If, like us, you’re currently swirling a glass of red wine, mulling over what to wear before making your way to a New Year’s Eve party to toast 2026 into existence, you may also be finding yourself accidentally indulging in a bit of nostalgia for the year just passed.
2025 was an interesting year for a variety of reasons, especially if you’re a hi-fi or home cinema enthusiast. Whether it was the arrival of new cutting-edge OLED panel technologies in January or the most turbulent What Hi-Fi? Awards in recent memory a lot has happened over the past 12 months.
A great year for OLED’s “rival”
By Alastair Stevenson
Mini LED has always been a key home cinema tech that has hinted at, but never quite achieved, greatness the same way OLED has.
This is especially true in the premium end of the market, where the panel technology’s inability to deliver perfect blacks, with its lack of pixel-level light control, the way OLEDs do, is a particularly hard pill to swallow.
That problem hasn’t been fixed in 2025. But, I am pleased to report the tech has made firm strides, cementing its place as the top option in the mid and affordable end of the TV market, thanks in small part to a strong showing by TCL.
Despite having a middling 2024, with a sea of four-star sets passing through our viewing rooms, the manufacturer dusted itself off for 2025 and launched two of the best Mini LED TVs we’ve tested: the Award-winning TCL C6KS and TCL C7K.
The C7K is the mid-range TV we recommend to most buyers, with its stellar value price and significantly improved light control making it the best bang for your buck in its class.
Its consistency is what particularly sets it apart and shows Mini LED sets are moving in the right direction. In 2024, a lack of finesse and consistency was a key reason that year’s mid-range Mini LEDs earned four-star ratings.
Meanwhile, the TCL 6KS is impressive simply for having a Mini LED panel, period. Getting a Mini LED TV panel on a 50-inch TV for less than five hundred quid is an achievement; making it look as good as the 6KS does is an industry first for our reviewers.
Looking ahead, both sets are a clear sign that there’s plenty of room left for Mini LED to help improve things for cash-strapped home cinema fans.
Here's hoping the trend continues in 2026!
Top turntable designers share their favourite vinyl records
By Kashfia Kabir
One of the best weeks of the year is when we do Vinyl Week: seven days dedicated to all things vinyl and turntable in the lead up to the annual Record Store Day event.
While I got to listen to turntables as wildly different as the high-end, exquisite Vertere SG-1/Xtrax and the quirky, portable Audio-Technica Sound Burger (both fun), this year, the highlight was when eight of the world's top turntable designers shared their most beloved vinyl records and why they mean so much to them.
It was fantastic hearing directly from the minds behind Pro-Ject, Technics, VPI, Michell and more about their choices and the personal stories behind them, hearing their love for specific music, and what drives them to continue their passion for making turntables. I particularly loved that some even sent in a picture of their own copy of the chosen vinyl record, too.
You can read all the entries here: We asked eight of the world's top turntable designers for their favourite records – here's what they said
Want mid-priced standmounts? 2025 left you spoiled for choice
By Harry McKerrell
What a year it’s been for mid-priced standmount speakers. 2025 saw a slew of models ranging from around £500 to just under £1000, all of which brought something new and unique to the table at their given price point. If you vowed in January that you would upgrade your setup with a new pair of standmount stunners – and you weren’t willing to pay over a grand to get them – 2025 left you spoiled for choice.
The Acoustic Energy AE300 Mk2 led the charge, ending the year as our Product of the Year Award-winners, thanks to their nuanced, delicate approach. But what has been so pleasing about the past 12 months or so is that genuine alternatives abound. If you want speakers that sound richer and fuller, while maintaining exceptional all-round credentials at a cheaper price, the KEF Q3 Meta are an outstanding five-star pick.
The sparklingly talented Bowers & Wilkins 606 S3 are still knocking around at this level, while the newer Monitor Audio Bronze 50 7G act as a five-star wildcard pick, with their peppy, front-footed personality offering an enticing change of pace from their more mature, even-handed rivals.
What’s been so gratifying this year is how each brand has gone in a different sonic direction, demonstrating there’s more than one way to skin the proverbial standmounted cat. If you’re seeking new speakers this Christmas, you really are spoiled for choice.
Super-fierce flagship OLED competition
By Tom Parsons
The degree to which every manufacturer upped its flagship OLED game this year really took me by surprise.
We had a brand new panel technology, Primary RGB Tandem OLED (catchy name there, guys), to get excited about, and a heavily upgraded version of QD-OLED panel tech to do battle with it. But it’s what the brands did with these awesome raw materials that really impressed me.
There has been a real focus on delivering cinematic authenticity in recent years, with manufacturers realising that people really care about seeing movies at home in the way the director intended. And, largely speaking, they have used the super-bright, ultra-vibrant new panel technologies in the pursuit of delivering that authenticity in a living room environment.
