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

Alma Audio
This second room from Alma was also very fine-sounding and musical. Unfortunately, the Reed turntable was idle, giving way to streaming, which was the dominant source at the show. The rig included an Air Tight phono stage, preamp, and power amplifier.

The Stenheim speaker from Switzerland was sounding very good driven by the Air Tight tube amp, but I caution people considering this speaker brand to choose their amplifier carefully.

Also seen in this and other rooms were room treatment panels from Nemesis, a house brand of Alma Audio, that seemed to be effective and offered a wide variety of graphics. They may even do custom work with your own images, but don't quote me.

Alma Audio
In this room, I'm on my own trying to identify the gear. For starters, it was another very good sounding room. That was anXact streamer below the turntable. Below that, in red, were likely an SPL Director mk2 preamp with DAC ($4.7k), SPL Phonos phono stage ($2.5k), and in black, an SPL Performer S900 stereo amp ($5.5k).

The unique speaker was a Basel Acoustics V-01 Concept ($19.8k) from Switzerland with a suspended tweeter module that could vibrate front to rear. The design, I thought, was refined and exceptional.

On the back was mounted another tweeter, and you can just barely make out the two leads of the Kubala-Sosna speaker cable sliding under the cabinet.

The white turntable was the less expensive of the two Luphonic tables shown; this one being the H2 ($5k). The round puck on the left was black on one side and white on the other. With the white side down, it signaled the turntable to play at 33.3 and the number "33" lit up with the speed. Flip it over, and the turntable will play at 45 rpm, and light up with that number. The black and white layers of the plinth are Neoprene and Corian for constrained layer damping. It was equipped with a Hana ML cartridge ($1200). Very trick! And obviously very contemporary.

Alma Audio
I'm not sure what the Midrange Magic refers to, but when I see a Moonriver component on the rack, I suspect Philip O'Hanlon of On A Higher Note is close at hand. Perhaps he is re-branding? In any case, here was yet another fine-sounding room and a rare opportunity to hear the Franco Serblin Accordo Essence speakers ($22k).

If the speakers look like a more highly evolved Sonus Faber with their string grilles, that's because Franco Serblin founded that company also. He has passed away, but I believe his son is carrying on the business, and this may be a more refined version of the Accordo.

This is the more expensive Luphonic R3 turntable with a 12" arm and five layers Corian (white) and Neoprene (black). ($8,490) The Moonriver 505 was used as the phono stage.

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