For those of you who have never been to Capital Audiofest, it’s one of the country’s major audio shows, and an absolute paradise for audiophiles. If you want to experience a smorgasbord of sensory aural overload and see and hear gear you’ve only heard or dreamed about, you’ll find it at CAF. According to the show guide, there were 161 rooms, suites, and booths, hosting 394 – that is not a typo – brands, dealers, and CD and vinyl purveyors. There were also two suites at the EVEN Hotel across the street, where many show attendees stayed.
The adjacent EVEN Hotel featured two major suites, an all-out home theater from DreamScapes AV and Keith Yates Audio, and this beautiful setup featuring Magneplanar loudspeakers, Audio Research electronics, SOTA turntables and more.
In addition, CAF hosted 16 seminars covering everything from listening room, DAC, speaker and home theater design to record mastering, vinyl and reel-to-reel playback, in-ear headphones, and vintage audio. Friday and Saturday evenings featured live music in Olive’s Bar, the hotel’s after-show hangout, and a number of rooms offered during- and after-hours events, from Anne Bisson singing unamplified in the Command Performance AV room, to jazz concerts, to vinyl-spinning events by Tracking Angle/The Absolute Sound’s Michael Fremer and others, the famous annual United Home Audio reel-to-reel listening parties, and other stuff I probably wasn’t aware of.
There was more than any reporter, namely me, could see. (I’m turning white looking through the show guide now and seeing what I missed.) And honestly, I didn’t want to simply burn through the rooms in a futile attempt to obtain “comprehensive” coverage. At audio shows I want to meet my friends and hang out with them more than I want see and hear the gear, and if I’m visiting a room, I want to stress something very important, something I’ve learned is of critical importance: you can’t judge a system based on only hearing one recording! Seems obvious, but when you’re rushing from room to room, it’s an easy thing to forget.
Many times, I’d walk into a room and be disappointed by the sound, only to have my impression completely changed when they played a second or third cut. If I wouldn’t have given it the extra time, I would have walked out with a totally wrong impression. (Why exhibitors sometimes choose so-so demo material is beyond me. Like Bob Dylan’s “The Man in the Long Black Coat,” heard in more than one room at CAF 2025.)
Rather than recite the litany of audio show caveats yet again, I’ve written a separate article of advice on attending audio shows that you can link to here.
If you’re a first-timer, shows like these are an opportunity to meet the people behind the gear, and that can be very exciting. And after all, that’s what audio shows, and the gear, and the people behind it are all about – conveying the fun and excitement of hearing music reproduced at an astoundingly high level, where the connection with the music and the artist is thrilling.
All right, I know I’m supposed to wear a journalist hat, but I’m still an audio geek fanboy after all these decades, and I can’t help but get excited at all this stuff. That’s not a bad thing, right?
Full disclosure: I do some work for Audience and Audio-Technica, so I'm recusing myself from making any sonic comments about their presence at CAF 2025, other than to note that Audience showed their new ClairAudient Bellare full-range loudspeaker, and Audio-Technica cartridges and turntables were present in a few rooms.
Frank Zappa...er, Jeff Fox and recording artist Anne Bisson reminded us of what a great singer sounds like unamplified. The gear in the Command Performance AV room, including the debut of the Gryphon Antileon Revelation amplifier, reminded us of what great high-end gear sounds like, and their 1970s-themed exhibit reminded us that this whole audio thing is all about having fun. (More to come in the next issue.)
In one of the Gestalt Audio rooms, I finally “got” the virtuosity of bluegrass artist Billy Strings, thanks to the Wolf von Langa SON field-coil loudspeakers ($21,995/pair), an SW1X vacuum-tube PRE III Classic preamplifier and AMP IV Special amp ($28,041 and $20,507), and an analog front end comprised of an SW1X LPU IV special phono preamp with SUT II step-up transformer ($30,301 and $9,048), a TW Acustic Raven GT2 turntable and Raven 10.5 tonearm ($12,500 and $6,000) and a Fuuga MC phono cartridge ($10,995). This system had space, depth, clarity, tone – everything you’d want. Strings’ acoustic guitar and singing, and the musicians came through in a rousing performance. Gestalt was also showing the new Cinnamon Audio Malabar VLF very low frequency aka subwoofer module ($15,995) in the next room along with some other very impressive gear, but I missed it.
