Capital Audio Fest 2025 Part 3
was a great show!
The third and final video coverage of the Capital Audio Festival 2025 features mostly "room walk ins" plus a few interviews. You'll walk into rooms featuring Acora, VPI, VAC, ,EMM Labs Credo, Aequo, Trilogy, Burmester, Audience, Martin Audio, Luxman, Estelon, Vitus, Crystal Cable, Sonorus, SAT, Lyra, Lampizator, Tidal, REL, Turnbull, C.A.T., Göbel, EMM Labs, Revox and THRAX.
Because of technical issues related to a truly stupid function on the DJI Pocket 3 camera I use, coverage of a few rooms got erased, including the Altec Lansing room where whoever bought the name chose to use it to market and sell a planar magnetic speaker. While that's kind of an odd combo, the speaker sounded great and it included an interesting low frequency arrangement best described in a review.
The camera messed up coverage of the Command Performance AV room which celebrated the 70s with silly costumes and some musical presentations including one by my friend Brian Speiser who does the live mixing for the Tedeschi Trucks band. I played an hour's worth of records I brought from home that I won't list here and while the system was having some set up issues on day one, when I returned Sunday to spin it was sounding much better. The system was: J.Sikora Standard MAX SUPREME turntable, with KV MAX 12" arm fitted with Aidas Violet Gold Cartridge LE, Doshi Evo phono preamp, Gryphon Essence Preamp, Gryphon Antileon Revelation stereo amplifier (making its debut I believe), and Martin Mingus Quintet 2 Statement speakers. Also Berkeley Audio DAC and Aurender music server plus Transparent Audio XL series cable.
There's an interview with T10 Bespoke's "Bear" Clark who manufactures the highest tech luxury custom earbuds. Fascinating individual and these earbuds use tech sure to interest you even if you can't afford them. It seems people who can love both the audio and serious "bling" factor.
At the video's conclusion are stills taken throughout the show with music taken from Caelan Cardello's upcoming album "Chapter One" on Jazz Bird/Liam Records. Yes, this is a shameless plug for the album I executive produced, which will be going to QRP press the week of November 24th and hopefully available at the "usual suspects": Acoustic Sounds, Music Direct and Elusive Disc. "Rufus Reid Presents Caelan Cardello" has sold out and won't be repressed until this new one gets going, which based on the reaction from Warsaw to Washington won't take long.
You can stream a version of the album on Qobuz and other streaming services. The vinyl version won't have as many songs because of space considerations, but it contains a dazzling solo performance of Thelonious Monk's "Ask Me Now" that consistently gets applause as if Caelan's playing it live that's unavailable on any other format. Plus the vinyl edition, with lacquers cut by Dave McNair, sounds best (of course it does). So be sure to either watch to the end or skip there to hear the tune.
Capital Audio Festival 2025 was the best one yet even if circumstances beyond the organizers' control somewhat suppressed attendance. Everyone who was there seemed to be having a blast and most participants were happy with the results.
I don't like to get into "best sounding" room stuff but rooms that impressed and were memorable include the High Water Sound room with Zeiler electronics and speakers and Torqueo turntable, Robyatt's room with Miyajimi Labs electronics and Simco One speakers and a custom VPI turntable, The Voice That Is room with Tidal gear, which always sounds great, the Altec Lansing room showing new planar magnetic speakers, the room with the big Maggies, Wilson-Benesch turntable and Audio Flight electronics, and especially the La Dolce room that opens the part 2 video. Lucca Chesky's new compact $1995 speakers sounded really good and I've already asked for a review pair.
There were a few other fine sounding rooms but I can't remember at this point, and ultimately, what's the difference? Hotel rooms are terrible places to judge audio gear sonic performance and if you get decent sound good for you and if you don't better luck next time.
