High End Munich 2025 - What We Liked

For StereoNET, it has become a regular gathering of the global editorial team, which this year meant six of us were in Munich for almost a week—two from Australia, one from Singapore, and three more from the UK.

The show again broke its visitor record, with 10,562 trade visitors and 11,675 consumers attending the two trade days, followed by two public days. These visitors came from 92 countries to visit the 501 exhibitors representing 42 countries. We're told that after Germany, the largest countries of origin were the United Kingdom, the neighbouring European countries, the United States, and finally, China.

While this is undoubtedly the end of an era, sights have already been set on Vienna for High End 2026 - but not even this will be as straightforward as first thought now that Eurovision has thrown a spanner into the works.

While feeling nostalgic for the High End Munich show, let's look at the ten rooms that impressed us the most in 2025.

ACAPELLA

The Acapella Hypersphere loudspeakers stand 2.7 metres tall and have hyperspherical horns measuring a massive 1.7 metres in diameter. They are a two-way system; the horns cover seven octaves of the frequency band, while the bass is presented by eight horn-coupled 15-inch drivers per side.

These speakers cost around €3 million, and if their size and price don't make them exclusive enough, Acapella's co-founder Alfred Rudolph says that only five pairs will be produced.

Powered by Acapella's Energeia preamp and monoblock power amps (a mere €250,000 worth), the Hypersphere had the presence and performance of what a statement should be. Moreover, it was equally capable of playing the most delicate of orchestral pieces as well as more bombastic tunes.

AUDIOVECTOR

Audiovector introduced its new flagship loudspeaker, the R10 Arreté, to the public. We had already spent a couple of days with them at their home in Copenhagen, which you can read about here. You can also watch an interview with Mads about the R 10 here. Seeing all the nods and smiles of approval in Munich at the end of Soulution amplification was excellent and well-deserved.

Designed and handcrafted in Denmark, the R10 Arreté features a dual Air Motion Transformer (AMT) tweeter system incorporating Audiovector's Soundstage Enhancement Concept (SEC) where the AMTs are open at the rear and controlled by neodymium magnets. This configuration includes a primary AMT tweeter operating from 3,000 Hz to 53,000 Hz and a dedicated "hyper tweeter" assisting between 20,000 Hz to 53,000 Hz, whilst a rear-firing woofer array, which is said to be the equivalent of a 15-inch sub, takes care of the low frequencies.

These elegant floorstanders have excellent scale and dynamics and can impart the same detailing and remarkable soundstaging at lower levels. Some might say you would expect all of this from a pair of £127,5000 / $165,000 / €147,500 loudspeakers, but this comes wrapped in a high-quality, hand-made aesthetic that enables them to fit into any room rather than having to be hidden away in a listening room.

CLARYSIS

We have previously enjoyed Clarysis's ribbon speakers from the compact Minuet to the Auditorium at High End 2023. However, for the final Munich show, Clarysis was showing its impressive Atrium, which, all tolled, required six-and-a-half tonnes of equipment to be shipped to the MOC.

The six-panel Atrium speaker system (mid/treble panels, bass panels and panel subs) was driven by six VAC mono-blocs (a pair of Statement 455iQ and four Master 300 iQ Musicblocs) fed via an Accuphase crossover. Sources included a Pink Faun server and Lampinzator Horizon 360 DAC taking care of the digital side. Meanwhile, a Kronos turntable dealt with analogue with help from a VAC Statement Phono and Line-Stage.

What impressed us with this huge Clarysis system was that it wasn't just a show of strength; these massive panels were able to impart intimacy and delicacy. While we expect this type of design to be great with vocals, which these were, the Atrium could also produce gusty, full-bodied weightedness, still with remarkable separation when required. Hats doffed to team Clarysis for taking on this challenge and getting it set up so well.

ELECTROMPANIET x Ø AUDIO

Electrocompaniet unveiled its most ambitious preamplifier to date, albeit as a prototype. The ~€15,000 EC5 is a dual mono design sporting a two-level chassis. The top half contains the analogue circuitry, while the bottom houses the power supply and app-control processor.

However, it was the Ø Audio Verdande (apparently, the name is taken from the tree of life in Norwegian mythology) loudspeakers and its new VARG bass reinforcement system, pushed along by four AW800 M amps, that had us riveted to our seats— and not just because there was a Viking complete with axe prowling the room!

For such a comparatively compact system by High End standards, the Electrocompaniet x Ø Audio system delivered massively no matter if judging by dynamics, speed, clarity or timbre. The only caveat here was that we felt the system's soundstaging was hampered by the room.

ESTELON

Never one to do things by half, Estelon launched three new loudspeaker models to its A Series at High End Munich 2025 - the Aurelia, Aurelia Centre, and Aurus. These represent a more compact and affordable proposition from the brand and were demonstrated alongside MSB electronics.

While the main part of the room was dedicated to a static display of Estelon's range as part of its fifteenth-anniversary celebrations, a three-seated area was provided for the A Series listening experience, which also demonstrated that you don't need much room to accommodate Estelon's excellent speakers.

