Capital Audiofest 2023 Show Report / Chronicles Part 5
The 6th Floor Part A
Show Report By Rick Becker

Room 615 Bang & Olufsen
Nils Lofgren's "Acoustic Live" wowed me over during the first time I've heard Bang & Olufsen speakers in a long while.

Apparently, they've been busy designing the beautiful active speakers called "the Fifty" ($52k) in this surround set, though only the front two were playing at the time. Still, they created a wonderful sense of air and space with their cool, Scandinavian styling. That woofer must have been 15" and look at the cool horn tweeter. The woodwork was sumptuous (teak?) and the polished aluminum brought the wood and black baffle into balance by reflecting the light from the window.

The soundbar beneath the screen was $14k and the surround speakers were around $10k.

Along the side walls toward the rear were two surround speakers of slender design, but equally intriguing design.

I was about to photograph this freestanding room treatment when the host jumped into the photo and removed a panel revealing a couple of drivers. Who knows what else might be lurking behind those faux cubes?

For those who value design as much as sound quality, this was a must-see & hear room.

Room 616 Luminous Audio Technology
Luminous Audio Technology is a multi-instrument band owned by Tim Stinson who proudly displayed a note of homage to Albert Von Schweikert on the wall of his room. Looking at his speakers, which are not a finalized design, you can see Albert's influence here. Hidden from sight is the Von Schweikert influence on the crossover design. The prototype Tempest mini monitor (top) is priced at $6k and the Nemesis subwoofer below it is another $6k. But Tim also has talents in electronics as well as cables, including the Synchestra Signature speaker cables (a modest $720), Synchestra Reference interconnects, $699, and his Silver Reference phono cable at $1199.

The LAT Archimedes monoblocks ($8900) used here are an evolution of the famous designer, James Bongiorno whose work goes back to the 1980s with his SUMO Electric Company. It is a 100-Watt amp with dual class A/B power stages for independent positive/negative speaker drive. It is fully balanced from input to output. If this interests you, dig deeper.

In the rack were found a Luminous Arion II phono preamp ($8k), Luminous Axiom III line preamp ($8k), and a Teac DAC/streamer 701 ($4450). That was a VPI turntable on top ($6500) equipped with a Soundsmith Sussurro Gold phono cartridge ($5500).

At the side of the room was a display of the speaker laminations he was working on for his evolving speaker design.

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