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Details: Written by: Jason Thorpe; Category: High End 2025; Created: 18 May 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.

Details: Written by: Matt Bonaccio; Category: High End 2025; Created: 18 May 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 hi-fi products. Could this be a system designed by a computer? Was I about to hear a system designed by AI?

Details: Written by: Matt Bonaccio; Category: High End 2025; Created: 18 May 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 the company’s new speakers.

Details: Written by: Matt Bonaccio; Category: High End 2025; Created: 18 May 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.

Details: Written by: Jason Thorpe; Category: High End 2025; Created: 18 May 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.

Details: Written by: Matt Bonaccio; Category: High End 2025; Created: 18 May 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.

Details: Written by: Jason Thorpe; Category: High End 2025; Created: 18 May 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.

Details: Written by: Jason Thorpe; Category: High End 2025; Created: 18 May 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.

Details: Written by: Jason Thorpe; Category: High End 2025; Created: 17 May 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.

Details: Written by: Jason Thorpe; Category: High End 2025; Created: 17 May 2025

I’ve said it before. Sometimes you walk into a room, and you instantly know that this sound is correct.

Details: Written by: Jason Thorpe; Category: High End 2025; Created: 17 May 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.

Details: Written by: Matt Bonaccio; Category: High End 2025; Created: 17 May 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.

Details: Written by: Jason Thorpe; Category: High End 2025; Created: 16 May 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.

Details: Written by: Matt Bonaccio; Category: High End 2025; Created: 16 May 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.

Details: Written by: Matt Bonaccio; Category: High End 2025; Created: 15 May 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.

Details: Written by: Jonathan Gorse; Category: The Bristol Hi-Fi Show 2025; Created: 14 March 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.

Details: Written by: Jonathan Gorse; Category: The Bristol Hi-Fi Show 2025; Created: 14 March 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.

Details: Written by: Jonathan Gorse; Category: The Bristol Hi-Fi Show 2025; Created: 13 March 2025

I have attended the Bristol Hi-Fi Show for more than 30 years, and it remains one of my favorite weekends of the audio calendar. Other shows have their merits, but there’s a real energy to the Bristol Hi-Fi Show, with its crowded rooms and corridors and the expansive bar where the public rub shoulders with manufacturers over a steady stream of ale. At the close of play on the Friday night, it seems that every single exhibitor, customer rep, journalist, and PR person who’s ever worked in hi-fi descends on the bar, creating a glorious cacophony of conversation that rises like the instrumental crescendo in “A Day in the Life.”

Details: Written by: Doug Schneider; Category: Florida International Audio Expo 2025; Created: 23 February 2025

Assessing the sound quality of any system—let alone an individual component—at a hi-fi show is nearly impossible. With unfamiliar rooms, components, and music selections, it’s difficult to determine much about any specific element. The only thing you can know for certain is whether the system sounds good at that moment. Nonetheless, we still attempt to compare systems, even in unfamiliar surroundings, by playing some of our favorite tracks as we move from room to room.

Details: Written by: Jason Thorpe; Category: Florida International Audio Expo 2025; Created: 23 February 2025

For a while, I followed Doug Schneider around, checking out systems that people could actually afford. Although the socialist in me recognized this pursuit as valuable, it was mighty boring. While looking at $1500 amplifiers and $5000 speakers, I found myself mentally rolling my eyes, knowing there were other rooms jam-packed with systems that cost more than a house.