The system consisted of Aurelia (€14,900 per pair), Aurelia Centre (€7,500) and the Aurus sub (€13,500) at the end of an MSB S202 stereo amp (~£30,000) fed by the Discrete Pro streaming DAC (from £13,800) all connected by Kubala-Sosna cables.

This was uncomplicated and beautiful high-end audio, and the new Estelon speakers paired with the MSB electronics were a very easy, unstrained listen, no matter the material played. It's one thing to make great-sounding speakers when money is almost no object, but Estelon proved it can do the same with a more restrained budget but stay true to its core principles and technologies.

KHARMA

Kharma's Enigma Veyron 2D loudspeakers were the room's focal point. These shapely floorstanders house a diamond tweeter sitting as the filling in a mid and woofer sandwich. However, the Dutch brand was debuting its Exquisite Reference Power Distributor. This unit features internal conductors made from high-purity silver-plated OFC strands. We are told that the wiring is enclosed in solid aluminium housing to shield against EMI and RFI.

If not for making our list for its sound reproduction, we would like to acknowledge the effort that Kharma puts into its room year after year, to the extent of even bringing their own meticulously crafted flooring and walls to make the space truly theirs. Kharma sets the standard for attention to detail within the industry, no question. For that, they get our vote for Best Dressed.

LINN

At this year's show, Linn introduced its new Klimax Solo 500 mono power amps (£23,500 each). Here, they were being used to power a pair of Linn 360 Passive with Aktiv bass speakers. This was fed by a Klimax DSM streaming preamp with a Sondek LP12 fitted with a Bedrok plinth taking on long player duties. Everything was knitted together via Transparent Reference cables.

The result was an alluring sound that had plenty of punch when required. This was definitely a system you could listen to all night long.

MBL

MBL brought its big guns in the shape of the 101 X-Treme MkII, a four-way omnidirectional loudspeaker across four cabinets. The system consists of two Radial TT100 woofers, two Radial MT50/E midrange, two HT37/E Radial tweeters, one "ambience" dome tweeter, and six 12-inch aluminium cone subwoofers per side.

For those not familiar with the Radialstrahler design, it is a vertical circular laminate driver. The driver membranes (or lamellas) look like orange segments. So, following that analogy, each whole orange (although the drivers are more oblate spheroid than spherical) takes care of a specific frequency range. Where a conventional cone acts as a piston, the Radialstrahler pulsates outward bending the lamellas in all directions. The result is omnidirectional sound.

The speakers weigh 265kg each, while the subwoofer towers weigh 226kg each. The speakers alone cost €375,000, and those were joined by a €96,500 front end consisting of the company's 1621 A CD player, 1611 F DAC and 6010 D preamplifier plus a €9,000 C41 Network Player from the Cadenza line. Naturally, the quartet of power amps were the Reference 9011 at €55,650 each.

This was an exquisite listen, although a little bit of extra time might have been required if you had not experienced the Radialstrahlers before, as the sound isn't as directional as you might be used to through more conventional drivers. The cherry on top for us was catching MBL's Chief Engineer Jürgen Reis give a presentation.

WHARFEDALE

Making our list for exceptional performance and value for money, Wharfedale officially unveiled its new EVO 5 Series of loudspeakers with its flagship EVO 5.4 (£1,399 / €1,899 per pair) taking on the crucial demonstration duties. The floorstanders were ably supported by Audiolab's 9000 Series electronics, including a 9000Q preamplifier mated to a pair of 9000P power amplifiers running in bridged mono mode, alongside a 9000N music streamer and 9000CDT CD transport.

Speaking with Peter Comeau about just how cohesive and good this system sounded, he told us that he had to be sure to highlight that the pricing of the EVO 5.4 was for a pair of speakers - that said, even if it was each, the way they sounded at the show, it would have still been a bargain. Therefore, this was our vote for Best for Budget.

WILSON AUDIO x DAN D'AGOSTINO x DCS

This €3.5 million system prompted us to create the term 'Hyper-fi'. We were told it took 3 days for 40 people to assemble, tweak and tune, and quite the grand spectacle it was. The system featured Wilson Audio WAMM Master Chronosonic speakers and Wilson Audio WAMM Master Subsonic subwoofers being driven by Dan D'Agostino Relentless Epic 1600 mono powers amps (x4) controlled by a Dan D'Agostino Relentless Preamplifier. The front end consisted of the dCS Vivaldi APEX DAC, dCS Vivaldi Upsampler and dCS Vivaldi CD/SACD Transport II, with everything connected by Nordost cables.

Sat in the sweet spot, this system literally had scale, dynamics, and immense transparency. Our team has had the luxury of experiencing some of the very best systems around the world, but this system was the stuff of end-game dreams. Our only regret was not having more time to experience our favourite reference tracks, and perhaps never being able to afford a system like this in our lifetime. Truly inspirational and aspirational!

FINAL WORD

While this is auf wiedersehen to Munich, we are grateful to High End Society for all the hard work over the past 21 years creating what has become the industry's international event of the year. And, while there is some concern over next year's fixture, we have no doubt that the organisers will do their utmost to continue the show's winning formula - and StereoNET will be there for that.

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