina and has, for some time, been manufacturing components, specifically regulators, for electronic devices; the company only built its first full-fledged piece of audio gear, the Brilliance phonostage, in 2023. The new Radiance Phono Stage ($3250) has both balanced and single-ended inputs, and with the Wi-Fi remote control, one can select cartridge type (mc or mm), resistive/capacitive loading, and gain, all from the listening chair. With a Rega cartridge, turntable, and arm, LTD electronics, Volti loudspeakers, and Anticable wires, vinyl playback had exceptional life and timbral accuracy.

MC Audiotech co-owner and sales/marketing manager Mark Conti, with a stern but affectionate glance in the direction of his engineer partner Paul Paddock, the inventor of the wide band line source (WBLS) driver common to all the company’s loudspeakers and a tinkerer bent on achieving perfection, told me that the TL-8 loudspeaker ($15,000 to $17,000/pair, depending on finish) could now be considered a “finished” product. Some fine-tuning of the crossover occurred, among other changes, and I can confirm that the current iteration of the transmission-line design is the best-sounding one yet—and it sounded pretty damn good to begin with. The manufacturer continues to build a dealer network and if one isn’t convenient, MC Audiotech will reimburse you for travel expenses to get to the Philadelphia suburb where the company is based, if you purchase one of its speakers. Details are on the website.

Gestalt Audio of Nashville, the importer and distributor of Wolf von Langa loudspeakers, known for their field-coil designs, was demonstrating the manufacturer’s newest product, the Serendipity loudspeaker ($9995)—their least expensive model, with Trafomatic Pandora monoblocks. Anne-Sophie Mutter’s violin sonority was exceptionally believable, and the joining of the attack of a piano note to the main body of the sound was as seamless as in life. Also imported by Gestalt are products from Cinnamon, a Portuguese high-end company. It manufactures a wide range of components, including speakers, a phonostage, a network transport, and two models of DACs—all technologically advanced and stunning examples of industrial design. The Galle DAC ($14,995) utilizes a “quasi non-oversampling scheme” that features a dual-mono 27-bit differential ladder with more than 430 precision-matched resistors. The signal path is short because an analog output stage is made unnecessary by the substantial voltages generated by the DAC engine itself.

SVS started life as a subwoofer specialist, but after Gary Yacoubian acquired the company in 2011, the manufacturer has expanded the range of products considerably. Still, truthful rendering of the bottom octaves is in SVS’s blood, and the SVS 17 Ultra R/Evolution subwoofer ($2499 sealed, $2999 ported), with a dual voice-coil configuration, four internal amplifiers, and plenty of DSP adjustability, provides meaningful output down to 10Hz territory.

Remarkably, one of the most innovative new products encountered at CAF 2024 was quite approachable in cost. The Ayre PX-8 phono preamplifier ($6500) will accommodate two cartridges with either balanced or unbalanced connections and allows for independent gain and load settings, controlled via the PX-8’s front panel. Two options that will increase the price of the unit are offered. One is to add a third input for a DS Audio optical cartridge, the other is an analog-to-digital conversion circuit that makes it a straightforward process to digitize and archive an LP collection.

Best of Show

Best Sound of the Show

What a difference the room can make at an audio show! I’ve admired Gershman Acoustics loudspeakers for years, but they were overshadowed by other large speakers deployed in the ballrooms and conference rooms. For CAF 2024, Elie and Ofra Gershman had a 1440 square-foot space to demonstrate their Black Swan 30^th Anniversary Edition ($95,000), and sound was commanding, detailed, colorful, involving…in short, it was music.

Best Sound for the Money

The word heard frequently in the big Acora room was disruptive. What else can you say about the Acora MRB-1 at $7990? To point out that these diminutive bookshelf/stand-mount loudspeakers “play big” is the audio understatement of the year.

Most Significant New Product

The VPI Model 1 turntable ($5250) isn’t just a well-built, good-sounding piece of gear; given the company’s history, that’s expected. It’s the spirit associated with the product—a respect for the past but also a positive vision for the future of the high end that all stakeholders, consumers included, should find uplifting.

Best Demo

Showgoers can always count on terrific sound when they visit Doug White’s room, demonstrating brands that he carries at his boutique dealership in Pennsylvania, The Voice That Is. But White went several steps further at CAF 2024 to offer an experience beyond simply playing top-notch, meticulously set-up audio equipment. In attendance were the principals from several of his brands: Mark Dohmann (Dohmann Audio), Jörn Janczak (Tidal), Joe Salvato (Equitech) and Nathan Vander Stoep (Turnbull Audio) were around to answer questions. Even more impressive was that Doug White sponsored a performance by a jazz trio led by pianist Joe Block in the Hilton’s Washington Theater after show hours. Talk about putting your money where your mouth is!

Most Disappointing Demo

The Listening Room, a dealer in Chestertown, MD, set up an all-Magnepan Atmos 5.1.4 speaker array in a small room on the Hilton’s seventh floor and, though there was a video screen operating, mostly played music and not movies. Unfortunately, they seemed to have little concern that they were streaming the highly compressed version of Atmos, Dolby Digital Plus, rather than the high-resolution Dolby TrueHD format. With an audiophile audience, skeptical and dismissive of immersive audio to begin with, this was a missed opportunity.

Most Notable Trend.

A growing impatience with/intolerance for classical music. Even requesting a Beethoven or Chopin “greatest hit” will clear a room within minutes, and some manufacturers will actually decline to play even a brief selection. C’mon guys: I listen to “Keith Don’t Go” and “Just a Little Lovin'” without grousing. Would it kill you to sit through a movement of a Brahms sonata once in a while?