Show Reports

Hope everyone enjoyed the Thanksgiving break! We’re now back on track to lean into December with Part 7 of my Capital Audiofest 2024 show report. Without further ado, as the saying goes, let’s go. . .

Exhibitors at Capital Audiofest didn’t only showcase expensive gear. Some rooms and other exhibits around the DC venue showed some more affordable gear, including Chesky Audio’s new LC1 bookshelf speakers ($498 each). If you’re intrigued to learn more about those Chesky LC1s, you can check them out here over on our sister site, Stereophile. (The concept of “affordability” is, of course, subjective and relative.)

ARCHER HIGH FIDELITY
Anyway, Archer High Fidelity of nearby Falls Church, Virginia, showed a full Cambridge Audio system in Room 828. Their setup included a Cambridge Audio Alva ST belt-drive turntable ($599) with built-in Bluetooth, and it was outfitted with an Audio-Technica AT-VM95ML Microlinear phono cartridge that comes with the table but is also available à la carte for $179. That analog setup was connected to a Cambridge Audio AXR100 stereo receiver ($599) feeding Cambridge Audio SX80 floorstanding speakers ($799). They appeared to share some design commonalities with Mordaunt-Short speakers, another English-heritage speaker-maker under the same umbrella company as Cambridge Audio (Audio Partnership Plc). Analysis Plus Clear Oval speaker cables connected the system.

Off to the side was an oversized sample set of cartridge forms created to show differences in form factor among Audio-Technica cartridge types — as well as cart types in general — such as Special Line Contact, Shibata, Microlinear, Elliptical, Conical, and SP Conical (as seen above). This looked like a handy tool for dealers to educate customers less familiar with such cartridge styles and variances.

Archer proprietor Jon Archer was playing some British music from the 1980s, as a nod to Cambridge Audio’s origins. In keeping with this theme, it seemed a good time as any to play a couple of tracks from my era-appropriate Shriekback LP, 1983’s Care (Y Records/Warner Bros.). “My Spine (Is the Bassline),” for one (Side 1, Track 4), showed bouncy, easy-to-follow bass lines and plenty of punch overall. Turned up some, it sounded solid and fully formed with more-than-decent detail. This was one of a few bargain systems that held its own well against some other, far costlier systems I saw and heard at the show.

Back in a flash, and/or a day or so, with more CAF 2024 wrap-up coverage.

Author bio: Julie Mullins, a lifelong music lover and audiophile by osmosis who grew up listening to her father’s hi-fi gear, is also a contributing editor and reviewer on our sister site, Stereophile, for whom she also writes the monthly Re-Tales column. A former fulltime staffer at Cincinnati’s long-running alt-weekly CityBeat, she hosts a weekly radio show on WAIF called On the Pulse.

For more of our CAF 2024 coverage, go to Part 1 of Julie’s show report here, Part 2 here, Part 3 here, Part 4 here, Part 5 here, Part 6 here, and also see Ken Micallef’s turntable video extravaganza here.