High End 2026, Vienna
Network Acoustics
For High End 2026 streaming specialist Network Acoustics used their new Muon2 switch and filter in a room shared with Greek DAC specialist Ideon and Austrian speaker maker Brodmann, the system (top of page) also featured EMM Labs amplification, Telos grounding and Felt Decor treatment, plus a dedicated custom listening seat band in the sweetspot. I managed to grab this briefly and was impressed by the depth of image and clarity produced by the Brodmann JB175 loudspeakers and active bass towers, the latter containing a kilowatt of power and two 10 inch side firing drivers. This was one of the most precise and clean streaming systems at High End 2026, providing a degree of insight that few could match.
Wharfedale
Wharfedale are building the Rosedale speaker once more and doing it in the UK for extra quality, a big lad it is too. The bass driver is the full 15inch monty with an oval dustcap possibly covering a voice coil of the same shape, details are scant at present but this £10,000 per pair revival is expected to be available in September. They sounded generous, well extended, crisp and yet relaxed on the end of Quad Artera electronics in the room. The slimmer model next to the Rosedale is an Elysian R4, the first in a new range that has been tweaked with better parts, this floor stander will cost £7,000 when it gets to market.
Chord Electronics
Chord have added an entry level power amp to their Ultima series in the Ultima 7 at £6,500, it is rated at 135W per channel and is expected to be launched in September. They also showed a finished example of the extremely slimline power amp we saw when visiting Chord HQ last October. The Blade as it’s known is primarily for install and pro use and stands a mere 25mm high (yet is big enough to carry many cups of tea and probably biscuits too). The half U height will be a boon to the pro sector however and that plus 110W of Ultima power means that quality power is no longer the domain of separates.
Guru
Swedish speaker maker Guru are getting into sealed boxes with their Elements range. The Elements No.15 demonstrated has an 8 inch paper cone main driver and is designed for near wall siting in an attempt to make it domestically friendly. This and its smaller siblings have been tuned to provide a bit of fun and the sound they made certainly reflects this crazy notion, this plus a sensible €1,200 price make these Gurus worth very appealing to the style conscious music lover.
Elipson
The Legacy range first shown last year has yet to make it to production probably because Elipson has been focussing on much more affordable models from sister brand Eltax. These include the Monitor III Neo which is an active design with wireless functionality and analogue inputs plus a down firing port for a mere €349 per pair. The passive version is less than half that price while you can have a floor stander for €300. I was drawn to the Elipson + Wilmotte creations one of which is inspired by the His Master’s Voice dog and will apparently come in two sizes.
Atlas Cables
Atlas have relaunched their Element range of entry level cables and will be selling these direct from their website as well as dealers. Prices start at £105 for RCA and £175 for XLR interconnects while the R1 screened speaker cable is £235 for a 3m pair. All are made in Scotland as is the Grun Superior grounding cable for their more upmarket interconnects, this has a silver plated OFC core and foamed PE dielectric which seems OTT for a grounding cable but it is becoming clear that grounding is one of the most overlooked things in high fidelity reproduction. There is also the Grun Connect One upgraded ground adapter with six tails at £1,500.
Audio Technica
A new flagship cartridge from Audio-Technica is always of interest and the AT-MCD1 is the most ambitious yet. The key feature here is a one piece diamond cantilever and stylus, the only example of its kind in A-T and most everybody else’s roster. The idea is that diamond has a higher transmission speed than alternative materials and thus resolves finer detail with lower resonance. The tip is a smaller Shibata stylus than previous range toppers while the iron core magnet system is combined with PCOCC coils. Price is a pound less than £10,000.
Dan Clark Audio
Being made in California means that Dan Clark’s headphones don’t come cheap so the new Aeon Core at just under $1,000 is quite an achievement. This closed back design is very nicely built and sounded rather good playing vintage AC/DC on an Eversolo streamer at the booth. It’s expected to land later this month.
Grimm Audio
Having established itself as one of the key players in high end streaming Grimm are expanding their electronics range with the PA1 mono block power amplifier. This is a ‘radical’ take on the Class A/B amp that uses 92 small transistors on an aluminium PCB in an effort to avoid the temperature variations that cause distortion in more typical designs. The pair of PA1s being used with a prototype Grimm speaker in their dem room certainly had very tight yet juicy bass with real snap from electric guitar, the price is €23,500 per pair and the PA1 expected to be on sale in October.
