High End 2026, Vienna
With not a waltz to be heard High End 2026 Vienna got off to a lively start on Thursday, June 4th. The Austria Centre venue feels larger than the MOC did but i suspect that it contained about the same amount of exhibitors spread out over a larger area, this meant that the corridors were never crowded and the rooms relatively unpolluted by sound in other spaces, but bass still travels.
Many exhibits produced a decent sound and some a spectacular one and not all of them were playing audiophile versions of well known tunes, albeit rather a lot were and some even resorted to Dire Straits but at least they were original recordings. The following are the companies that made a good impression on us.
PMC
PMC don’t do things by half and at High End 2026 they celebrated their 35th anniversary with two systems. The first featured a custom finished pair of the fabulous Fenestria loudspeakers with a Michell Gyro front end and Bryston electronics, this sounded remarkably good playing Queen and given that this is not a band I am fond of that’s quite an achievement. Next door they had set up an Atmos studio with speakers all over the place, this was used by engineers to show what such system could do but also gave visitors the opportunity to mix tracks on the fly with the artist Sohn who had provided the original stems for a purpose.
The front three studio channels were PMC12XBD stacks with a 12inch bass unit in the three-way and another in the bass cabinet beneath. They are actively driven by PMC electronics in a separate cabinet with 3.6kW on tap for each channel. I heard the Atmos mixes of two Miles Davis classics and have to say that it was very impressive indeed, unlike most surround systems this one didn’t seem that different to stereo until they turned off all but the stereo channels when the sound became totally flat. Maybe there is something in multichannel audio after all.
Aavik/Borresen
Michael Borresen appears to never sleep given the quantity of new models that have appeared under his name in the past few years, this year Borresen unveiled the A series positioned between the C and X series at the almost affordable end of the range. The A1 standmount (€12,000), A2 (€16,000) and A3 (€21,000) floor standers use the brand’s carbon fibre aramid sandwich cones with dual copper caps and ribbon tweeters. The matching BM2 Bass Module (€9,000) has a folded dipole structure for ease of placement and incorporates two 10 inch drivers and a 100W amplifier. The A1 and BM2 combo did sound remarkably dynamic playing the Jacques Loussier Trio’s Little Fugue in G Minor. Amplification was courtesy of the new Aavik U-301 which is the entry level streaming amp in the Aavik range at €15,000 and incorporates the same 300W amp module as the pricey 88 series.
Dali
Aware that some folks don’t want separates audio (?) Dali have spent five years developing and refining the Vega all in one. This has their paper and wood fibre drivers and is full of DSP tech to make a single unit sound like a wall of sound, it even has a surround mode for movie fans. the Vega certainly sounded huge in demonstration, uncannily so truth be told. Usefully Vega can be wall mounted either vertically or horizontally and will adapt its dispersion to suit whatever orientation is chosen. It also shows you which radio station you have picked when selecting a preset, a small but family friendly move. It incorporates BluOS tech so is fully streaming ready, and it can be connected to TVs by HDMI and/or optical. Price is £2,500.
Revival
Revival makes speakers in France to a broadly BBC recipe and at High End 2026 they showed a new Macassar ebony finish on the Atalante range, the only new product from the company is the Sub12. This subwoofer has a 12 inch driver with the same woven basalt driver as the Atalante 7 Evo but a much wider surround and uses a die-cast basket with a large voice coil, drive is provided by 600W of Class D power. The final styling has yet to be decided but price looks like being around €1,700.
Ifi
If you like music on the move the iFi GR2 (£529) might be up your alley. This portable DAC and headphone amp replaces the company’s popular Gryphon model with 50% more power in the output and a PCM1795 DAC replacing the previous DSD1793. It has more in- and outputs than you can shake a stick at, has a TFT touchscreen and a more powerful battery alongside JVC’s K2 HD processing. Apparently it’s “the best portable DAC you can buy”, whether their competitors would agree is another question.
Cinnamon Audio
I enjoyed fabulous results with the Cinnamon Galle DAC reviewed recently so visited this Portuguese company’s first High End exhibit. Here they played the Galle (pronounced gale) DAC Model II, a two box version with the converter in one cast aluminium and bronze case and the power supply in the other. The latter has a larger capacitance than a power amplifier and is designed to provide ‘an infinite pool of energy’. It was in use with a Galle network transport, Engstrom Arne amplifier and Kroma Atelier Thais speakers to highly engaging effect.
JBL
Last year JBL introduced the Summit range with three fairly substantial speakers but it seems were just the beginning because High End 2026 saw the introduction of new K2 and Everest models at the top of the tree. The K2 (£72,000) combines a 15 inch bass driver with an 8 inch midrange and a horn loaded tweeter that JBL are calling the triple compression driver, with three drive units firing into the same output for extra power handling. This driver is also found on the Everest (£140,000) which is essentially two K2s in the same box for maximum fire power and what sounded like architecturally dangerous bass.
Arcam
John Dawson started Arcam as a concept/production exercise when he was a student, building a small batch of 30W amplifiers and selling them to friends, in the end the A60 went on to sell in the thousands and established A&R Cambridge as it was originally known. To celebrate that legacy Arcam has launched the Radia A50, a Class G streaming amp with a dual mono design that will “drive more or less anything” according to John. It offers 150W per channel, an MM/MC phono input with loading options and an ESS DAC for £2,500.
