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High End 2025: Kroma Atelier, Engström, and Friends—Best Sound at the Show
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- Written by: Jason Thorpe
- Category: High End 2025
“Find Kroma Atelier. I think they’re upstairs somewhere,” Doug Schneider told me. The MOC is huge, and there are a gazillion exhibitors. I didn’t find them under “C” in the directory, so I told Doug I wasn’t having any luck.
High End 2025: Audio by AI? Not Quite—Computer Audio Design Serves Up Music
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- Written by: Matt Bonaccio
- Category: High End 2025
Conspicuous “CAD” logos filled the front door of Computer Audio Design’s exhibit at High End 2025. What is this? I wondered. Computer-aided design has been used for decades in designing hi-fi products. Could this be a system designed by a computer? Was I about to hear a system designed by AI?
High End 2025: Auer Acoustics’ Ad Spend Pays Off
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- Written by: Matt Bonaccio
- Category: High End 2025
As SoundStage! Ultra senior editor Jason Thorpe and I wandered the halls and atria of the Munich Order Center on Saturday morning, we decided to stop for a brief rest near the entrance of the building. As we lounged on a white-cushioned bench, we looked up, almost in unison, at the conspicuous 12-foot-tall poster directly in front of us. It urged us to head to the Auer Acoustics room and see their new speakers.
High End 2025: Gone Hiking with JBL—Straight to the Summit
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- Written by: Matt Bonaccio
- Category: High End 2025
When I heard that JBL would be debuting a line of new speakers here at High End 2025, I was half-thinking I’d be checking out some tablet-shaped Bluetooth speaker blasting Taylor Swift, because there’s a lot of this stuff sold under the JBL brand.
High End 2025: Impossible Bass from PMC’s Prophecy Speakers
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- Written by: Jason Thorpe
- Category: High End 2025
Please cast your mind back to last year’s High End, where I related the peak experience of listening to The Who’s “Baba O’Riley” on PMC’s huge, powerful roller coaster of a system. It was the most intense audio-related experience of my life.
High End 2025: Advance Paris Goes Avant-Garde with Five New Products
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- Written by: Matt Bonaccio
- Category: High End 2025
I don’t have any experience with Advance Paris outside of things I’ve seen and heard online—a video clip here and there, but no meaningful interaction beyond that, and certainly no hands-on time. If you’re located in North America like me, you’re likely in the same boat. That’s because, even though 2025 marks the brand’s 30th anniversary, it’s only had distribution in North America for a couple of years. The brand’s as-yet subdued North American presence has done nothing to dampen the festivities here in Munich: at High End 2025, Advance Paris announced five new products, all part of its new premium Nova line. Prices are all in euros.
High End 2025: Estelon Fills in the A-Series Line
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- Written by: Jason Thorpe
- Category: High End 2025
Estelon has been on a roll lately, filling in its product range with smaller, less expensive models. That makes sense to me. After all, I’ve heard its top-of-the-line speaker, the Extreme, at several audio shows, and I don’t think there’s anywhere further north to go for Estelon. The Extreme is always in the running for my best of show, and it sells for maybe a quarter of the price of some other statement speakers that don’t sound anywhere near as good.
High End 2025: SoundSpace Systems and Acoustical Systems—Big Room, Big Speakers, Big Turntable
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- Written by: Jason Thorpe
- Category: High End 2025
I got to know Jason Melman, owner of Boutique Audio (an extremely high-end retailer just north of Toronto), by chance. Fellow SoundStager George da Sa hooked us up after he discovered the store a few months ago. On my visit back in April, I spent a short spell listening to one of Melman’s systems, which was fronted by a pair of Aidoni speakers from Germany’s SoundSpace Systems. These large, expensive, beautifully finished speakers threw a huge, dynamic soundstage and really turned my crank.
High End 2025: IsoAcoustics—Hometown Boy Goes Worldwide
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- Written by: Jason Thorpe
- Category: High End 2025
IsoAcoustics provides the kind of demo that’s unique in audio. You sit in front of two pairs of identical speakers, and the signal runs through an A/B switch so you can switch, in real time, between one pair that’s spiked directly to the floor and another pair fitted with IsoAcoustics’ footers. There are no tricks here—I’ve looked behind the rack, and both speakers are wired directly to the switcher.
High End 2025: Sphinx Audio Engineering—Instantly Right
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- Written by: Jason Thorpe
- Category: High End 2025
I’ve said it before. Sometimes you walk into a room, and you instantly know that this sound is correct.
High End 2025: SV-Audio—Big Audio Dynamite
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- Written by: Jason Thorpe
- Category: High End 2025
Techno is making a comeback on the show circuit. Used to be all you’d hear in the hallways was “Hotel [fucking] California,” but at the 2025 version of High End, I heard more techno than I’ve experienced in the last decade.
High End 2025: World of Headphones, Part 3
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- Written by: Matt Bonaccio
- Category: High End 2025
When I set out to cover the World of Headphones section at High End 2025, I knew it’d be a major undertaking, but I didn’t think it’d stretch to three separate articles. Yet here we are—this time, I have reports on a pair of Asian companies whose new products seriously made their presence felt at High End 2025, as well as some new headphones from Dan Clark Audio that are sure to cause a stir among fans. Pricing is in US dollars, euros, or both.
High End 2025: Welcome Party in German and YG Acoustics’ Huge Speakers
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- Written by: Jason Thorpe
- Category: High End 2025
On the day before High End 2025 officially began, in a cool, reclaimed, hipster-infused industrial building across the street from the Munich Order Center, a bunch of audio companies, all of them heavy hitters, were presenting, well, I don’t know what exactly, as almost all of the presentations were in German. I’d catch the odd word, but it wasn’t of much use.
