The Toronto Audiofest, one of two major audio festivals in Canada (the other being in Montreal) was held from October 18th to 20th. I was fortunate enough to be able to attend and see what audio stores, hi-fi dealers, and manufacturers had to offer. Typically this includes class-leading audio setups that include tower speakers, amps, pre-amps, media streamers, and turntables, allowing you to experience it all in person. There was also a new addition to this year’s event that I was really looking forward to experiencing, called Earvana Fest. This is essentially Canada’s version of CanJam, and if you’re familiar with that type of event, then you know why audiophiles revere it. I’ll elaborate more on Earvana later in the post but suffice to say it was the highlight for me.
I won’t go over everything I saw and experienced, just the overall highlights and things that piqued my interest.
Wynn Audio
The high-end store Wynn Audio was set up in a large room that house a couple of excellent setups. The first one, featuring all hardware from Audio Group Denmark, sounded excellent, with the Borresen Acoustics C1 speakers cranking out a full-bodied and nicely textured jazz piece. The level of detail from these seemingly small speakers is impressive.
Next is a fairly custom setup, with a couple of Tidal Audio piano speakers being fed with music from a Thiele turntable. The whole arrangement, which you can see in one of the pictures, has an impressive cost, but also an impressive sound to go with it.
Bryston
This might have been one of the best-sounding setups at the show, definitely in the top 3 for me. Here we the Bryston Middle T10 loudspeakers, and they definitely filled the room. The sound was spacious, with excellent separation, and the detail across the whole frequency range was phenomenal. Listening to Dire Straits on this setup you can hear the air and grumble in Mark Knopfler’s voice when he changes his tone, and his stellar guitar work. This system was a treat to listen to.
FiiO
FiiO had a dedicated booth showcasing some of their recently released products. One product that has been very successful for them is their CP13 portable cassette player, which looks and feels impressive, and if you’re in the market to play some older cassettes it will do the job nicely.
The DM13 is a portable CD player and one that I have personally been anticipating as I am an avid CD collector. Like the CP13 it also looks and feels impressive, has a good weight to it, but still feels portable. The CP13 should be released in the next month or so.
FiiO is very well known for its dongle DACs and portable Bluetooth DACs. The KA11 (both USB-C and Lightning versions) were available to try, as well as the BTR13 and BTR17 Bluetooth DACs (read my full review of the BTR13 here). The BT11 is a USB-C Bluetooth transmitter that supports LDAC, and the aptX codecs. It is currently not yet released, but I think this will be a very popular product once it is since you will effectively be able to add proper Bluetooth codec support to any device with a USB-C port (I can see this being used with iPhones and iPads the most, as well as older Android devices).
The FD15 dynamic driver IEMs were available to demo, and they sounded great in my limited testing.
Lastly, we have the M17 digital audio player (DAP). It’s a chonky boy but it packs a whole lot of power and all of the connections you could want. In my limited hands-on testing with it the DAP sounded and performed wonderfully, with Android being incredibly responsive.
Lenbrook Americas
I was really looking forward to this room. Here we have products from Bluesound, NAD, Dali, and psb. The Rubikore 8 speakers were being played when I walked in, and they sounded absolutely phenomenal. This is another system that is in my top 3 for best sounding at the show. They were being powered by a NAD M23 amplifier, with music streaming provided by the NAD M66 BluOS streaming DAC.
On display from psb Speakers were the Alpha iQ bookshelf speakers, and the M4U 8 MKII AND wireless headphones.
Audio Connexion
If you wanted to hear audio that would blow you away, the Audio Connexion room was the place to go. The Fyne Audio Vintage Fifteen 15” Isoflare speakers have this encapsulating sound that makes you feel like you’re being surrounded by the music. Specifically, the high of the audio was impressive, and it didn’t matter where you were standing in the room either.
Focal
Courtesy of EQ Audio, there were a number of Focal products on display and available to demo. The brand-new Focal Diva Utopia is a sight to behold, it definitely looks impressive in person. Sadly it was not being demoed at the time I was there.
EQ Audio also had a booth set up where you could demo some of Focal’s headphones. This includes the Stellia, Utopia, Azurys, Hadenys, and Bathys.
Earvana
If you wanted to be able to demo headphones, True Wireless earbuds, IEMs, DAPs, DACs, and various cables and adapters, this was the place to be. Here you could sit down and actually try out these products for yourself, getting a first-hand impression of them.
Simcoe Audio Video (an excellent audio store located in Barrie, Ontario) had essentially all of Audeze’s headphones available to try. Even the CRBN2 electrostatic headphones, which I wasn’t able to demo due to their popularity. Audeze headphones such as the LCD-X and LCD-XC, and LCD-5 I was able to demo, spending a solid 20 minutes just listening to them connected to my own Sony NW-WM1AM2 DAP. Even going into most audio stores you don’t get to have experiences like this.
Making my way further I was able to try the Eris, a headphone that HarmonicDyne made in collaboration with infamous audio youtuber Zeos from ZReviews. They are a semi-closed back headphone with an emphasis on being bassy. And they really are bassy. In a mostly good way though, not in the way that Beats headphones are bassy (i.e. muddy and cluttered bass). I enjoyed the Eris more than I thought I would.
EQ Audio also had a table set up with Focal headphones, in case you didn’t get to try them at their other booth. I spent some time with the Dune edition of the Bathys, which wasn’t available at the other booth. Lastly at EQ Audio’s table were some Grado headphones, which I would recommend trying at least once in your life. They sound so good.
Quebec Acoustique’s booth featured a number of products from FiiO and Hiby, and they were one of the only booths I saw that also displayed various cables, adapters, and DACs.
Lastly, we have the Sennheiser booth. This was an impressive one as Sennheiser had all of their audiophile and consumer headphones available to try, and I believe this was in collaboration with Bay Bloor Radio, an excellent audio store here in Toronto. Sennheiser also brought their renowned HE-1 electrostatic headphone, which retails for $60,000 USD, to the show. To demo this you needed to have scheduled an appointment in advance, which I did. Sadly the slots were limited to just 15 minutes, but it’s not a chance I could pass up.
The HE-1 is superbly crafted, with the housing for the amp being marble. It features 8 vacuum tubes that raise up when the headphones are powered on, as do the buttons on the front as well. The remote is extremely heavy and feels like metal. The whole setup exudes elegance, and you definitely feel like it is something premium. I won’t go into detail on my listening experience, simply because 15 minutes is too short to judge, but what I can say is all music genres sounded excellent, with clarity and detail despite being open-back headphones in a busy and loud room. If you ever have the chance to listen to these headphones, I urge you to take it.
Odds and Ends
Lastly, here are a few pictures that I took throughout the show. If you didn’t attend Toronto Audifest this year, I encourage you to attend next year as I really see it growing, given the level of passion and interest I witnessed this year. The next Audiofest is scheduled to be in Montreal from March 28th to 30th in 2025.