One of the Gestalt Audio rooms, this one featuring Wolf von Langa SON field-coil louspeakers. The tweeters are on clear mounting plates positioned for proper time alignment.
I had somehow never heard Rethm loudspeakers before, showcased in one of American Sound Distribution's five rooms. My loss. They’ve been around for about 25 years! I listened to the Rethm Trishna ($13,000/pair), powered by an Italian Synthesis FCO-300B tube amp ($21,000) with a Grimm Audio MU2 streamer as the source. The made in India Trishna is a semi-active design (a trend that seems to be catching on) with a Hypex UCD amp module powering the bass. I was struck by its utterly distinctive yet not radical Bauhaus-like design, and its sound.
An attendee asked for a live Jorma Kaukonen cut (I didn’t catch the name) and the soundspace and clarity were amazing. Then Rethm’s Jacob George put on Anette Askvik’s “Liberty” (see our review in Issue 223) and it was spellbinding. This is one incredible recording, and the ambient bed of synths, her vocals, the saxophone and the electric piano (maybe a synth) had what we veteran audiophiles call palpable presence. Rethm also offers a number of fully active models from the flagship Saadhana ($31,750/pair) to the unique Aarka ($10,500), which is an all-in-one system including server, DAC, preamp, amplification, and stand. You’ll know it by the vacuum tube at its front!
I loved the look and sound of the Rethm Trishna speakers.
I can say the same for this Synthesis FCO-300B amp.
I’ve been a fan of NOLA (formerly Alon) speakers for a very long time. It would be a serious understatement to say that Carl Marchisotto, who goes back to the venerable Dahlquist days, knows how to design a speaker. He has long favored open-baffle midrange/tweeter designs, and their spaciousness and ability to project a deep three-dimensional soundspace is a NOLA hallmark. That and powerful dynamics.
At CAF, NOLA showed their Baby Grand Reference Gold 3 ($150,000/pair) with an Audio Research Reference CD8 CD player, a Valve Amplification Company (VAC) Essence line stage ($10,000), Western Electric 97A monoblock amps ($124,999/pair) and Nordost cables. The speakers employ true ribbon tweeters, alnico-ring-magnet midrange drivers and dual alnico-ring-magnet woofers in separate enclosures. Carl had been plagued by amplifier failures (resulting in having to use a not-optimal amp at the last minute) and other mayhem at last year’s CAF, and the speakers still sounded good. The NOLA team was determined to not let that happen again this year, and oh boy did their efforts paid off.
This system had depth, and was warm, rich, and spacious, with beautiful lifelike detail and incredible bass and dynamic presence on everything from Pink Floyd’s Is there Anybody Out there? The Wall live 1980 – 81 (anyone who happened to be in the room when it was playing lucked into quite a monumental sonic experience) to “The Girl From Ipanema,” to…well, forgive me, but I forgot to take notes and just basked in the music.
The NOLA Baby Grand Reference Gold 3 loudspeakers were impressive to say the least. Courtesy of Kristen Marchisotto.
Why do people like tubes? All you had to do was go to the Border Patrol Audio room to find out. The piano song they were playing sounded beautiful, as did the old Boz Scaggs audiophile standard, “Thanks to You.” The Border Patrol gear looked gorgeous also, with its wood cabinetry an elegant alternative to the usual aluminum and black. It included the debut of the ZOLA DAC, featuring a 5687 triode tube output stage with no oversampling or digital filtering (from $3,950), and the S20EXD 300B tube-based power amp (from $22,500 depending on 300B tube options). The 2-way, high-sensitivity Living Voice R80 OBX speakers ($65,000/pair in the glossy ebony finish on display) were the perfect complement, as were the Triode Wire Labs cables and Innuos music server. An outstanding music-making setup.
Here's the Border Patrol Audio room with the Living Voice R80 OBX speakers.
Often, serendipity comes into play at these shows. I walked into one of Cambridge, Massachusetts dealer Blink High End’s rooms just as they had swapped out an expensive Linn electronics rig for a Creek Audio 4040 A integrated amp/DAC and 4040 CD player, each costing $1,580. I mean, these are tiny little things by high-end uber-gear standards, measuring about 8.5 by 2.5 by 10 inches. They hooked up the Creek gear to a pair of most excellent FinkTeam Borg (Episode 2) speakers ($37,950/pair)…and the sound was incredible! Musical bliss. Chris Botti singing and playing trumpet on “What A Wonderful World” made you realize that at least in the high-end audio world, well, yeah, it is.
