Impressions from Capital Audio Fest 2021

Nuprin

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The VR11s were certainly better at scale, image and instrument separation but the lacked a little bit of the beauty and soulfulness of the music for me.
 

AudioLibertarian

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Just got back from Capital Audio Fest 2021. It is my first audio show and it was like being in a candy store and you got to try all the candies! Connected with some really friendly audiophiles as well as learning from industry experts on their thoughts and processes.

The best of show room for me was the Kharma Exquisites Midi running with top of the line Conrad Johnson Monos and Pre in the 20/20 evolution systems room. The VR11s were impressive in scale and image definition but such a big speaker, in a huge room...just not a realistic room for 99% of us. They lacked the musical purity and liquidity the Kharmas played. The Midi sounded the most "realistic" and "natural" for me. People are not kidding when they said the Midis play big - way bigger than they look. They mostly just disappeared as if there the entire band was playing behind them. They were set out quite far into the room at 16' from the front wall in the 44' long room. Also they were absolutely gorgeous in person, the pictures do not do them justice.

The small rooms went from sounding bad to just ok but not one I was really impressed with. The best sounding rooms tended to be the medium to largish rooms on the main floor. They were roughly 20-26ft wide by 35-45ft wide. Yes, I bought my laser tape. Maybe this is the formula for a future room/build?

These are show conditions and my ears but in general I would categorize the vendors there in the following:

1) The "tinkerers" and "hobbiests" that produced unique products and sounds but much like you have modded street cars that try to be fast and cool. Intriguing but certainly not a Class A product and usually not worth what they were charging IMO. For example, the bass in those rooms were either bloated or razor thin. Hardly any rooms had it right.

2) The big industry names that sell tons of product to the audiophile masses, but to me never sounding exceptional, going by their reputation and mark ups for the dealers to promote.

3) Finally, the real deal manufacturers. The "professionals" as I would call them. Realistically convincing music. Very, very few of those from what I heard at the show.
I second your best of show sound, albeit would nominate the Gobel room by Elliot Goldman as well..... incidentilly I liked Kharma DB 9s little more than the MIDI. But , yes both sounded just so pure and sublime. . I was so dissapointed with the Tidal and Borrensen rooms! Just could not spend listening longer than 2-3 minutes in both. The designers of both must have gone deaf at a certain frequency. SAme goes for the GT Works.... DId not like the new Bowers Wilkins D4 as much as I expected. I suspect they were not broken in, and the Macintosh hybrid amps made them sound wooly and somewhat flat. Enjoyed the Swedish Larsen 9 speakers alot. Cube Audio Nenuphars were also pretty musical. Much like yourself I kept coming back to the Kharma room, just to relax a bit. The owner of the company was VERY accomodating as far as choice of music! Kudos to him!
 
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Nuprin

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Jan 9, 2020
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I second your best of show sound, albeit would nominate the Gobel room by Elliot Goldman as well..... incidentilly I liked Kharma DB 9s little more than the MIDI. But , yes both sounded just so pure and sublime. . I was so dissapointed with the Tidal and Borrensen! Just could not spend longer than 2-3 minutes in both. The designers of both must have gone deaf at a certain frequency. SAme goes for the GT Works.... DId not like the new Bowers Wilkins D4 as much as I expected. I suspect they were not broken in, and the Macontosh hybrid amps made hem sound wooly and somewhat flat. Enjoyed the Swedish Larsen 9 speakers alot. Cube Audio Nenuphars were also pretty musical. Much like yourself I kept coming back to the Kharma room, just to relax a bit. The owner of the company was VERY accomodating as far as choice of music! Kudos to him!
Yes indeed...Jay was so gracious, completely the opposite of a snobbish dealer and he let me play about 5 or 6 CDs I brought (out of a $100 Cambridge CD player analog out mind you) and I was thrilled to hear tracks I knew well on my own system. He never tried to sell anyone in the room anything, just answered questions when asked. But in general everyone was very nice and some very accommodating in music requests.
 

Lee

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I second your best of show sound, albeit would nominate the Gobel room by Elliot Goldman as well..... incidentilly I liked Kharma DB 9s little more than the MIDI. But , yes both sounded just so pure and sublime. . I was so dissapointed with the Tidal and Borrensen! Just could not spend listening longer than 2-3 minutes in both. The designers of both must have gone deaf at a certain frequency. SAme goes for the GT Works.... DId not like the new Bowers Wilkins D4 as much as I expected. I suspect they were not broken in, and the Macintosh hybrid amps made them sound wooly and somewhat flat. Enjoyed the Swedish Larsen 9 speakers alot. Cube Audio Nenuphars were also pretty musical. Much like yourself I kept coming back to the Kharma room, just to relax a bit. The owner of the company was VERY accomodating as far as choice of music! Kudos to him!
Agreed on Gobel. Really terrific sound.
 
