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

American Sound Distribution
The Regency room is second in size only to the Potomac room with the VAC / Acora Acoustics presentation, and it is even closer to having a square footprint. Nola had presented their great speakers here in recent years without much room treatment and had mostly fallen far short of their speakers' potential. This year, in a rectangular sleeping room (707), the same-sized Nola speaker was fantastic.

It took Angi Lisi from American Sound Distribution in Toronto to finally tame this room. She did it by dividing the room with a large drape and putting a row of heavily upholstered seating along with a row of banquet chairs in front of that drape. Then, around the side walls and in front of the drapery (which is what you see when you walk into the room), she placed additional displays of speakers and electronics. All of this worked to break up the standing waves and echoes in the room.

From myself and everyone here at Enjoy the Music.com, congratulations Angi!

The big rig featured the Avantgarde Mezzo G3 speakers in red horns with black bodies ($108.6k) fitted with the optional iTron internal amplification ($29k). Some folks might have heard these speakers driven by Synthesis model 96 SE vacuum tube monoblocks ($8,400/pr.). The Mezzo G3 was supplemented with a pair of Avantgarde Twin Subwoofers ($70k/pr.), seen as the large boxes beside each loudspeaker. Be sure to read the Avantgarde Acoustic UNO SD hornspeaker review, where Enjoy the Music.com's Senior Editor Tom Lyle said, "the luckiest I've ever felt was when reviewing the Avantgarde UNO SD speakers."

Here's a look at the complexity of the iTron internal amplification.

The Colibri was on the left, and the Uno SD was on the right. American Sound had a lot of products on display in this room. Most of it was spread out, making it difficult to take a concise, coherent photo.

The sophisticated red horns with the piano black chassis on the Avantgarde Duo SD were stunning in the harsh fluorescent lighting and would be a knock-out in a creatively lit home.

Banners were used throughout the show and were an essential room treatment in the large Regency room. In the lower left corner of the photo was one of the Synthesis tube monoblocks that were supposedly used at some point. It would have been fun to hear the high-efficiency Avantgarde speakers driven by tubes.

Perpetuum turntables from Germany are a relatively new line for American Sound. The PE 6060 model used in the main rig was $6,500 with a similar profile, and it was fitted with an Analog Relax EX 500 cartridge ($5k) from Japan. (A new Analog Relax EX-700 wood-bodied phono cartridge was introduced at $8,600.) An Esoteric E-02 phono stage was used, along with an Esoteric CX-01 preamp.

The digital side of the main rig was a Wadax Studio player ($40.8k).

The music I heard here from the digital source was the "Big John" song with a very deep male voice. Transparent, dynamic, and high resolution come to mind. It's always fun to listen to such efficient horn speakers, and more would be found further down the hall.

Outside the Regency Room, American Sound had a Synthesis demonstration of their new 300 Series with an HDP-300B headphone amp at your disposal, with three sets of headphones for you to audition.

Mid Atlantic Antique Radio Club
Back in the hall, I found the Mid-Atlantic Antique Radio Club. If I had known they would be here, I might have brought down my vintage AR2 speakers for appraisal.

Those were KLH speakers against the wall with a Garrard turntable casually plopped on top of them.

Matterhorn, Thuono, And Blink High End
I passed by Plaza 1 on my first go-around, likely because they keep the door closed to keep the noise from the busy hallway out. With multiple banners and the way the door blends into the wall, it could be an easy oversight. I'm glad I figured out I missed it, as it was a very rare opportunity to hear a top-shelf Audio Group Denmark rig with an analog front end. It was just this year somewhere that I even saw an Aavik phono stage.

That the entire rig totaled more than a million dollars was something you don't get to hear at every show, aside from Chicago and a few European and Far East shows. The Borresen M3 loudspeakers alone were $294k, and the new Ansuz D-TC3 Gold Signature cables, plus their accessories and Ansuz racks, totaled $500k. Each of the Aavik 800-series components was $73.5k, including the R-880 phono stage. It adds up quickly.

This was the American premiere of the Thuono TH-400 turntable ($59.5k), although I recall seeing a Thuono turntable at a previous show, likely in this same room last year. Each of the two plinths of this Italian masterpiece is comprised of an aluminum and Nero Marquinia marble layer and supported by high-precision magnetic suspensions. The oversize 400mm platter created significant inertia that delivered outstanding PRAT and dynamics. With the Ortofon Verismo cartridge fitted, resolution was superb. It made me wonder why more high-profile turntable manufacturers don't take advantage of oversized platters.

The raised portion of the platter fit within the outer lip of the LP, allowing greater LP-to-platter contact and facilitated the removal of the record. While the price of the TH-400 was up there, it included the tonearm, and the value seemed very good. The design was very approachable with its single-motor belt drive, and given its elegance, they should have named it The Michelangelo.

The Thuono TH-350 may be an even greater value at somewhere near half the price, and the "entry level" TH-300 is even more affordable, but deletes the oversized platter and relies on plinths comprised solely of marble.

Off to the side was an intriguing CS Port IME1 static electricity removal and magnetic eraser device intended to be suspended very slightly above the LP when it was played. Coming from Japan, where analog playback is revered, this device needs further exploration. I wasn't able to see it in action.

An unlabeled table with Deluxe Edition LPs from original master tapes, some CDs, and a couple of products from Stillpoints.

---> Next Page.