The modestly-sized but mighty combination of the Creek 4040 A integrated amp/DAC and 4040 CD player.
The fact that you don’t need to spend a checkbook-draining amount to get satisfying sound was also emphatically demonstrated in the DC Hi-Fi Group, which showed an alternating selection of three budget audio systems. I only got to hear one, with the JBL 306P MK II powered speakers ($399/pair) and Fosi Audio ZD3 DAC/preamp ($179), the least-expensive system of the three at $577 total. Well, you know what? It sounded really good. I think you or I could live with it happily ever after. No ifs, ands, buts, or apologies.
The systems I didn’t get to hear were the ones with the Hivi Swan D3.1 MK II speakers ($550/pair), SMSL VMV A1 Pro amp ($495) and WiiM Ultra music streamer ($296; total system price $1,341), and the system that included the Cambridge Audio SX80 speakers ($799/pair) and Evo 150 SE integrated amplifier/DAC ($3,299; total system price $4,099). DC Hi-Fi’s Chris Baker said I needed to hear the HIVI Swan D3.1 MK IIs, but I wasn’t able to amid the show chaos. Next time.
The DC HiFi Group demonstrated three attractively-priced systems. The JBL 306P MK II speakers I auditioned are on the inside.
And if you wanted even more proof that high-end audio doesn’t have to have crazy-high prices, there stood the new Chesky Audio LC2 Reference Monitor speakers at $1,999 a pair. Joining the $999/pair LC1s that have caused such a stir, the LC2 features upgraded drivers, solid aluminum baffles, dual passive sub-bass radiators, high-quality internal parts, and a one-piece double-walled composite-filled cabinet.
Powered by Schiit Audio electronics and fed by a laptop, the LC2 had, well…more of everything I loved about its predecessor, with an expansive soundstage, better detail, more extended bass, and bigger dynamics. Like its older sibling, the LC2 delivers far bigger sound than you’d expect upon first seeing it. This is a true audiophile speaker that any of us could live with happily ever after.
If you want yet another bargain, check out Gingko Audio’s MooVu speaker kit. I reported on it in Issue 224, so check out my description there for details.
M101 offered a simple demo – they swapped a power cord running to an integrated amp with their entry-level Flare power cord. The improvement to me was obvious, especially the expansion of the soundstage. Their room easily had the best décor at the show, no contest: a wall that looked like a sci-fi portal to another dimension. It wasn’t just for looks, though: the wall was actually a Silentmax 3D acoustic panel from RDacoustic Solutions from the Czech Republic, who are distributed by M101. The range of panels’ striking geometry is derived from mathematical formulas, and the proprietary materials offer absorption, diffusion, or a hybrid of both.
A gateway into another dimension? No, it's a SilentMax acoustic panel.
The other side of the M101 room had another SilentMax panel in a dazzling mirror finish.
Even with that, the most exciting thing at the M101 booth for me might have gone unnoticed by the casual observer. It was a book. A book titled Passport to Sound.
For decades, the audio industry has been wringing its hands over the fact that we need to attract more young people. Well, someone is doing something really cool about it: M101’s May Anwar has created a children’s book that explains the principles of audio by means of a treasure hunt that guides listeners through an audio show! There are chapters on learning how audio components work, hunting for specific gear, finding speakers and headphones, and even learning about different types of cables and accessories.
And it’s not just for kids. As May told me in an e-mail, “I was honestly surprised by the age range of people who wanted to learn about the audiophile world through it.” You will become a really trained listener by going through the book – no matter what your age.
I am going to devote a separate article just to Passport to Sound in a future issue.
A good time is assured at the two VPI suites the company usually has at CAF. Both sounded exceptional, for different reasons. For the big Jefferson room, Harry and Mat Weisfeld and company brought the big JBL Project Everest DD66000 speakers, a big design with a compression horn tweeter and midrange and dual 15-inch drivers.
In this room with a no-holds-barred equipment roster, the dynamic power was incredible. Harry played the legendary M&K Realtime LP, Ed Graham’s Hot Stix, and it was quite simply the most lifelike reproduction of a drum kit I have ever heard, almost scary in its intensity. Other cuts were equally intense, from a Tokens record of doo-wop classics to the old standby Dire Straits’ “Money for Nothing,” where the intro alone was a world of sound I never realized was on the record, and when Mark Knopfler’s signature guitar riff came in, it was almost ridiculously intense.
