We're bringing you the latest hi-fi news and product launches from the High End Munich show 2025
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission.
Today marks Day 2 of the High End Munich show!
It's the last time Europe's biggest hi-fi trade show takes place in Munich (the show moves to Vienna next year), and it's going out with a splash. There are over 500 exhibitors and 1000 brands showcasing the latest and greatest audio products throughout the week. The show started on Thursday, 15th May and ends on Sunday 18th.
The What Hi-Fi? team are on the ground at the MOC Event Center Messe München to bring you all the latest hi-fi news and launches, while raising a stein (or two!) to the venue's last hurrah.
High End Munich 2025 info
When: Thursday 15th & Friday 16th May (10am-6pm) – trade visitors only; Saturday 17th (10am-6pm) & Sunday 18th (10am-4pm) – open to the public
Where: MOC Event Center Messe München, Lilienthalallee 40, 80939, Munich, Germany
Tickets: €10 Saturday, €10 Sunday. Buy tickets here
We've already seen multiple launches from some of the biggest hi-fi brands out there, including high-end amplifiers from Mark Levinson, Audiolab's new DACs, a high-end streamer from dCS, a new phono stage from Chord Electronics, and a special Charlie Brown turntable from Pro-Ject. Scroll down for all the key news and highlights.
We'll be bringing you exclusive product news, hands-on images, first impressions and more insights from the event, so keep an eye on the website, our Instagram and Facebook channels for exclusive photos and videos from the show floor.
AudiolabAudiolab has started things off with a bang, announcing two new standalone DACs – the D7 (£499) and pricier D9 (£1099) – that are descendants of the much-loved, well-regarded Audiolab M-DAC. The D7 (pictured above) and D9 are packed with new technologies and features.Read the full Audiolab D7 and D9 story
AudiovectorThe Danish speaker company will be demoing its new flagship R10 Arreté floorstanders, which cost a cool £127,5000 / $165,000 / €147,500 per pair. We've already had a first look and listen to these new floorstanders, and you'll get a chance to hear them yourselves at the show.I listened to Audiovector's flagship floorstanders, and they're an incredibly fun way to spend a small fortune
AuralicAuralic will be unveiling its new Aquila X3 streaming media processor at Munich, which promises "a cutting-edge feature set and true modular design, offering users unmatched flexibility and upgradability." The X3 will be on demo to showcase Auralic's LightningCast technology that is said to be "revolutionising high-resolution streaming".
Audio-TechnicaThere's a new flagship turntable in town. Audio-Technica has launched the AT-LPA2 (pictured above), with chassis and platter made of clear acrylic to achieve that striking transparent look. It comes fitted with the AT-OC9XEN dual moving coil cartridge, has a separate power supply unit, and is yours for £1699 / €1999. Read the Audio-Technica LPA2 story
Advance ParisThe French brand will be launching a number of new products at the show, details of which are under wraps for now. But if you like the look of the beefy A12 Classic integrated with VU meters, keep an eye out for its new releases.
Astell & KernA&K has a brand new flagship portable music player – the A&ultima SP4000 – which is packed with more ways of playing high-resolution music than you would think was possible from a portable device. We don't have official pricing yet, but the previous five-star SP3000 flagship cost £3799 / $3699 / AU$5499, so expect a similarly lofty price.
BurmesterNot content with one product launch at High End Munich, Burmester has refreshed its entire Reference line of products. This sees the arrival of the 257 turntable, 249 preamplifier and 259 stereo power amplifier, which are all brand new designs and share nothing from their predecessors.Read the Burmester story
Chord ElectronicsChord teased a new flagship product for its Ultima Reference range, and we now know it's the company's flagship Ultima Phonostage (pictured above). We don't have a price at this stage, but it was on display at Munich High End together with some initial specifications.Read the Chord Ultima Phonostage story
Cyrus AudioCyrus has dropped some huge news at High End 2025 with the launch of its first-ever full-width products. The new 80 Series features casework which, according to Cyrus, is simply an extension of that used for its 40 Series. Besides giving its rengineers more room to work in, the new chassis also allows the company to accommodate its external power supply (the 40PSU) in 80 Series products.Read the Cyrus Audio story
DaliDali has brought the bass to High End 2025 with the V-15F, its most powerful subwoofer yet. Weighing over 50kg, it's a bit of a beast with a huge 16-inch driver and no fewer than four continuous flare reflex ports. A serious speaker for stereo and AV use.Read the Dali V-15F story
dCSThe new Lina DAC X music streamer launched earlier this month and we hope to have a peek of the new £13,500 / $15,500 player at the show. We were impressed with the Lina DAC (five stars), so have high hopes for this evolved step up.Read the dCS Lina DAC X story
ElectrocompanietElectrocompaniet will be launching a new product called the EC 5.0, a fully analogue preamplifier, at the show on Friday 16th May.
