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

Sunday, November 16th
Sunday was another beautiful day in Rockville and here at Capital Audiofest 2025 reporting for Enjoy the Music.com. I revisited a few of the important rooms and a couple of rooms I missed on the upper floors of the hotel. Two of them were noted at the beginning of this Part 2 CAF report.

The Atrium Rooms
Looking down into the Atrium, you might have thought it was all display tables and LP records, but there are two significant rooms off to the left as you descend the grand staircase, plus the very obvious Potomac room with the huge VAC banner above the door, with a large elevated mezzanine in front of it. I'll cover those first before flitting through the Atrium floor itself. Here's the floor plan to orient you:

House Of Stereo
This is a large room, and House of Stereo from Jacksonville, FL chose to present three systems in this room.

To the right was a Focal all-in-one speaker, which I mistook for the original Diva Utopia ($40k), but closer inspection indicates it is the new Diva Mezza Utopia ($69k). It features four 8" side-firing woofers and internal signal processing and amplification by its sister company, Naim. I didn't get to hear it.

At the back of the room was a pair of Silent Pound Challenger II speakers ($39k) from Lithuania, another NATO partner, that gave me a much better impression of what they can do than the first time I saw them, where they were crammed into a sleeping room filled with lots of people. The music was highly resolved, very transparent, and holographic.

It is much better looking than I recall, although there is no disguising the fact that it is a loudspeaker. Central to its patent-pending technology is that it projects sound straight forward, minimizing reflections in the room. Note the flagship SRX XL speaker cables ($50k) from Synergistic Research used here.

Out back, the crossover is visible through a clear cover.

Acoustic Arts gear included a Player III CD player with DAC ($15k) in the lower left, a Preamp V Phono above it, and their Amp IV dual mono power amp ($41k) that puts out 400 Wpc @ 8 Ohms, down to 810 Wpc @ 2 Ohms. A Wolf Audio server supplied the digital music. The rack was by Solidsteel.

A Synergistic Research PowerCell 8 SX, which I have reviewed, was sitting on an SR Tranquility Base Carbon. Synergistic SRX interconnects and power cords were also used, providing excellent AC power and signal transfer. Here are some of the prices in this fine rig:

Silent Pound Challenger II Loudspeakers $38,999

Wolf Audio Systems Red Wolf 2 SX Music Server  $16,500

Audio-Technica ART1000X Cartridge  $5,999

Synergistic Research SRX XL Speaker Cables   $39,995

Synergistic Research SRX XL Interconnects  $16,995 / 1 meter

Synergistic Research SRX XL Power Cords   $13,000 / 6ft.

Synergistic Research PowerCell 8 SX. Conditioner   $4,000

Synergistic Research Galileo Ground Block MKII   $7,500

A third system, a quirky combination of components, included an integrated amp and Hi-Res Audio streamer / DAC from Quad in the UK.

The unusual Audio Technica round Hotaru turntable ($10k) had a translucent platter that changed colors over time. Unfortunately, its rather steep price will likely keep younger audiophiles from jumping all over it.

The floorstanding loudspeaker was acquired by Cambridge Audio, which bought out the lot from British speaker manufacturer Mordaunt-Short when it ceased operations. Cambridge tweaked the speaker a bit. House of Stereo bought eight pairs, which they renamed the Edge S. It reminded me somewhat of the Vivid Audio Kaya speakers, but at a far lower price. I didn't hear this rig, but if you're in the neighborhood of Jacksonville, FL, it might be worth a visit. Here are some prices:

Quad Platina Integrated Amplifier            $4,995

Quad Platina Stream (Streamer/DAC)     $4,995

Cambridge Audio Edge S Loudspeakers  $8,000

Audio-Technica Hotaru Turntable $10,000

Distinctive Stereo
The Frederick Room is sometimes a bit of a circus, but always with interesting products, with two or three rigs often set up for listening. Larry Borden from Distinctive Stereo in northern New Jersey is the ringmaster.

Again this year, I was impressed by the sound quality coming from the half-width Heed components.

Gary Koh of Genesis has worked hard to keep the price of his new loudspeakers under control, but the price has risen since his early prototypes. Part of this, of course, has been due to the inflation caused by supply chain interruption and quantitative easing in the aftermath of 2020. I complimented Gary on the smooth, dust-free finish he is now achieving, and he said he finally found an American product that would work well on the Plyboo chassis, which is made here in the U.S. 

The spike & footer solution is also a corner that has been cut, but I couldn't complain about the resolution, transparency, and dynamics he has achieved. It should be able to take aftermarket footers if you really feel it needs improvement. Be sure to read Enjoy the Music.com's Genesis Advanced Technologies Premium Platinum Phono Preamplifier review and our Genesis G7 Samba floorstanding loudspeaker review.

I was more intrigued by the larger system that had the Design Build Listen Wand 14-4 turntable with all the tweaks, including the new dark/light 10.3" tonearm. I noted again that the platter was oversized to improve performance, and the center was slightly raised to facilitate lifting the LP. Each wood section of the plinth has 25 layers plus the black synthetic top surface layer.

The cartridge end of the arm has been markedly improved to facilitate mounting the cartridge, and a lift arm has been included to facilitate positioning the arm. Once again, it was fitted with the very fine Hypersonic X4 cartridge.

Very intriguing was the Genesis prototype SiC Class D monoblock in a carbon fiber chassis. Gary shared more than I can talk about, but I can say that he hopes his research will take Class D to the next level. At this point, he is not anticipating manufacturing it, but rather licensing the technology to other manufacturers. He has created some outstanding products in his lifetime, and I expect no less from this endeavor. He is very excited about it.

I also noted the Lateral amp stand had a set of highly engineered footers on it. Here is a list of the components in the larger system:

Outside the Frederick room, I spotted Rich Pinto of Treehaus Audio Lab in Connecticut, who dropped down to Rockville to scout out the show. It was a real pleasure to meet Mayu Sommovigo of Black Cat Cables, who was chatting with Rich. I spotted her cables in the Songer Audio room (740) and in the Fern & Roby room (304). She also had some table space at the Fern & Roby Booth in the Atrium, which I will come to eventually. I met her late husband, Chris, at one of the Canadian shows more than a decade ago, and possibly two. Chris and I had a good vibe in our brief encounter, and I reviewed one or two of his digital cables back in the day. Black Cat is still rolling under Maya's meticulous care.

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