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

JansZen Audio
David JanZen was the first person to say hello when I entered the hotel on Thursday evening, looking for a show program. I remembered him as well as his very fine speakers, which I found on Friday at the end of the 8th Floor.

With a combination of electrostatic and dynamic drivers, and offered as passive and active versions starting at $9,250. The addition of small drivers on each side enhances the sound, giving a holographic presentation that I find very inviting. I was surprised to learn they also have a small stand-mounted version of this concept. I've followed the floorstanding Valentin speaker at shows for a handful of years now, and it never fails to impress—either acoustically, or visually with its unique form factor and high-quality workmanship.

Chesky Audio
Lucca Chesky might have gotten people into his room, being the son of David Chesky, a renowned musician, composer, and recording engineer, but his inaugural LC1 monitor ($1k) caught their attention last year. Ron Nagle reviewed the speaker for Enjoy The Music.com and gave it a Blue Note Award for 2025. This year, Lucca followed up with the LC2 ($2k) at a higher level of design and fabrication that was more than twice as impressive. It is also noticeably larger. The 3-D printed cabinet features a thick aluminum front baffle, and the small random pyramids inside the larger diffraction triangles beside the tweeter are now machined into the surface.

While his life has been immersed in his musical family, he is now in college studying computer science, which will one day cycle back into music and audio design. He's got the music and design chops. Now, he just needs to source a stickier double-sided tape to hold up the black curtains in his room.

The rig was comprised of a Schiit Audio Yggdrasil Singular DAC ($3499), Kara preamp ($799), and Wotan power amp ($2k), all solid gear without paying for any frills. I've reviewed their early BiFrost DAC and entry-level Mani phono stage ($150!!!) and been very impressed with the value.

Kimber Kable  (Grandinote)
While Kimber Kable was the name associated with the room, the gear was from Grandinote in Italy. Max Magri was on hand for the world premiere of his Mach 8 Evoluzione speaker ($128k). It has an aluminum chassis made of milled aluminum of differing thickness, depending on where each panel is used. Additional 15mm thick panes of carbon fiber are from a supplier to Lamborghini for additional stiffening and sound damping. They run the full length of the speaker There is no internal vibration-absorbing material. It features a compression horn driver in the center with four mid-woofers above and four below it, all without a crossover—a configuration he has used in the past with the original Mach 8 speaker.

The music was very transparent without a crossover and very high resolution. It surprised me that I could still feel vibrations through the aluminum and carbon fiber, but they did not seem to affect the transparency or resolution.

The Solo amplifier puts out 60 Watts per channel in Class A with no capacitors in the signal path of its unique architecture. The touch screen also works as VU meters and a spectrum analyzer. It was fitted with an optional DAC/streamer board, and a phono board is also available.

With 98dB/W/m sensitivity, the Mach 8 Evoluzione can be driven by even low-powered tube amplifiers. While great resolution and dynamics are easily obtained with this speaker, careful room placement and seating position are necessary to bring out the deepest bass.

Kimber Kables supplied the cables in the form of a Palladian power cord from their flagship Summit series and KS6065 speaker cables from their flagship Select series. The speaker cable is the thicker one in the photo above. With a system this compact, you can afford to spend more money on higher quality cables to achieve even greater results.

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