ElipsonThe French brand will be showing off three very different speakers at High End Munich. First up are the eye-catching, globular Planet L Performance speakers, which will be on demo. Also on show are a new version of the Prestige Facet II bookshelf speakers and an updated Legacy range of speakers.
EversoloThe Eversolo Play streaming amplifier is a new product from the brand that we're keen to see first-hand. It combines extensive streaming features with a Class D amplifier in its compact box, yours for €699. There's also a version with a CD player built-in for €799 – that's a potent combination of talents for a modern do-it-all system!Read the full Eversolo Play story
Fyne AudioA new addition to its F700SP line-up will be unveiled at Munich. The F704SP gets the 'Special Production" treatment, with IsoFlare driver technology and innovations drawn from the brand's flagship F1 Series. Price? £20,000 / $26,000 / €24,000 per pair.Read the Fyne F704SP story
GenelecFinnish audio brand Genelec will have its mammoth five-way 8381A speakers on demo at the show in a piano black finish. Alongside that are smaller Genelec The One three-way bookshelf speakers that come in a variety of colourful finishes.
Gryphon Audio2025 marks the 30th year of Gryphon's Antileon Series power amplifier and at High End Munich 2025 the company has launched its fifth-generation version: Antileon Revelation. As with all Gryphon power amps, both stereo and mono versions are available, delivering 160 and 180 watts per channel (RMS) of Class A power, respectively.
Read the Gryphon Audio story
IsoAcousticsKnown for its isolation products, IsoAcoustics will be showcasing two new product ranges: the GAIA Neo and GAIA Titan Neo acoustic isolation feet. Designed to be more user-friendly and flexible than before, thanks to height adjustment and simplified installation.
iFi AudioiFi has launched the UP Travel Bluetooth DAC – a compact transmitter and receiver that offers hi-res Bluetooth from in-car audio and in-flight entertainment systems to your devices, removing the need for cables and adapters. A 3.5mm connector, 10-hour battery and support for aptX Adaptive and LDAC codecs.
JBL JBL's flagship, high-end Summit series of loudspeakers has gained three new models, all named after mountains. Joining the giant Everest and K2 models are the smaller-but-still-quite-large Makalu and Pumori floorstanders and Ama standmounter. They start at £14,998 / $19,995 per pair. Ambitious. Read the JBL Summit speakers story
KlipschThe American speaker brand will have one of its latest flagship horn speakers – the La Scala AL6 – on demo throughout the show, alongside its Klipsch Ojas collaboration speakers. Over at the Motorworld hotel next door, Klipsch's Flexus 300 (the first ever soundbar with Dirac Live) and Reference Premiere speakers will be on show.Read the Klipschorn AK7 & La Scala AL6 story
LuxmanCelebrating a monumental 100 years, high-end Japanese brand Luxman has launched the P-100 Centennial headphone amplifier and E-07 phono preamp, both of which we expect will be on show.Read the Luxman Centennial story
Mark LevinsonMark Levinson has unveiled a whole new range of high-end amplifiers. Its 600 series comprises the No. 626 preamplifier, No. 632 two-channel power amplifier and No. 631 monoblock tower. With prices starting at £24,000 / €28,000 / $25,000 for the No. 626 this is a trio made for serious hi-fi systems.Read the Mark Levinson 600 series story
Meze AudioMeze Audio will be showcasing its open-back POET headphones at the show, which launched earlier this year at £1850 / $2000 / €2000. Also making their debut at the show are the new open-back 105 Silva – official price and launch later in the year. Read the Meze 105 Silva story
Musical FidelityWe first saw Musical Fidelity's new midrange B1 series of hi-fi separates at the Bristol Hi-Fi Show earlier this year. The B1 xi integrated amplifier and B1c CD player are both on display at Munich, too.Read the Musical Fidelity B1 range story
NADNAD has taken the wraps off two new amps for its Master Series range: the M33 V2 BluOS Streaming Amplifier (£4999 / $5999) and M23 V2 Stereo Power Amplifier (£3499 / $3999).Read the NAD story
NagaokaThe Japanese cartridge brand is celebrating its 85th anniversary with a brand new flagship cartridge. The Nagaoka MP-700 promises "exceptional detail retrieval from vinyl grooves" and is yours for £1149 / $1399.Read the Nagaoka MP-700 story
OnkyoWe're excited to see Onkyo's Icon series at the show, which marks the brand's return to hi-fi after many years of absence. The Icon includes a streaming integrated amplifier, a network preamplifier and a power amplifier, and they certainly look smart from the pictures we've seen so far.
