The three-day Capital Audiofest runs July 8–10 at the Hilton Hotel at Twinbrook Metro in Rockville, MD. With new, noon–8 pm opening-day hours designed to accommodate 9-5ers eager to top off their Friday with great sound, and completely renovated rooms that should offer even better acoustics than before, the at-capacity show promises 38 exhibit rooms (including 14 large rooms and one two-room suite), and a combined Marketplace/CanMania with 20 exhibitors total. Put that all together, and you end up with 103 exhibitors and brands combined.
Capital Audiofest has certainly evolved with the times. While originally associated with vintage gear, its quasi-vintage exhibitors for 2016 are few. Perhaps best understood as flashback/flash-forward exhibits, these seem limited to Vu Hoang's Déjà Vu reproduction of Jensen and Western Electric designs, Greg Beron's United Home Audio revamped open-reel players paired with Classic Audio loudspeakers, and Emia's remanufactured Quad ESL-57s.
Looking forward, Capital Audiofest promises a number of premieres. At the top of the list is the new version of the mammoth, mammoth-priced KEF Muon, which launches on July 8 with a press conference. Right behind it is MartinLogan's Expression ESL 13A loudspeaker.
To help combat the classic audio show "Slow Sunday Syndrome," CAF has scheduled two "you must be present to win and haul it away" giveaways for the show's final day (10am–4pm). Headlining them is a $12,000-plus system with components from VPI, Alta Audio, and Luminous Audio. A second giveaway promises an Oppo HA-2 portable D/A headphone amp, which can handle files up to 32/384 PCM as well as DSD.
Seminars include a few one-of-a-kinds: an ear-opening, Sunday-morning (11am) chat with Kevin Duplain, former owner of The Atlantis Club, DC's first Punk Club, and another with Matthew Barton of the Library of Congress, whose discussion of 78s will tap his encyclopedic memory. "You name it, and he's heard it," says show founder Gary Gill of Barton. "He's a really well-spoken and fun guy."
In addition, Dynamic Sound Associates promises two analog seminar-—"Mono for a New Millenium" and "Ortofon: Then and Now"—in the Adams Room. Add in Scot Hull's chat with Bill Conrad of Conrad-Johnson, Pamela Mason's exploration of permanent hearing damage caused by excessive loud noise exposure, and Rob Robinson of Channel D's seminar on vinyl ripping, and you could learn a lot.
Gill and veteran show planner Christina Yuin also let Stereophile in on a big date change. After receiving 1,737,623 complaints about holding the show in hot, hot July, the Capital Audiofest has already signed a multi-year contract that will shift it to the first weekend in November starting in 2017. This places it a full month after the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest. Although Canada's TAVES is even closer, that is a very different show entirely.
"We try to work with everybody," Gill and Yuin said in consort about their date change. "But when you just don't know, you can't be at the mercy of what decisions will or will not be."
Stereophile will be reporting from CAF. Look for room-by-room, note-by-note reports from Art Dudley and Herb Reichert starting during the show, and continuing in the days that follow.