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Joe Whip

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As much as I enjoyed chatting with two friends Jim Anderson and Mike Griffin in the Convergent room, the sound there was too loud and too bright. I have always found Magicos to be bright. Not even tubes fixed that for me. I have listened to Clique maybe 25 times to do my review and to prep for our zoom interview with Jim, Ulrike and Ms. Barber. Sure all the detail, bass etc was there, just too bright. There also appeared to be a loudness war between that room and Doug White’s next door. I think Doug had to crank his stuff up due to the bleed through. As always, Doug’s room was very good. We all hear differently and this thread proves just that. It is great to have choices.
 

Cellcbern

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My personal highlights from CAF 2021:

-The 20/20 Evolution Systems Conrad Johnson/Kharma/Lampizator room which was my personal favorite among the big rooms/systems at the show.
-Infigo Audio's (new to me) Class 'A' solid state monoblocks, DAC, and cables with Alta Audio speakers - one of the more musical solid state systems I've heard.
-Hearing the big JBL Project Everest DD67000 horn loaded speakers for the first time, in the VPI room.
-The (also new to me) Fleetwood Sound DeVille monitors with horn loaded compression driver covering 2khz and up and 8" woofer. 94 db efficient with bass to just below 40hz and optional matching wood stands. Great small room speaker - very dynamic and musical.
-The very small (200W monoblock fits in one hand) AGD GaN tube amplifiers (the ones that have circuit boards in a glass tube). Despite a bad room (long and narrow forcing a long wall setup) these were the most musical solid state amplifiers I've heard.
-The Kirmuss Audio multi-step ultrasonic vinyl cleaning demonstration where you give them your lp to clean and they actually show you the mold release agents and dirt ("white stuff") that they get out of the grooves.
-Chatting with Greg Belman in the Bache Audio room and hearing his great sounding new (reasonably priced) Urban 002 augmented wide-bander speakers.
-Meeting fellow WBF posters in person.
Glad to see some of the small rooms getting coverage. Here's Stereophile's report on the Infigo Audio/Alta room which I also mentioned in my personal CAF highlights:

 

Cellcbern

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Glad to see some of the small rooms getting coverage. Here's Stereophile's report on the Infigo Audio/Alta room which I also mentioned in my personal CAF highlights:

Photos taken by a friend of the AGD room and Bache Audio rooms, and the QLN room with the Fleetwood Sound horn loaded monitors, all three in my list (above) of personal CAF highlights:
 

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K3RMIT

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To me the VAC VON room was in a class of its own
the scale of how they play is amazing. i do feel there digital is above there analog was last show there as well. this year they debuted there new tube amps 1/2 the cost of last events amps used.
the kharma analog best of the show. the big Daedalus room I felt was best digital after the vac von room. it was warm of neutral but played all music wonderfully.
the JBL horns were way too brite but I agree had a wonderful sound if just were corrected a bit.
GT was good on Friday then Saturday was off I went to there room many times. the last show they were amazing both days I attended and were near the level of the vac von room and considering the massive cost it made you wonder.
 

Ron Resnick

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Thank you for these reports!
 

Solypsa

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The big Daedalus sounded really nice and warm but...just huge speakers. I would have loved to hear the smaller ones at the show play in a bigger room than they were set up in upstairs..
showing a small speaker in a big room makes more sense than a big speaker in a small room but this is a show after all :)
 

divertiti

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Jan 12, 2021
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Nuprin and I met at the show and turned out we have similar preferences. Great to be at another show after so long and exchanging ideas with other audiophiles. My show notes are below:


--Best of Show--

My best of show by a LONG shot was the Kharma Exquisite Midi with Conrad Johnson Art 300 monos and GAT S2 Pre. This room had it all, power, dynamics, grace, refinement, nth degree of detail, naturalness, liquidity, cohesive and huge soundstage, and no matter what music was playing, you NEVER heard the speakers, it was just the performance in the front of the room. The craziest thing is they had trouble with their Aurender server so the source was just a 15 yr CambridgeAudio 740C CD player with dual Wolfson onboard DAC direct analogue out to the pre. This room was a surprise all the way through, never heard Kharma speakers, never thought CJ gear and Kimber cables could sound like this. I would take this room over the $1M von schweikert + VAC room. It is now my new reference point and absolutely mind boggling. Met a few industry insiders and they agreed as well.

