Inside CAF 2025 Luxury Hi-Fi Show Part 2 — Capital Audiofest's Large Exhibit Rooms And Lobby Displays
Fresh trends, the hottest audio equipment, and rooms everyone's talking about.
Capital Audiofest 2025 Show Report By Rick Becker

The Meeting Rooms & Tables
Circling the opening to the Atrium below, I started with the three meeting rooms that faced the Atrium.

United Home Audio And High End By Oz
In a room that previously featured MBL gear from Germany, High End by Oz filled in to assist United Home Audio in presenting their new Apollo Evo tape deck.

That was a separate power supply directly below the tape deck.

This looks like the Viva Solista integrated amp with a quartet of 845 tubes delivering Class A power from its single-ended triode design with zero negative feedback.

A Stenheim Alumine Five SE with a solid billet aluminum platform for more precision alignment, a room control panel, grounding post, and anodized tweeter horn was featured. With an efficiency of 94dB/W/m, it was easily driven by the Viva amp.

Odessey Audio
Klaus Bunge put together what seemed like a carbon copy of his room last year with the new architectural speaker, though it was so dark and crowded, I didn't bother staying to investigate with my camera. A room sheet told a different story. He was using his new Meilenstein Mono Reference amps ($9,800/pr.) along with a Symphonic Line Erleuchtung preamp that starts at $8k, but had an optional 60 lbs reference power supply. A Symphonic Line CD player started at $4k.

The Meilenstein Temple speakers ($8,500) I had seen before. This time, I recognized the lower pedestal of the speaker actually housed a second mid-woofer (ScanSpeak Revelator), which helps explain the excellent full-range sound. The tweeters are either ScanSpeak Illuminator or optional Scan Beryllium. The speakers include an internal grounding box, and the 115 lb. speaker is filled with an additional 80 lb. of sand. Klaus gives credit to Matthew Osborn @ Osborn Design and Craft in Indianapolis for building the speakers.

Since this 2.5-way architectural design is a boutique, made-to-order item, I expect you could work with the designer to finish it to your liking, which should have serious appeal to those who care about their décor. The sound quality is very good for a speaker in this price range.

Cabling was by Magnam, which is above entry-level pricing, but far from outrageous. The tonearm was from Graham Engineering, and I believe all music played in this room was from LPs.

I knelt on the floor long enough to determine that the sound was excellent. It was SRO each time I doubled back, which tells you something. And it wasn't just the candlelight. The room was larger than his room in Chicago, and it sounded even better.

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