High End 2025: World of Headphones, Part 2
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- Written by: Matt Bonaccio
- Category: High End 2025
Lest you thought I was finished after visiting just two manufacturers at the World of Headphones at High End 2025, behold this article covering brand-new head-fi products from three more companies. I saw limited-edition stuff, gear for globetrotting hi-fi nuts, and a versatile pair of pro-audio-cum-consumer-grade over-ears. All prices are in euros and US dollars, and, where available, in British pounds.
High End 2025: World of Headphones, Part 1
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- Written by: Matt Bonaccio
- Category: High End 2025
If there’s any new opinion I’ve formed about audio in the past year or two, it has to do with the number of people who rely on headphones for audio. Be they friends, family, or perfect strangers, people by the millions use headphones for music, movies, calls, gaming, and more. My opinion is that headphones and wearable audio are the future of high fidelity, and it’s one that I absolutely stand by.
SME Turntable and Tonearm Launch: London, UK, April 4, 2025
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- Written by: Jonathan Gorse
- Category: Jonathan Gorse
SME chose the exquisite Hyatt Regency London–The Churchill to premiere its next-generation Model 35 and Model 8 turntables as well as the remarkable new SME Series Vi tonearm. Given SME’s standing in turntable and tonearm engineering, this was one of the hottest tickets in old London town on that early April evening. I was one of a small coterie of invited guests drawn from employees, key distributors, dealers, and press. We assembled with hushed reverence to sip fine wines and nibble canapés at the unveiling. The products were shrouded in a Union Jack until they were unveiled; I half expected the first record to be a chorus of “Rule, Britannia.”
Lyngdorf Audio’s MP-40 2.1 Multichannel Processor: Eight High-End Two-Channel DACs in a Box
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- Written by: Roger Kanno
- Category: Roger Kanno
Last year, I upgraded my reference system with Lyngdorf’s MXA-8400 multichannel power amplifier. In my assessment, the MXA-8400, which utilizes Purifi Audio’s Eigentakt technology, is one of the most transparent and neutral amplifiers available in its price range, multichannel or stereo. With this amplifier, and the bass management and ARC Genesis room-correction systems provided by my excellent Anthem STR preamplifier, the stereo performance of my system has been stellar. However, the multichannel A/V processor I’ve been using in my home-theater bypass loop, the Anthem AVM 60, though a capable surround processor, is not of the same caliber as the STR preamp. When listening to multichannel content, especially music and movie soundtracks in uncompressed Dolby TrueHD Atmos, I’ve often felt something was amiss.
My Audiophile Neighborhood: It Takes a Village
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- Written by: Jason Thorpe
- Category: Jason Thorpe
Out of all the feedback I get about this series of articles, the most common refrain is, “Man, those guys are lucky.” On the face of it I guess that’s reasonable, given that Ron and Rob, my two most active audiophile neighbors, get to listen to some seriously high-end audio equipment as a side benefit of my position as senior editor of SoundStage! Ultra.
The Bristol Hi-Fi Show 2025, Part 3
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- Written by: Jonathan Gorse
- Category: The Bristol Hi-Fi Show 2025
Sunday morning began with a bit of a surprise. After I boarded the lift to head down for breakfast, it stopped on the next floor so a group of six beautiful young women could enter. Audio shows attract a certain demographic, and let’s just say this posse broke the mold. So I felt compelled to ask them, “Are you here for the hi-fi show?” This resulted in much laughter. Apparently, these young ladies had gone away to celebrate a friend’s 21st birthday and had booked into a hotel that was packed to the rafters with balding, middle-aged men. They probably wondered if they had blundered into a sales convention for incontinence products or stairlifts.
The Bristol Hi-Fi Show 2025, Part 2
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- Written by: Jonathan Gorse
- Category: The Bristol Hi-Fi Show 2025
Morning had broken, and so had my head! After a truly sublime dinner with a couple of Naim friends at the end of the first day of the Bristol Hi-Fi Show 2025, we had unwisely decided to return to the hotel bar for a nightcap, only to find that the party was still in full swing. This industry might give the impression of being full of boffins debating the merits of different power-supply architectures, but we can party as well as any touring rock band! Catching up with industry friends over some single malts, it struck me how much I adore the British hi-fi industry and the people in it.
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Most-Read Last 90 Days
- The Bristol Hi-Fi Show 2025, Part 2
- The Bristol Hi-Fi Show 2025, Part 1
- The Bristol Hi-Fi Show 2025, Part 3
- My Audiophile Neighborhood: It Takes a Village
- Lyngdorf Audio’s MP-40 2.1 Multichannel Processor: Eight High-End Two-Channel DACs in a Box
- High End 2025: Kroma Atelier, Engström, and Friends—Best Sound at the Show
- High End 2025: Advance Paris Goes Avant-Garde with Five New Products
- SME Turntable and Tonearm Launch: London, UK, April 4, 2025
- High End 2025: World of Headphones, Part 2
- High End 2025: World of Headphones, Part 1
- High End 2025: IsoAcoustics—Hometown Boy Goes Worldwide
- High End 2025: Impossible Bass from PMC’s Prophecy Speakers
- High End 2025: Gone Hiking with JBL—Straight to the Summit
- High End 2025: Audio by AI? Not Quite—Computer Audio Design Serves Up Music
- High End 2025: Welcome Party in German and YG Acoustics’ Huge Speakers
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