Toronto Audiofest 2025: Complete Show Coverage, Biggest Gear Reveals, And Best Demos
What happened, what to buy, special highlights, plus our best audiophile gear picks!
Toronto Audiofest 2025 Show Report By Rick Becker

Level 2
Tucked into a hallway behind the elevators was a row of sleeping rooms including four additional listening rooms. Hopefully, these did not escape your viewing, as among them was another Enjoy the Music.com Best of Toronto Audiofest 2025 Blue Note Award at the show! 

The Chord Company

The Chord Company (as opposed to Chord Electronics, also from the UK) was putting on a demonstration of their various cables. I always recommend novice audiophiles attend such a demonstration, as it emphasizes the importance of good cables and a clean, stable AC feed to your system. Such demonstrations require a bit of patience, but you can learn a lot, and they may well change some of your thinking.

The rig was reversed to facilitate swapping out cables, but this idea led me to reverse the power supply of the Coincident Statement Phono stage in my rack to facilitate turning it on. This was especially helpful as it was located on the bottom shelf.

Everything here was from Great Britain except the Innuos streamer. The Neat speakers are modest in size and often underrated. Check them out, particularly if you have a small room.

Audio Eden

I don't know whether it was the mellow yellow of the Kharma speakers or music itself, but I just melted when I entered this room—both times. Kharma were my reference speakers for many years, and these are even better than the generation I had. They are slightly less efficient and drop down to 4 Ohms, so they require more powerful tube amps than I like to run, but they were gorgeous with the Mark Levinson amplification here. There was no question in my mind that this was one of the Best Rooms.

And what I was saying about the importance of your AC power above? That was a Synergistic Research PowerCell 12 UEF on the bottom left, not unlike the PowerCell 14 in my own rig. The Nordost cables used here were also on the expensive end of their lineup.

Unfortunately, I didn't get to hear the Takumi turntable that is offered at a reasonable price.

Off to the side on stands were Harbeth P3ESR in an optional Premium Walnut Burr finish.

Audio Eden is a brick-and-mortar store in Woodbridge, Ontario, on the north side of Toronto that has been around for decades.

On Sunday, during my sweep of the show, I ran into Vince Scalzitti of Tri-Cell Enterprises who is the new importer of Kharma speakers heard here, and offered my congratulations. His son, of the same name, has been the manager there for many years. Vince (Sr.) wanted me to know he also distributes Hana phono cartridges for Canada.

GoldenEar

I had raved about the new GoldenEar T44 at the Montreal show, where it was played in a large room with a modest rig. I have to say I was less impressed with this showing in a smaller room. I suspect it was either the music or the setup in the room, as this was all very good equipment. My video clip reveals AC/DC playing "Thunderstruck" from The Razors Edge.

The T44 looks a lot classier in the red finish, though it is offered at a $600 premium.

The Moon 371 streaming amplifier from the Compass Collection on the top shelf was also new. Not on the equipment list was the McIntosh MEN220 Room Correction System, which should have helped the sound quality here, so maybe it was just AC/DC music. Between these two units was a Moon integrated amp, not on the list.

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