--Good rooms--

The Von Schweikert obviously has fantastic sound, crystal clarity with beautiful imaging and scale. The clean sound provided so much insight into the music, not just information, but intention as well. My only criticism was that both through the Esoteric N01-XD dac and through the turntable, it lacked a bit of tonal body, not sure if it was the room or which part of the system causing that.

The Gobel room with the Wadax reference dac and server, CH precision L1 pre and the Parasound JC1+, this was a great sounding room, but can’t help but think it could have been in top contention had they used better amps.

The Joseph Audio Pearl 20/20 with all Emm Labs electronics. Great sounding room, really transparent and dynamic, however the speakers were toed in too much to give the wow effect, a bit bright after awhile, if the speakers were toed out more like how JA speakers are usually set up, would have been even better. The little JA Pulsars with the Bel Canto integrated amp in a small room upstairs was also a good sounding room, but not at this reference level.

The Genesis Maestro speaker was a great sounding room when it was playing from the $150K Genesis Turntable System source. When they switched to digital through the Emm labs DA2, the sound got a bit hard and bright on certain recordings. The brightness from the JA Pearl 20/20 room might have something to do with the Emm Labs gear as well, not sure.



-- Pleasantly surprised --

Volti Razz with Border Patrol P21X amp and Border Patrol DAC - Never heard Volti speakers before, but these are dynamic, coherent, engaging and effortless. Maybe not the last word in detail, but you just kept on wanting to listen. I owned the Border Patrol DAC before and thought they were too colored, but in this system it works. I would take this room as a fun second system, but would still switch out to something more neutral.

Spatial Audio X4 driven by LTA integrated amp and Holo May KTE DAC - This system sounded fantastic, refined and balanced top end, pressurized the room with clean, tight yet impactful bass, the room was pretty packed so didn’t get to sit in the sweet spot to gauge soundstage, but pretty impressed

Daedalus (small one upstairs), Lampizator Baltic dac, LTA Pre and Amp - These are really coherent speakers, fast and clean sound built on balanced bass foundation, impact with no overhang, sparkle without brightness, great tonal density and dynamics on piano strokes which is a hard thing to do. Criticism is that in that room, the soundstage was stuck between the speakers, didn’t play big, but really good sounding overall

AGD pre and monos with Oceanway speaker - Really clear sound with polish, refinement and a touch of sweetness, confirmed all the praise AGD has been getting on the forums for great value in high performance. It was in a small room with speakers almost up against the wall, hard to gauge the full potential of the electronics for soundstage depth, criticism is that the sound sometimes had a touch of brightness to them, but suspect it was the speakers.

-- Disappointments -- (probably just means the setup wasn't right in a challenging space and time constraint)

JBL Everest, T+A electronics, VPI Turntable - Some people at the show told me how amazing this room sounded, huge soundstage and very un-horn like sound, and I walked in there expecting that and was sorely disappointed. I sat in the middle of the first row of seats (out of 2 rows), should have been the sweet spot. The two giant horns were pretty close to the listening position and toed all the way in directly to each year. Over 2 songs (Black Crow - Steely Dan and Hungarian Rhapsodies classical piece), the sound was entirely localized to each speaker, sounded very forward and brash, could not make myself to stay for a 3rd song. It's possible that front row was too close to the speakers, and people standing behind the 2nd row were getting the magic.

Borressen 05 Silver with Thrax R2R DAC and Thrax Hybrid Monos - it sounded harsh and bright, couldn’t keep me engaged in the room, I kept on wanting to leave. Didn't get to hear this system with the R2R tape source, probably would have been a different experience

Audionote UK NE - SPE -HE speakers, Meishu integrated amp, - sounds very pleasant, natural and open with certain type of music, I can see why certain types of audio file loves this gear. But to me, it lacks transparency, scale and dynamic impact, all of which I hold as very important. When you put on a song like Thriller, it just sounded small, uncertain and outmatched

Cube audio speakers, Pass labs electronics, Lampizator DAC, Silversmith speaker cables - might have been a difficult room as the system was setup almost right in the middle of the space, but it sounded boxed in, and the sound utterly confined to the speakers, sounded like...radio. Granted this was on the first day, they might have dialed it in better later

All in all a great show, definitely raised my reference bar for certain things.
 

divertiti

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Jan 12, 2021
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I second your best of show sound, albeit would nominate the Gobel room by Elliot Goldman as well..... incidentilly I liked Kharma DB 9s little more than the MIDI. But , yes both sounded just so pure and sublime. . I was so dissapointed with the Tidal and Borrensen rooms! Just could not spend listening longer than 2-3 minutes in both. The designers of both must have gone deaf at a certain frequency. SAme goes for the GT Works.... DId not like the new Bowers Wilkins D4 as much as I expected. I suspect they were not broken in, and the Macintosh hybrid amps made them sound wooly and somewhat flat. Enjoyed the Swedish Larsen 9 speakers alot. Cube Audio Nenuphars were also pretty musical. Much like yourself I kept coming back to the Kharma room, just to relax a bit. The owner of the company was VERY accomodating as far as choice of music! Kudos to him!
Very interesting, unfortunately I wasn't able to hear the DB 9s, only the Midi. What made you like the DB 9 more?
 

