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

Command Performance AV
Rhythm imports both Luxman from Japan and Marten speakers from Sweden. They put together a relatively modest system in their room with a network transport, DAC, and L-505Z, their entry-level integrated amp. Cabling was by WireWorld, and I noticed the GAIA Neo footers from IsoAcoustics on the speaker stands.

Popori
The Popori Acoustics colorful electrostatic speakers from Hungary were certainly eye-catching. They also had the Vitorla model on display in the hotel lobby.

This was intriguing, probably the Bacch-SP Audio Stereo purifier with DAC, but I didn't get an explanation of what it was.

The Atma-sphere Class D monoblocks appeared to have been replaced by the Coda amp in the rack.

Alma Audio
Alma Music & Audio had the next five rooms on this hallway and were well prepared with cheat sheets for the press, or so I thought, until I started writing and discovered some sheets don't fully correlate with what I see in the photos. Close, in some cases, but no cigar. I'm beginning to recall I've had this same nightmare before.

Well Pleased AV
This first room was very good, and Qln speakers from Sweden have earned my praise with impressive sound quality, superb fit and finish, and modest, real-room size.

The music here was very smooth and listenable with plenty of air and bloom, as you would expect from the Audio Hungary Qualition tube amplifier with a quartet of 300B tubes. This was also the first of six rooms equipped with cabling from Kubala Sosna. The top shelf held anXact streamer, and below it was a Merason DAC.

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