The big VPI room made quite an impression. Those JBL Project Everest DD66000 had not only room to breathe and come together coherently, they had TNT-like sonic power.
The other VPI setup in the Adams room was more sonically restrained but impressive in its own way. It alternated between the Acora Acoustics MRB1 bookshelf speakers ($8,000/pair) and in an after-hours listening party, the Luminous Audio Technology Tempest and Nemesis loudspeaker and subwoofer combination ($14,995/pair).
In addition to the JBL Project Everest speakers, the big room featured the VPI Vanquish turntable setup, stand, Fatboy and Bird of Prey tonearms ($80,000, $60,000, $6,000 and $15,950), plus the VPI Shyla, Grado Statement 3, Audio-Technica AT-ART20 and Tzar DST cartridges ($2,200, $3,500, $3,200, and $10,000), with an Audio Research 3SE phono stage, 6Se line stage and 160M monoblocks ($22,500, $22,500 and $45,000/pair), along with Nordost Odin cable. The smaller room had two VPI Model One turntables with Goldy and Shyla cartridges ($5,850, $1,300 and $2,200), accompanied by a VAC Signature preamp and integrated amplifier and Luminous Audio cable.
This all-out VPI Vanquish rig was one of many exceptional turntable setups at CAF 2025.
Although all the speakers sounded exceptional: the JBL Everest for its power and scale, the and Acora MRB1 as a vastly overachieving bookshelf, I have to mention the Tempest loudspeaker/Nemesis subwoofer combination for its natural, effortless sound. It’s a collaboration between Tim Stinson of Luminous Audio and the late Albert von Schweikert and was Albert’s last design before he passed. Tim told me that he spent hundreds of hours on the enclosure design alone, which is made from 23 laminated layers, all slightly different to minimize internal resonances. At a post-show-hours listening party we enjoyed all kinds of music with a lot of jazz, and since I am a jazz freak I was in after-hours heaven. Miles Davis and Bill Evans spoke to me that night.
Jazz heaven could be experienced in the second VPI room, which featured the Luminous Audio Technology Tempest/Nemesis speaker/sub combination.
I was stoked to see the return of a legendary audio brand, Pilot Radio, “Established in 1919, Brooklyn, NY – Reborn 2025, Dallas/Portland,” as their flyer noted. Founded by Isidor Goldberg, vintage audio buffs may remember Pilot for its radio receivers, the first battery-powered portable radios in 1937, and in the 1950s a line of highly-regarded high fidelity equipment. Sid Smith of Marantz and Dick Sequerra of legendary tuner fame both worked for Pilot back then. In 1966 the Goldberg Electronics Center was founded at the Israel Institute of Technology’s Technion, to carry on Pilot’s legacy.
In 2025, Pilot is reborn, with a new preamp, and a stereo amp based on the original 1959 model 232, thanks to the efforts of founder/entrepreneur Barak Epstein, great-grandson of Isidor Goldberg. The new components look remarkably like the originals – the color and the shape of the cooling vents on the tube cages are indistinguishable from vintage models, and the form factor hearkens to the designs of the past. The preamp (now shipping) offers phono and line inputs, and the amp (available in 2026) features balanced and line inputs, individual channel volume controls, custom US-made transformers, point-to-point internal wiring and delivers 16 watts per channel of pure Class A power via EL84 tubes.
I had a brief listen to some vinyl jazz through headphones and the sound was superb – clear and tonally spot-on, an inviting presentation of music. I will have much more to say about the revival of Pilot Radio and its history in an interview in an upcoming issue.
Robert and Barak Epstein have revived the Pilot Radio brand.
This is the new Pilot Radio stereo amplifier. The tube cage looks uncannily like those on the vintage Pilot components.
Last year I had high praise for Grandinote’s 2024 Capital Audiofest exhibit featuring their Mach 8XL large-tower speakers (in Issue 214). This year they showed their newest-iteration Mach 8 Evoluzione speakers with a Grandinote Solo integrated amplifier/DAC/streamer connected with Kimber Kable. The speakers were upgraded with new carbon fiber side panels and their internal volume is about 2.5 times more than the Mach 8XL. They retain the crossover-less multiple line-array driver design of the Mach 8XL. In 2024 I noted, “I thought I’d suffered enough hearing loss that I couldn’t hear layered depth anymore. Well, no…the image specificity, depth, scale and ability of the sound to extend beyond the room was, in the true sense of the word, incredible.” Though my auditions were a year apart, I’m confident that I heard even more sonic excellence with the Mach 8XL Evoluzione, which delivered a large-scale, wide, deep and pure sonic presentation.