AudioLibertarian

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Dec 25, 2017
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Very interesting, unfortunately I wasn't able to hear the DB 9s, only the Midi. What made you like the DB 9 more?
The soundstage of the D9 was somewhat taller and it made sound more enveloping and realistic, like mid size European concert hall , row H realistic. I ve requested a vocal track from Handel's Giulius Cesar having heard that work few times live, and felt the DB9s had a shade better portrayal of various instrumental timbre, and their texture. Naturally comparison done strictly IMHO, and under the the less than ideal show conditions

The only other speaker at the show that impressed me as much was the Gobel .

By the way, the Khrama dealer , Mr Truitt was a perfect gentleman. Had a great choice of music, no restriction of genre, very little audiophile "crap" noise was played, and very well chosen set up.

Curiously, we share the same sentiment regarding the sound in the Borrensen room.... When I found out the price of this new 05 Silver version ($220 000!!!!!!) , my jaw must have dropped all the way through to the core of the Earth ....
 
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Lee

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Nuprin and I met at the show and turned out we have similar preferences. Great to be at another show after so long and exchanging ideas with other audiophiles. My show notes are below:


--Best of Show--

My best of show by a LONG shot was the Kharma Exquisite Midi with Conrad Johnson Art 300 monos and GAT S2 Pre. This room had it all, power, dynamics, grace, refinement, nth degree of detail, naturalness, liquidity, cohesive and huge soundstage, and no matter what music was playing, you NEVER heard the speakers, it was just the performance in the front of the room. The craziest thing is they had trouble with their Aurender server so the source was just a 15 yr CambridgeAudio 740C CD player with dual Wolfson onboard DAC direct analogue out to the pre. This room was a surprise all the way through, never heard Kharma speakers, never thought CJ gear and Kimber cables could sound like this. I would take this room over the $1M von schweikert + VAC room. It is now my new reference point and absolutely mind boggling. Met a few industry insiders and they agreed as well.

--Good rooms--

The Von Schweikert obviously has fantastic sound, crystal clarity with beautiful imaging and scale. The clean sound provided so much insight into the music, not just information, but intention as well. My only criticism was that both through the Esoteric N01-XD dac and through the turntable, it lacked a bit of tonal body, not sure if it was the room or which part of the system causing that.

The Gobel room with the Wadax reference dac and server, CH precision L1 pre and the Parasound JC1+, this was a great sounding room, but can’t help but think it could have been in top contention had they used better amps.

The Joseph Audio Pearl 20/20 with all Emm Labs electronics. Great sounding room, really transparent and dynamic, however the speakers were toed in too much to give the wow effect, a bit bright after awhile, if the speakers were toed out more like how JA speakers are usually set up, would have been even better. The little JA Pulsars with the Bel Canto integrated amp in a small room upstairs was also a good sounding room, but not at this reference level.

The Genesis Maestro speaker was a great sounding room when it was playing from the $150K Genesis Turntable System source. When they switched to digital through the Emm labs DA2, the sound got a bit hard and bright on certain recordings. The brightness from the JA Pearl 20/20 room might have something to do with the Emm Labs gear as well, not sure.



-- Pleasantly surprised --

Volti Razz with Border Patrol P21X amp and Border Patrol DAC - Never heard Volti speakers before, but these are dynamic, coherent, engaging and effortless. Maybe not the last word in detail, but you just kept on wanting to listen. I owned the Border Patrol DAC before and thought they were too colored, but in this system it works. I would take this room as a fun second system, but would still switch out to something more neutral.

