As the Fall 2024 activities heat up, DCHFG members convened at the now one year old Alma Music and Audio East in Stirling, Virginia.

Rob Standley from Amphion Speakers was on hand to provide information on their speakers including the flagship Krypton 3X. These speakers are a favorite among several producers including Billie Eilish’s brother Finneas O’Connell.

I was interested in the large vinyl collection available to purchase which included inventory from Russ Katz’s TheVinyl Revivers as well as the personal collection of Alma Audio’s proprietor. I walked away with a half dozen choice recordings.

There was a good turnout of DCHFG members and a very nice way to spend a Saturday afternoon.

On a beautiful early Fall Saturday, assorted DCHFG members assembled at Ron’s penthouse apartment to listen to some new gear courtesy of Russ Katz of The Audio Hunters/The Vinyl Revivers.

The system on this day featured a Bryston preamp, a brand new Mytek Empire Class-D Gan-Fet amplifier and a Lumin D3 streaming DAC. We also sampled the new Joni Mitchell MoFi UHQR Ladies of the Canyon vinyl release on a Rega P8 turntable. The featured speaker of the day was the Warfedale Elysian 4 speaker.

As an added treat, Chris Barker brought The Wheel by Miniot turntable. This unique vinyl playback device can play records horizontally and vertically. This product started as a Kickstarter project. Through various design changes and delays in manufacturing meant original buyers had a long seven year wait. But in the end, it paid off.

The Wheel features a built-in RIAA phono preamp and outputs a standard line level signal. This means it can be plugged into almost anything. For today’s, demo an inexpensive Bluetooth dongle was attached so that two headphones could be driven simultaneously. Overall reaction to this unicorn like device was very favorable. You can expect to see it at future meetings.

As always, the day ended with the ever popular raffle. A very young audiophile won the brand new Hazelrigg Brothers Synchronicity tribute album now released on audiophile vinyl.

“Hot town, summer in the city” meant it was time to head to the beach for some cool winds and surf.

DCHFG President, John Gatski, assembled a mini Hi-Fi tradeshow for those that made the trek to his summer cottage near the Delaware shores.

A surround system, stereo components and a separate headphone listening station were available for beachcombing audiophiles to sample.

The stereo listening presentation was provided by Delaware area dealer Millennium AV Design. The components featured the new Totem Acoustic Element Fire V2 loudspeaker ($8,450/pair), Mola-Mola Kula integrated amp ($15,500), Mola-Mola Tambaqui DAC ($13,400) and Rega turntable with Hanna cartridge.

Also on hand was a sneak peak listening session with the brand new Mytek Empire GANFET stereo monoblock amplifier.

Dr Vinyl (aka Jose) also provided a premiere of the brand-new DS Audio DS-E3 cartridge system. This is the least expensive version of the highly praised optical cartridge technology.

The multichannel Blu-ray system included five Theory Audio SB25 loudspeakers (under $2,000 each), a Theory Audio multichannel amp/controller (under $10,000), Marantz AV-8802A mch. pre-pro and a SVS 4000S subwoofer ($1,800).

The headphone system included the HiFi Man Susvara and Abyss headphones.

Burgers and hot dogs and plenty of beer were available to satisfy the hunger of ravenous audiophiles.

Once again the DCHFG summer beach party was a success .

Raffle winners.