The Grandinote and Kimber Kable room once again had impressive sound.
Many of the same companies that were at T.H.E. Show New York 2025 also participated in Capital Audiofest 2025 three weeks later, so it was instructive to hear their speakers and electronics in a different sonic environment. Innovo Audio Designs once again showed their Luxe T1 powered speaker system (beginning at $24,000/pair), this time in a smaller room, and once again it sounded exceptional. See my comments in Issue 224 for details. Let’s just say that listening to “Birds” by Dominique Fils-Aimé was captivating.
"The Sound of Luxury": Innovo Audio Designs' Luxe T1 speaker system. Just add your music source.
A new product announcement by Canadian speaker maker Gershman Acoustics is always big news. At CAF 2025 they debuted the Symphoria ($70,000/pair), a 3-way tower that features dual custom 8-inch woofers, each with its own specially-designed bass trap chamber, which redirects and dissipates bass energy before it can reflect back through the woofer cone, along with a custom midrange and 1-inch tweeter. Gershman’s Separate Sub Alignment System (SSAS) floats the midrange/tweeter module on IsoAcoustics isolation devices to completely isolate it from the bass enclosure. The module actually is springy if you push on it (which Ofra Gershman did to prove its isolation!).
The removable walnut grilles are striking, and gorgeous, as was the sound. The Symphoria was paired with the incredible new LampizatOr Aphrodite DAC ($105,000; yeah, like a lot of high-end gear these days, not cheap, but if you have any preconceived notions about digital sound, this DAC will annihilate them), LampizatOr Gulfstream music server ($8,500), VAC Master 300 mk2 mono amps ($44,000/each) and Master preamp (starting at $30,000) and Cardas Audio Clear Beyond cabling. Chick Corea and his band playing “The Hilltop” sounded like they were right in front of us. I mean, seriously. LampizatOr’s Fred Ainsley and I had to remind each other to get out of our listening chairs and go back to working the show instead of listening to song after song. I could go on and on with all the audiophile cliches, but really, what more do you need to know?
Gershman Acoustics premiered their Symphoria loudspeaker.
ATC once again showed their SCM20ASL active loudspeaker. I covered it in Part Two of my CAF 2024 show report. I wish Rumer was there to hear herself singing "Walk On By" via these speakers.
Germany's Avantgarde Acoustic new MezzoG3 horn loudspeakers (starting at $108,600/pair) and Twin Subwoofers with dual 12-inch woofers ($70,000/pair) created a powerful sound in the American Sound Distribution suite, with the aid of a Wadax Studio digital player ($40,800), Esoteric CX01 preamplifier and E-02 phono stage, Perpetuum Ebner PE 6060 turntable ($6,500) and Analog Relax EX 500 cartridge ($5,500). Anette Askvik's "Liberty" was a vast, immersive soundscape through this system.
Geshelli Labs never fails to put on an impressive display. I confess I had to rush through this one, though I'm familiar with their gear from previous shows for their combination of beautiful custom woodwork, outstanding sound, and down to earth pricing.
Chestertown, MD dealer The Listening Room had four exhibits at the show, including this one in the Washington Theatre featuring a Magnepan speaker setup and an incredibly impressive Wilson Benesch turntable system. It's the black stack of gear at the left, and this photo doesn't begin to do it justice.
Well, maybe this one does. Apologies; I'm up against a deadline wall and will have to get pricing and specs next issue.
I will have much more to say about Capital Audiofest 2025 in Part Two, in Issue 226.
Header image: Seattle, Washington dealer Jaguar Audio's room was one of the most striking at the show. Although my stay there was brief, literally the last room I visited before leaving, I did get to admire the super-high-tech Klaudio Magnezar turntable with its magnetically levitated platter, liquid platter stabilization, and other features the company says is still in development. The Magnezar was mated with a unique pivoting tangential tonearm said to eliminate tracking error. Here's a look:
All images courtesy of the author except where noted.
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