Spatial Audio X4 driven by LTA integrated amp and Holo May KTE DAC - This system sounded fantastic, refined and balanced top end, pressurized the room with clean, tight yet impactful bass, the room was pretty packed so didn’t get to sit in the sweet spot to gauge soundstage, but pretty impressed

Daedalus (small one upstairs), Lampizator Baltic dac, LTA Pre and Amp - These are really coherent speakers, fast and clean sound built on balanced bass foundation, impact with no overhang, sparkle without brightness, great tonal density and dynamics on piano strokes which is a hard thing to do. Criticism is that in that room, the soundstage was stuck between the speakers, didn’t play big, but really good sounding overall

AGD pre and monos with Oceanway speaker - Really clear sound with polish, refinement and a touch of sweetness, confirmed all the praise AGD has been getting on the forums for great value in high performance. It was in a small room with speakers almost up against the wall, hard to gauge the full potential of the electronics for soundstage depth, criticism is that the sound sometimes had a touch of brightness to them, but suspect it was the speakers.

-- Disappointments -- (probably just means the setup wasn't right in a challenging space and time constraint)

JBL Everest, T+A electronics, VPI Turntable - Some people at the show told me how amazing this room sounded, huge soundstage and very un-horn like sound, and I walked in there expecting that and was sorely disappointed. I sat in the middle of the first row of seats (out of 2 rows), should have been the sweet spot. The two giant horns were pretty close to the listening position and toed all the way in directly to each year. Over 2 songs (Black Crow - Steely Dan and Hungarian Rhapsodies classical piece), the sound was entirely localized to each speaker, sounded very forward and brash, could not make myself to stay for a 3rd song. It's possible that front row was too close to the speakers, and people standing behind the 2nd row were getting the magic.

Borressen 05 Silver with Thrax R2R DAC and Thrax Hybrid Monos - it sounded harsh and bright, couldn’t keep me engaged in the room, I kept on wanting to leave. Didn't get to hear this system with the R2R tape source, probably would have been a different experience

Audionote UK NE - SPE -HE speakers, Meishu integrated amp, - sounds very pleasant, natural and open with certain type of music, I can see why certain types of audio file loves this gear. But to me, it lacks transparency, scale and dynamic impact, all of which I hold as very important. When you put on a song like Thriller, it just sounded small, uncertain and outmatched

Cube audio speakers, Pass labs electronics, Lampizator DAC, Silversmith speaker cables - might have been a difficult room as the system was setup almost right in the middle of the space, but it sounded boxed in, and the sound utterly confined to the speakers, sounded like...radio. Granted this was on the first day, they might have dialed it in better later

All in all a great show, definitely raised my reference bar for certain things.
This is a terrific post. It largely echoes my thinking as well.

However, I thought the Borreson/Thrax/UHA room was fairly amazing. I heard more of what it was capable of Saturday night during the Doors and Supertramp tapes.

I also found the JBL Everest to be surprisingly good. I was in the second row though so maybe that was the approach.
 

Nuprin

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Jan 9, 2020
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Agreed on the Borrensen room. I think the db9s may be my next speaker, although I do want to hear the db11s, quite a bit more money but they are even taller speakers with even more bass capabilities. I think they rate down to 21db vs 23db on the 9s and a couple of dbs more efficient? Not positive on that but would need to hear them head to head and have a big enough room. The 11s could provide an even taller soundstage?

Jay also said you can order an Elegance speaker with a diamond tweeter upgrade.

I would still like to hear a few more speakers such as the Asylvox, Diesis, Bayz Alex V to see how they compare to the similar range of Exquisite Midi.
 
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AudioLibertarian

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Dec 25, 2017
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Agreed on the Borrensen room. I think the db9s may be my next speaker, although I do want to hear the db11s, quite a bit more money but they are even taller speakers with even more bass capabilities. I think they rate down to 21db vs 23db on the 9s and a couple of dbs more efficient? Not positive on that but would need to hear them head to head and have a big enough room. The 11s could provide an even taller soundstage?

Jay also said you can order an Elegance speaker with a diamond tweeter upgrade.

I would still like to hear a few more speakers such as the Asylvox, Diesis, Bayz Alex V to see how they compare to the similar range of Exquisite Midi.
Come up to Brooklyn, we have got the Alsyvoxes, Diesis and everything in between.. Bob from Rhapsody is the guy for those :)
 
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Solypsa

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We all know that walking into a hotel room and listening to a system shipped unpacked and setup the day before is a very compromised scenario...except when we want to judge ;)

I guess another way to look at it is: all compromises considered are shows more benefit or detriment? I'm guessing any exposure is better than none...
 
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Nuprin

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Yes, I tried this July but Rapsody was moving to the Brooklyn location. The other Bob’s room in the north west looks amazing and probably would build my room similar to that layout. I love the idea of have a big glass wall to look out as my back yard is private with nothing but oak and pine trees.

What that does for acoustics or if acoustic drapes would be enough to sound great is another matter but Bob mentioned in his thread that the Botticelli planners worked well with that.
 

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