PMCPMC has confirmed that it will be demoing its new Prophecy range of speakers, which includes one pair of standmounters, three pairs of floorstanders and a centre speaker, with prices ranging from £2275 / €2775 to £8975 / €10,945.
Pro-JectPro-Ject has unveiled a Peanuts-themed record player – to coincide with comic strip's 75th anniversary – and Charlie Brown's round head on the platter just looks adorable. Previous years saw the launch of the ultra-cool Metallica turntable, the beautiful Pink Floyd one, and the lovely Yellow Submarine deck.Read the Pro-Ject Peanuts record player story
QobuzFinally, the long-awaited Qobuz Connect feature has launched at High End 2025. In line with Tidal Connect and Spotify Connect, Qobuz's version will hopefully bring a more seamless streaming experience to your hi-fi system and a simpler way of controlling your Qobuz music library across devices.Read the Qobuz Connect story
SennheiserHead to the Sennheiser booth and try out its "immersive mirror box", which offers a short "multi-sensory light and sound experience, followed by visual snippets with behind-the-scenes insights." We're excited to find out what this experience entails.
T+AA new streaming integrated amplifier called Symphonia will be on demo, paired with the Talis S 330 floorstanding speakers. Visitors will also get their first look at a new E Series receiver concept running the latest T+A OS user interface – both are currently in development.
TADThe high-end Japanese brand will be showcasing its ultra high-end TAD-ME1TX standmount speakers, which boast "meticulous engineering and superior materials", with the price tag starting at a wallet-busting £17,500 / $18,200 / €17,300 per pair.
TechnicsWhile we don't have any indication that Technics will be unveiling something brand new at the show, the legendary Japanese brand is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year, so expect to see their latest launches – SL-1300G turntable and EAH-AZ100 wireless earbuds (both five stars) – on display.
WharfedaleWe've seen a new range of speakers from Wharfedale at High End 2025. Evo 5 replaces the well-received Evo 4 line and boasts five different models with updated cabinets, drivers and crossovers and new damping technology. Prices start at £549 / €699 / AU$1249.Read the Wharfedale Evo 5 story
WiiM WiiM had a big High End Munich last year, launching the WiiM Ultra (five stars) and WiiM Amp Pro (currently being tested). Munich 2025 will be similarly significant thanks to the launch two new product types: the HomePod-looking WiiM Sound smart speaker and the WiiM Sub Pro subwoofer. We're also excited to see the new WiiM Amp Ultra streaming amplifier (pictured above), which combines the Ultra's touchscreen display unit with 100W of amplification, along with plenty of streaming features and connectivity.Read the WiiM Sound storyRead the WiiM Amp Ultra story
You can see the full list of brands exhibiting this year.
MORE:
Revisit the highlights from last year's High End Munich 2024
8 tracks we've been using to test in the What Hi-Fi? listening rooms this month
The rise of small, complete hi-fi systems that are more accessible for newcomers is a great direction for the industry
The best music streamers across all budgets

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles

Wall Street Journal
27 minutes ago
- Wall Street Journal
Semiconductor Subsidies? Tried and Failed
I was the CEO of Cypress Semiconductor, a chip company founded in 1982 that peaked in 2018 at $2.8 billion in revenue and 5,846 employees. In 2020 German chip maker Infineon acquired us for $10 billion. In 1987, the Semiconductor Industry Association decided that our industry needed to get on what I call welfare. The association lobbied Washington to fund a consortium called Sematech, grant it exemptions from antitrust laws, and fund a silicon-wafer fabrication plant. This was needed, the association said, because Japanese companies were about to wipe out the American semiconductor industry. As a chip company CEO, I never worried about getting wiped out, but I worried daily about rival memory chips from Hitachi, Toshiba, Mitsubishi and Fujitsu. That healthy competition made our company stronger, and in 2015 Cypress acquired Fujitsu's microcontroller team.


