California Audio Show 2019
Oakland Hilton Airport
July 26th through July 28th, 2019
Produced by Dagogo
Byron Baba and California Audio Show Producer Constantine Soo
California Audio Show 2019 took place at the Hilton Oakland Airport July 26th through July 28th, 2019 and judging by the packed rooms and hallways it was an astounding success. I have enjoyed attending many California Audio Shows as an attendee. Constantine Soo is a wonderful host so my wife and I always felt welcome. This will be my first time covering the show as a member of the Dagogo press with my wife Martha taking pictures for me.
The Dagogo Staff (left, front to back, right, back to front): Byron Baba, David Blumenstein, Dan Rubin, Dave Radlauer, Doug Schroeder, Constantine Soo, Richard Austen, Ed Jaffe.
One of the highlights of the show was the press luncheon where the Dagogo staff had the opportunity to meet each other. This is a great bunch of guys and provided a nice camaraderie with each other. I noticed there were diverse opinions on both choices of equipment and choices of music by all of the reviewers with everyone being very respectful of the different opinions.
I was given four room assignments and I also included a recap of my favorite rooms. Day 1: I did a quick overview of the entire show briefly listening to each room. I also spent a lot of time socializing with the exhibitors and other reviewers. Day 2: I spent more of my time covering my assigned rooms and also the rooms I enjoyed the most. Day 3: I went to my favorite rooms, sometimes multiple times, and remained in those rooms for an extended period of time. I also made sure I listened to every room. Although this is a smaller show and I am not familiar with some of the brands, I was introduced to some wonderful products.
Boardroom 3
Tim Marutani Consulting/MartinLogan/Doshi/Berkeley Audio Design/The Tape Project:
Now This is a System
The first room I was assigned was the Tim Marutani Consulting/MartinLogan/Doshi/Berkeley Audio Design/The Tape Project room. Playing 1/2” tapes at 15 ips on a refurbished Ampex 102 using Doshi tubed electronics V3.0 tape stage $18,000, V3.0 line preamplifier $18,000, V3.0 monoblocks $36,000 per pair and the MartinLogan electrostatic panel speakers CLX Art $25,500 with 4 sets of their BalncedForce212 subwoofers set the bar so high that I was concerned that all of the other room would be a huge letdown. Their system also included 512 Engineering cables and power. Other items in the room were the Berkeley Audio Design Reference Series 3 DAC $22,000. This was one of my favorite rooms at the show. I chatted with Nick Doshi president of Doshi Audio and he gave me a brief overview of his product line. The Doshi monoblocks running on the new KT150 output tubes generates over 200 watts per channel. This was a great combination with the Martin Logan speakers. I returned to this room several times.
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