Capital AudioFest 2013

I've chosen to limit coverage to Cap Fest analog gear, but there was plenty of good sound at the show and plenty of awful sound too. I'll skip the awful and the great, making an exception for the Odyssey Audio room. The gentleman responsible, Klaus Bunge, is an industry veteran I've known for decades. He helped establish in America, the high price, high performance Symphonic Line brand.

Odyssey Audio, based in Indianapolis, Indiana, manufactures and sells from there factory-direct everything in this system.

In any case, this system, consisting of the Lorelei Loudspeakers, a nicely finished, two-way floor-standing box design costing $2700/pr, the $1500 Candela preamp and the $1800/pr. Khartago mono blocks plus Groneberg Quattro cabling costs $5700 complete!

That is not a lot of money for a complete high performance system. And it is a high performance system. The solid state Khartago amps, for instance output 110 watts per channel. The very attractively finished in wood veneer Lorelei speaker features a Scanspeak tweeter and 6.8" carbon fiber/graphite composite mid woofer and a crossover featuring Alpha-Core, Mundorf and WBT components. The cabinet is made in the United States.

The sound of this system was exceptionally "musical" ( I hate that too, but in the context of a show write-up, deal with it!) and did everything well one would expect from a high performance system costing far, far more. I was as impressed with it as was my friend Jacob, whose home I visited that evening.

His system just about duplicated mine: Wilson XLFs, Continuum turntable, Lyra Atlas cartridge and Ypsilon VPS phono preamp. He's got the Ypsilon preamp and big mono block towers. The biggest difference is the room: his is a large, room, built from scratch with high ceilings. I got to hear what my system would sound like in a big room and while my system sounds great, it opens up and breathes in the big room, revealing its full potential.

Jacob and I walked out of the Odyssey room equally excited and impressed by what we heard for $5700. Of everything I saw and heard at Capital AudioFest, I'd say the Odyssey Audio room, while not the best sounding, was the most impressive sounding, particularly given the cost of the system.