Geek Tyrant
44 minutes ago
- Geek Tyrant
New JAMES BOND Game From IO Interactive Officially Titled 007 FIRST LIGHT — GeekTyrant
IO Interactive has revealed the official title for its highly anticipated standalone original James Bond video game, 007 First Light . The announcement was accompanied by a teaser image, with the official reveal of the game set to take place this week. The game will feature "a wholly original Bond story," which is said to put players "into the shoes of the world's favorite Secret Agent to earn their 00 status in the very first James Bond origin story." IO Interactive CEO and co-owner Hakan Abrak previously discussed the game and he revealed that they won't be using the likeness of any actor who has portrayed 007 in the past. He goes on to confirm that the creative team will also be creating a completely new story for their original version of Bond. He explained: "It's important to mention: doing a licensed game is new to us. We've only done our own, original IPs (intellectual property), right? We've created these characters... ourselves, from scratch. 'So, I think for us to really embrace this fully, and really, as I said before, we don't like to work 'mechanical.' It's not just because it's a big IP, or it's a licensed game, and commercially this is interesting... It means nothing to us. We've taken a lot of non-commercial risks before. 'So, for us, it's about... we need to feel it, deep inside. The passion needs to be there, so it was very important for us that it wasn't a movie adaptation. So, it wasn't a game about... a specific movie, where the story has already been told." "It's very important that we could create a digital Bond. A Bond for the gaming industry... So it's a completely original story. This felt really, really important for us and we conveyed that to [James Bond owner] EON and they agreed that the result would probably be better doing it like that. "There's always excitement around a new Bond. It's amazing, what they have done with the franchise over the years. Every Bond kind of defines a generation and it's amazing how they kept reinventing themselves over so many years. So, we're not only inspired by one movie, or games and whatnot. 'We're inspired by the whole thing, and just sucking things into us to make an original Bond, an original story, but that is absolutely true and recognizable in the values there is in Bond. I'm really looking forward to creating a new community that the gamers can call their own." I'm looking forward to seeing what this game will entail, and we'll learn more soon!


Forbes
an hour ago
- Forbes
How To Love Your (Agentic) Database Administrator
An Internet Geek Developers love meritocracy. Software engineering professionals don't judge individuals by the way they look, the way they dress and whether or not they have a purple-green hair dye rinse on their head (spoiler alert, it's actually considered a good thing)... and they never have. They tend to classify their counterparts and contemporaries on the basis of their skillset, their ability to show technical competency and their enthusiasm for the combined arts of coding and data science. If there's one chink in that argument, it's a possible hierachy between the developer community and the operations team. While the developers get to build, program and create, the Ops team are assigned the responsibility to underpin, maintain and manage. Some developers occasionally regard the sysadmins, database administrators and testing team as less skilled; the rise of DevOps has sought to unite these two streams and platform engineering is also aiming to create and reinforce bonds, but fractures inevitably exist. Could a new wave of agentic AI services in the data management space actually help elevate the status of this essential function and, just maybe, actually help elevate the status of this role to the tier that it deserves? Lithuania-based tech writer Jastra Kranjec says we're on the cusp. Citing the multiplicity of management consultancy reports in this space that suggest AI agents are about to really start helping us work (Capgemini's Top Tech Trends of 2025 survey points to their use to boost efficiency and develop automation), Kranjec says that AI agents have now 'evolved from experimental tools' into mainstream business solutions. 'Last year, even major enterprises like OpenAI, Google DeepMind, Microsoft and PwC began integrating them into their operations, proving them as one of the top AI trends. Moreover, this is just the beginning of AI agents` growth, with market projections showing a surging adoption in the years ahead. Last year, the AI agent industry was valued at around $5.1 billion. This figure is projected to soar by a whopping 821%, reaching $47 billion by 2030,' wrote Kranjec. While such massive percentage projections make for dizzying reading, perhaps we should centralize our focus on the actual jobs agentic AI can now take on. In the data management and manipulation space, that brings us back to the poor database administrator, could the AI DBA be about to become the real hero? Stewart Bond sees a role for this exact job function. In his role as VP of data intelligence and integration software at technology analyst house IDC, he projects that AI can now take on a central role in data orchestration and administration. 'The rise of agentic AI orchestration is expected to accelerate, and companies need to start preparing now,' said Bond. 'To unlock agentic AI's full potential, companies should seek solutions that unify disparate data types, including structured, unstructured, real-time and historical information, in a single environment. This allows AI to derive richer insights and drive more impactful outcomes.' Bond makes his comments in order to contextualize new services stemming from data streaming company Confluent. The organization has now come forward with new Confluent Cloud capabilities that are said to make it easier to process and secure data for faster insights and decision-making. Looking at exactly which products and tools are now on offer, snapshot queries is a new service in Confluent Cloud for Apache Flink designed to bring together real-time and historic data processing to make AI agents and analytics smarter. Confluent Cloud network routing works in concert with this technology to simplify private networking for Apache Flink (an open source data stream processing framework for running computations in 'bounded' - those with a defined start and end - and unbounded data stream environments) and this all sits alongside IP filtering to adds access controls, thereby securing data for agentic AI and analytics. 