Telos Audio Design
Rob Osbourn of Network Acoustics put me onto Telos who make active grounding devices in Taiwan. He tried to explain how Jeff Lin of Telos set up one of these by choosing different settings and listening to the results on his iPhone, the results through the system were apparently extraordinary in terms of 3D imaging. Telos make a range of grounding devices as well as a server/streamer with huge power supplies, bigger than most power amps. The Master Music Server also has a massive chassis for cooling because Jeff says they sound best when the temperature is kept down. This unit costs €42,000 and can be used as a Roon core. His Master Earth Grounding flagship has 12 ground terminals, weighs 47kg and costs €69,000. New for High End 2026 is the Foundation Power supply for routers, this offers both 5V and 12V 6A outlets, if you’re serious about streaming Telos is a name to watch.
Tannoy
Celebrating its centenary Tannoy built a stand that commemorated its impressive history and included an original world war two RAF Tannoy speaker, this example was sited at the Appledram airfield in Sussex we’re told. Tannoy had an offsite demonstration room with a pair of the mighty Westminster Royal GR-OWs in action with Esoteric electronics, this two-way horn loaded classic has a 15 inch dual concentric driver and offers a whopping 99dB sensitivity, price is just shy of £55,000 per pair.
JBL
JBL celebrated its 80th birthday with a display of classic products from the past including the DD4400 Paragon horn loudspeaker/sideboard. This cost $2,200 when it was launched in 1957 which they estimate to be about $26,000 today, Americans must have had fewer things to buy and more space back in the day.
Engstrom
Apparently DS Audio has released the details that allow anyone to build a phono stage to go with their optical cartridges, this has prompted Engstrom among others to take up the challenge. Their offering is the M-Optic (€26,500) which is a dedicated DS audio phono stage that was in use with a Thales Reference turntable running a DS Audio Grand Master cartridge on a Thales Statement arm.
Constellation
Constellation’s Irv Gross was making some excellent sounds with the new Statement monoblock amplifiers driving Wilson Sasha V speakers. This substantial Class A/B amplifier is specced to deliver 1,700 watts and its circuitry is powered by a C-SMPS (switched mode power supply), which is a pretty radical move for any high end brand and suggests that the technology has fully come of age. These amps are a bit spendy at $189,000 each and I wouldn’t want to be involved in moving them but the sound was among the best at High End 2026 with imaging, transparency and control that was to die for.
Clearaudio
The Germans love metal and many of them are partial to the band Rammstein so it makes sense that Clearaudio have built a Rammstein artists edition turntable with illuminated lettering. This is based on the brand’s Concept model with a ‘massive block construction’ MDF plinth, integrated LED lighting and the T1 tonearm and branded MM cartridge. Price is £1,990.
Perlisten
The new A series from Perlisten features a distinctive wave guide for the tweeter that sits between two woofers on all but the two-way A2s stand mount. The A3T (above centre) is the brand’s most affordable floor stander at £2,300 and combines a 35mm Teteron dome for highs alongside a pair of 8 inch carbon fibre woofers and will apparently “give you a little taste of what Perlisten has to offer”. I didn’t get to hear them in Vienna but will have to get some in to find out just how good they taste.
Supatrac
Richard from Supatrac was having a whale of a time playing vinyl on both Garrard 401 and Dohmann Helix Two turntables using his Nighthawk tonearm, the system being fronted by Matter Anti-Matter open baffle speakers and rendering Message in a Bottle with impressive dynamics. He claims that there will be a Rega ready version of the arm coming soon but I’m not holding my breath!
AMR
I was excited to hear that AMR, the brand that spawned iFi back in the day, was being revived and expected to see something like the original designs at High End 2026. It was quite a surprise to be greeted with the Luna series of XL, LED bedecked, feature laden creations in a room too packed to sit in. The Luna series include the Ingenii 32-bit multibit DAC (which is more in keeping with the original AMR) running TDA1541A chips and a Stonehenge DSD engine, a Medi Zero potentiometer free In-line preamp and Procellarum balanced FET amplifiers. It’s certainly a new look for the brand. Pricing for the system as a whole is in the $400,000 ballpark, so marginally cheaper than getting into space by more conventional means.
Avantgarde
Usually this German horn specialist has something unweildy in a huge room at High End but they appear to have noticed that few of us have the money nor the space for such things and have created the remarkably compact Opus 1. Not only is this a horn loaded floor stander for less than the price of a car (€13,000) it is an active design with a 10 watt Class A/B amplifier for the tweeter where the most important watt is Class A. Drivers consist of a horn loaded ring radiator Kapton dome covering everything from 2kHz up and a 10 inch paper mid/bass with its own 400W power amp. I was surprised to see an antenna sticking out of the back but this is not for Bluetooth but OTA updates.
See the final part of our High End 2026 coverage here