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

EQ Audio Video
In the hall in front of Sutton C, EQ Audio gave a strong hint of what to expect inside. Note the slim depth of the speaker on the right. The banner hints at a matching subwoofer with dual drivers.

As I wound my way past the black curtain blocking light from the doorway, I encountered a blue rack of Musical Fidelity amplifiers and other electronics.

The crowd was thin, but the music and the picture were gorgeous.

I sat through a performance of "Hotel California" that held me spellbound.

When the lights came up I was able to grab a photo of the speakers in the back corner. One of the presenters said the entire rig, including projector, screen, and audio gear cost in the neighborhood of $200k. It was a lot more impressive than that, but then I'd have to add a room large enough to hold it all. Certainly, it could be scaled down.

This was the finest home theater demo I've seen at a show in years. I suspect the Trinnov Audio processor from France was the key to achieving sound so clear and three-dimensional. Enjoy the Music.com does not usually pay attention to the home theater category, but this room was too good to pass by without giving it a Best Rooms Award. With a presentation this good, you could charge your friends for admission and popcorn.

Lower Level
This is another area that people might have missed, as access was through stairs coming off the hallway between the Lobby and Earvana. A second stairway, descending directly from deep in the lobby, was even less conspicuous. Hopefully, most people found their way down here because the rooms have been excellent over the years.

Lenbrook Americas

In previous years, this room was a dedicated home theater room, and always kept very dark. To my surprise, Lenbrook Americas was presenting a DALI Epicore 9 speaker driven by NAD electronics linked with AudioQuest cables and power conditioner. I've seen them do this in other rooms here at Toronto Audiofest 2025and at Montreal Audiofest 2025, and the results were never satisfactory. But this was different. It was actually quite good. I suspect it was a consequence of a proper setup in an appropriately sized room…plus the addition of the secret sauce in the form of the massive DALI SUB V-16 subwoofer. Suddenly, they were close to the excellence I once heard from a dealer's presentation at Montreal, where the Epicore speaker came away with a Best Rooms Award. Here, the system was solidly in the Top Tier group of rooms. Still, a very welcome improvement.

The DALIEpicore series (3 floorstanders and a stand-mounted monitor) comes in three finishes: Gloss Maroon, Piano Gloss Black, and the high gloss Walnut with the veneer laid horizontally. I've seen all three, and the Walnut is the clear favorite. What keeps this speaker so elegant is the use of black surrounds on the drivers. No shiny chrome or bright aluminum to degrade the look. This discrete speaker would be welcome in the finest homes, whether traditional or contemporary. They are pure class with sound quality to match.

What really excited me was the new DALI Sub V-16 ($10k). With a 16" driver, massive power, and heavy build, it is in complete control, revealing low-frequency room tone, deep bass notes, and improving the sound quality of the midrange in the main speakers. There is a complex array of adjustments accessible from the knobs and small screen on the top front edge. It is tunable for either home theater or music systems. The four ports in the corners of the front baffle are a technology first seen in much more expensive German speakers.

And here again, we see another driver with a wrinkled surround to reduce distortion at extreme excursion. I expect we will see more drivers with this feature in the future. It's large, heavy (150 pounds), and you will need help to set it up without risking back surgery. Trust me, listening to music doesn't make recovery from back surgery any more fun than it already is.

On another wall of this room was a very nice-looking minimalist system at a modest price point to address a larger audience. It sounded quite good.

A new Roksan all-in-one unit was the obvious heart of this system. AudioQuest power conditioner and cables were in play here, too.

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