Inside CAF 2025 Luxury Hi-Fi Show Part 1 — Capital Audiofest's Top Floors With 84 Rooms
New trends you need to know about, the latest audio gear, and not to be missed rooms!
Capital Audiofest 2025 Show Report By Rick Becker

Master Artist Audio
In the adjacent room was a much larger Burmester rig with Master Artist Masterpiece Tower speakers priced at $65k and $45k. It seems the higher you go in the speaker line, "the greater value you realize". Again, these were covered in OEM Porsche leather, and from me experience in the furniture industry, I can assure you the leather was expertly applied. These were high-end audio class speakers and priced accordingly.

This was the most sophisticated color and leather application of the Master Artist speakers shown here. Subtle tones usually are. The design of the speaker is similar to the tower speakers I've seen and heard from Burmester. Whereas the Burmester speakers feature more edgy contemporary lines and lots of chrome, the Master Artist speakers emphasize texture with the leather and wood combinations, and the overall look is less blingy and softer, which probably has greater appeal on this side of the ocean, outside of just a few major cities.

On the left was the digital Reference Line 111 Music Center ($60k), the Reference Line 808 preamp (starting at $77k), and the Reference Line 175 turntable that comes with tonearm, built-in phono stage, and external power supply ($65k). For those who might be curious, that was not an authentic Shun Mook record clamp.

A banner revealed the internal design and documented the components.

GoldenEar
GoldenEar put on a splendid display of their T44 speaker driven by an Anthem integrated amp, a streamer, and AudioQuest power conditioner and cabling. It dug really deep and solid on the "I owe my soul to the company store" line that was heard numerous times at the show.

Wondering how good this speaker really is, I wanted to drag them down the hall and hook them up to one of the Burmester rigs. I'll bet they are selling boatloads of these. It's a speaker you can start with and grow with as you upgrade the rest of your rig.

IsoAcoustics
My review of the IsoAcoustics Gaia Neo I footers came out within the December 2025 issue of Enjoy the Music.com's internationally-recognized audiophile and high-end audio Review Magazine, along with this show report, and it's very positive. In the context of this show, the room didn't seem to get as much attention as it has at Toronto Audiofest 2025 and Montreal Audiofest 2025, where they constantly run a demo between the same speaker with and without the Gaia footers. If you get a chance to sit and listen in a quiet environment, the benefit is quite obvious. The Gaia Neo comes in three sizes for speakers of different weights. The three sizes can be seen on the bottom shelf of the rack.

Modest components, appropriate for the speakers, were sitting on zaZen 1 vibration-absorbing platforms, also from IsoAcoustics.

They were using Monitor Audio Silver 100 series speakers, but the benefit was just as obvious on my Acora speakers. It was nice to meet Sean Morrison, one of the sons of founder Dave Morrison, at the show.

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