Audioquest
The latest Dragonfly Copper portable DAC looks great in its new finish and contains tech to make it more efficient and electrically quieter than its Cobalt predecessor. The Copper has a new processor with proprietary coding for the USB receiver, up to 100mA output to drive a wide range of headphones (double that of the Cobalt), it will be available in August/September for £229.
Cambridge
Buoyed by the success of the Evo 150 SE Cambridge have launched a premium streaming amp in the Evo 300 (£3,499). This harbours NCoreX Class D output modules with a dual mono configuration and 300W per channel output, it offers a high res DAC from ESS and streams from all the key services. Side panels can be in wood or metal and you can connect pretty well any source you fancy including Bluetooth 5.4 with aptX HD.
Cambridge also showed their L/R active speaker range, I don’t think I have seen a speaker with as many drivers and electronics per square inch as these, and they come in great colours. Price for the top L/R X is £1,799.
Dohmann
Mark Dohmann was DJ’ing in the vast Cessaro horn speaker room using a Helix One Mk3 turntable with a Supatrac R10 tonearm and Analog Relax cartridge at the time of my visit, a Wilson benesch Graviton arms was also on the turntable. This version of the Helix features a vacuum platter that differs from the norm because it evacuates the space under the vinyl through the oil in the bearing but only does this once. The problem with air pumps is that they create hum so Mark uses one initially and relies on a record clamp and a seal via the bearing to maintain low but sufficient pressure for the duration of playback. This system sounded very natural and transparent which is a luxury even at a high end event.
Thorens Coturn
Not brand new but particularly delightful the Coturn (compact turntable) by Thorens is a battery powered portable record player with line and phono outputs in anodised aluminium with a very attractive €599 price. What is most appealing is the way that the arm folds out of the body of the turntable with a mechanism that is clever and elegant, I want one even if playing records in the wild seems unwise.
Korf
We got a very good result with the Korf TA-AF9 when it was reviewed earlier in the year so I was interested to see what Alexey Korf had to show at High End 2026. This turned out to be the TA-CF9/10 (€5,200) which has a transparent sapphire tube for maximum rigidity. It uses the same flexure bearings for vertical motion as the AF9 – these are said to have ‘zero friction’ and ‘zero starting torque’ which sounds appealing. The long counterweight is a relatively loose fit for minimum energy transfer – the Korf arms are nothing if not innovative.
Music Hall
Music Hall has three new Tribute series turntables in attractive flat colours with a stylish square form. All three have acrylic platters and arms with detachable headshells, the Model 7 ($2,500) is a solid plinth design while the Model 9 ($3,500) and Model 11 ($5,000) are multi plinth designs with isolation and a more sophisticated belt drive arrangement in the 11.
Goldmund
Swiss brand Goldmund distracted me by playing Bon Iver’s Skinny Love through their huge Gaia loudspeakers, the contrast of white speakers against a black background drop being particularly effective. Unfortunately I missed Rob from Sonata Systems presentation of Beatles music, probably the only incident of the fab four heard at High End, but I did get to have a brief tour of Goldmund’s archive where they showed classic components from their past.
Neat Acoustics
Neat’s founder Bob Surgeoner was playing some good tunes through the new Vito Classic speakers on the end of a Cyrus 80 streaming amp, details of these atypically backward leaning Neats can be found here.
SOtM/Doshi/Joseph
I was encouraged by some trusted ears to visit this room, the SOtM source included far too many boxes but apparently three of them were network switches and the large sMS-2000 server/streamers on top were running Diretta software drivers. What impressed me most however was the depth of bass and musicality of the Joseph Pulsar2 Graphene speakers (£11,990), this 2-way has a 5.5 inch graphene/magnesium main driver and Sonatex tweeter yet produces the scale and bass extension of a considerably larger design. Maybe it was the Doshi Evolution Stereo hybrid power amp with solid state front end and 6CA7 (tetrode EL34) output stage but I finally understood the appeal of Oscar Peterson thanks to this system.
Yamaha
You never know what to expect of giant Japanese conglomerate Yamaha but I wasn’t totally shocked to see a pair of active wireless speakers being launched at High End 2026. The NX-70A is designed to target 30 – 50 year olds with its clean styling, aluminium top plate and multiple wired and wireless inputs. Tuning has been done for European ears too, and the sound was indeed lively rather than super smooth. Interestingly both drivers, a cone and dome, are made of synthetic fibre and the spruce waste produced in Yamaha’s piano factory. Price is expected to be €3,000.
Wand
We have covered both the Wand turntable and the new Dark Light Wand arm in these pages but I had not heard either and was intrigued by the 12 inch Wand Dark Light that Simon Ward showed at High End 2026. He had it mounted on his 14-4 turntable with a DS E3 cartridge in a system that combined Mavis tube electronics from Vietnam and Apertura Kalibrator Evo speakers with an 8 inch woofer and AMT tweeter. When he suggested playing Colour of Spring by Talk Talk I thought why not, it’s not audiophile schmooze, then the first notes of Happiness is Easy came through and a lump jumped into my throat, I was genuinely choked up by a song I haven’t enjoyed since the ‘80s. This system had a magic that few others at the show managed, the choice of material was good but there was more to it than that. Sadly the Wand arms are the wrong length for my Rega so I might have to get hold of the full turntable to see what’s going on.
Part 2 of our High End 2026 can be found here