'Agentic AI is moving from hype to enterprise adoption as organizations look to gain a competitive edge and win in today's market,' said Shaun Clowes, chief product officer at Confluent. 'But without high-quality data, even the most advanced systems can't deliver real value. The new Confluent Cloud for Apache Flink features make it possible to blend real-time and batch data so that enterprises can trust their agentic AI to drive real change.' Clowes agrees with the proposition that Confluent didn't necessarily build this technology to enable, create or innovate the true arrival of the agentic DBA, but he concurs, if the continued extension of the company's platform makes this 'job position' a reality, then it will surely serve IT stacks in every industry for the better. We can certainly suggest that agentic AI is driving widespread change in business operations from the DBA, right upwards through the developer function to the application and user interface. 'However, for AI data agents to make the right decisions, they need historical context about what happened in the past and insight into what's happening right now. For example, for fraud detection, banks need real-time data to react in the moment and historical data to see if a transaction fits a customer's usual patterns. Hospitals need real-time vitals alongside patient medical history to make safe, informed treatment decisions. But to leverage both past and present data, teams often have to use separate tools and develop manual workarounds, resulting in time-consuming work and broken workflows. Additionally, it's important to secure the data that's used for analytics and agentic AI; this ensures trustworthy results and prevents sensitive data from being accessed,' explains Confluent, in a technical product statement. To address these challenges, the company says that snapshot queries in Confluent Cloud let teams unify historical and streaming data with a single product and language, enabling consistent, intelligent experiences for both analytics and agentic AI. With the company's Tableflow service integration, teams can gain context from past data. Snapshot queries allow teams to explore, test, and analyze data without spinning up new workloads. This makes it easier to supply agents with context from historic and real-time data or conduct an audit to understand key trends and patterns. 'The rise of the Agentic DBA is already happening… and there are some very 'human' reasons behind it. Dealing with disruptions like anomalies, outages, or performance optimizations is distracting (to say the least) for DBAs and data infrastructure teams,' enthused Karthik Ranganathan, co-founder & CEO of cloud-native open source database company Yugabyte. 'DBA agents are trained to respond and optimize automatically, allowing human workers to focus on more strategic business value tasks.' Ranganathan says that agentic DBAs are capable of anything from performing query execution patterns to analyzing resource trends to mentoring cloud cluster health, which means all these tasks can now be dealt with automatically. This allows DBAs to avoid 'alert fatigue' and learn from previously taken actions when their workload permits. 'The agentic DBA is a natural extension of modern databases, such as distributed SQL databases. The point of a PostgreSQL-compatible distributed database is to deliver cloud-native apps that scale effortlessly, are never offline and automate tasks like backups behind the scenes. The rise of the agentic DBA, which fine-tunes performance on the fly, will need to be part of any cloud-native distributed database going forward,' stated Yugabyte's Ranganathan. There are many technologies in this space now coming forward. If you're lucky enough to get invited to an Oracle welcome keynote on a Sunday night at its tech events, this is the kind of technology that the company talks about volubly. With so many database functions now ripe for moving to automation such as patching, maintenance checks, upgrades and perhaps also data normalization and deduplicatoin, it's no surprise to hear the database giant talk about database automation. Does IBM make something in this area too? Usually, is the safe answer. May this year saw the company announce its answer to database automation challenges in the form of Db2 Intelligence Center, an AI-powered database management platform designed specifically for Db2 database administrators and IT professionals managing databases. 'We've spent years talking to Db2 database administrators, understanding their pain points, frustrations and the complexity of their workflows. The feedback we have captured is loud and clear: DBAs are tired of fragmented tools that don't integrate with each other. They're tired of the endless libraries of scripts where each DBA maintains his or her own variations and they're tired of constantly reacting to problems and manually troubleshooting, as opposed to being proactive in their database management approach,' said Ani Joshi, senior product manager for Db2, IBM data & AI. Db2 Intelligence Center is a unified, intelligent management console purpose-built for Db2 administrators. It combines advanced monitoring, AI-powered troubleshooting and query optimization into an integrated service that simplifies and accelerates many aspects of Db2 management. With these (arguably) not insignificant automations now coming to the fore, some may ask whether we will have succeeded in making the role of the human database administrator redundant. The answer to that question is, obviously, of course no, don't be silly. What we're seeing here are the mechanical repetitively rote tasks that a DBA has to undertake, now taken out of their workflow to some degree (in some cases totally) and so creating a new DBA role that can start to work more closely with the developer team, provide more business-centric value through increased proximity to commercial teams while also now working to innovate and create new data services. If all that doesn't make you love your DBA just that little bit more, then you just might need a hug.