Show Reports

Welcome to Part 5 of my Capital Audiofest 2024 show report! And off we go. . .

PURE FIDELITY (CONTINUED)
Pure Fidelity’s new flagship model that I reported on yesterday in Part 4, The Symphony ($21,995), wasn’t the only turntable from that stellar Canadian manufacturer seen and heard at CAF 2024.

A Pure Fidelity The Harmony turntable with their own The Savant tonearm ($13,995), ending in the company’s Stratos MC cartridge — loaded at 100ohms via a Lab12 Melto 2 tube phono preamp — served as the analog front end in Nashua, New Hampshire-based dealer/distributor Fidelis Audio’s system in Room 649.

That Fidelis system also included a couple of pairs of old-school English speakers embodying the classic BBC Sound — Falcon Acoustics M30 loudspeakers ($6,000 per pair) and Falcon Acoustics Gold Badge LS3/5a monitors ($3,950 per pair). The latter were on demo during my time in the room. A full suite of Lab12 tube electronics amplified the system and provided power conditioning — as seen in two of the photos that follow below. The system cabling was from ArgentPur.

Tracks from my Bonny Light Horseman LP (the band’s self-titled 2020 release on 37d03d) sounded spacious and warm on The Harmony table and the Fidelis system, inviting the listener into this three-piece folk ensemble’s world of alt-folk sweetness and wonder. These songs are based on traditional material arranged by the group’s members, who make it their own. Stringed instruments, from 12-string guitar to upright bass to banjo, had body and timbral correctness — as did Michael Lewis’s tenor sax, played with an airy, up-close gentleness.

Part 6 coming soon!

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, and also see Ken Micallef’s turntable video extravaganza here.