This synchronicity in approach from the manufacturers and broad performance parity in the two competing panel technologies means that competition has been closer than ever this year, with the flagship OLED sets from LG, Samsung, Sony, Panasonic and Philips all receiving five-star ratings.
There’s still a hierarchy, with the Sony Bravia 8 II in first, the Samsung S95F and Philips OLED910 sharing second, the Panasonic Z95B in third and the LG G5 in fourth, but the point is that you simply can’t buy a bad super-premium OLED TV right now.
That’s great news for consumers, not least because it means you can focus on your personal priorities (the design or gaming specification, for example), knowing that the picture quality will be awesome no matter which TV you choose.
Gazing into my crystal ball, I’m pretty sure that 2025 will go down in history as a vintage year for OLED TVs.
Harman acquires Bowers & Wilkins, Denon and Marantz
By Andy Madden
I’m not going to lie. It was a huge shock when I returned from holiday in September to be greeted by the news that Harman had finalised its deal to buy Masimo's Sound United stable of brands, which includes the likes of Bowers & Wilkins, Denon, and Marantz.
It was arguably the biggest news to drop in hi-fi and home cinema land in recent years.
After a turbulent few years, though, it gave me great joy and indeed hope to see the Sound United brands come under the ownership of a parent company with a huge pedigree and experience of owning and operating multiple brands in the audio space.
Arcam seems to have blossomed under Harman since its acquisition in 2017 – you only need to look at the recent success of its Radia range to see that – so I’m really excited to see what this new beginning holds in store for the Sound United brands.
I doubt we’ll see the proper fruits of the acquisition for a little while yet, but I honestly couldn’t really think of a better outcome. Our industry can’t afford to lose the likes of Bowers & Wilkins, Denon and Marantz, and hopefully, under new ownership, they’ll be able to go from strength to strength for years to come.
A new premium soundbar champion
By Robyn Quick
We have been spoiled this year in the world of soundbars, with numerous models leaping onto the leader board and blowing rivals out of the water in our test room.
No model, though, made a splash quite as big as the KEF XIO, the brand’s first soundbar. Costing £1999 / $1999 / AU$3600, the ’bar is certainly targeting the premium end of the market.
From the start, it was up against tough competition with the Award-winning Sennheiser Ambeo Soundbar Max, which, although it launched at £2199 / $2500 / AU$4000 in 2019, can now be found for the same price as the XIO.
But the KEF model delivered detailed, precise and immersive sound that managed to outperform the Sennheiser model and steal its crown at the What Hi-Fi? Awards. We say in our review: “KEF says that it wants the soundbar to effectively act as a hi-fi package wrapped up in one product, and it has achieved that. Put simply, it is one of the best soundbars we have heard.” If that’s not high praise, I’m not sure what is.
It also impressed with the inclusion of class-leading technology under the hood, which earned it the What Hi-Fi? Innovation Award. Enter the Velocity Control Technology (VECO), which is built into the soundbar’s bass drivers.
A flexible PCB printed with a sensing coil takes the place of a traditional former (the component that the main coil wraps around) and measures the speed of movement. This allows the soundbar’s ‘brain’ to compensate for any errors detected.
The KEF XIO was certainly one of the best things to come out this year when it comes to home cinema, but I’m curious to see whether a new rival will emerge in 2026 to challenge its audio prowess.
Black Friday... with a personal twist
By James Cook
Seeing as Black Friday is such a hectic time for us here at What Hi-Fi?, I’m sure my colleagues will be a bit mystified that this has been a highlight for me.
But as I only joined the team right as we came into this busy period of discounts on hi-fi and AV gear that we’d recommend, the baptism by fire that ensued enabled me to get acquainted with a variety of products and some of the tech lingo used to describe them.
As the busy trading period continued, an opportunity also arose to cover a piece of gear that I own myself: the Wharfedale Diamond 220. I love bargains and this pair of 2014 Award-winning standmount speakers takes pride of place in my home hi-fi setup. So, when they became available at a discount, I was delighted to be able to genuinely recommend a product that I love at an even better price.
I’m somewhat surprised that such an old product was on discount this year, so I’m hopeful that next Black Friday I’ll have the chance to recommend other parts of my more wallet-friendly setup, too.
Spotify Lossless FINALLY gets released
By Daniel Furn
If you’re a long-term What Hi-Fi? reader, you will probably be aware of our agonising eight-year wait for hi-res Spotify. However, after rumours dating back as far as March 2017, 2025 inexplicably became the year that Spotify Lossless was finally released upon the world.
So was it worth the wait? Well, the 24-bit/44.1kHz audio quality is still a fair bit behind the 24-bit/192kHz of rivals such as Tidal and Qobuz, and Lossless is locked behind the ever-increasing Premium price tier.
But for long-term Spotify listeners locked into a family plan like me, an increase on the previous limit of 320kbps streams is a bit of a godsend. My 10+ years of playlists and a carefully curated taste profile are now available in hi-res, and I can finally justify investing in a good DAC and a pair of our best wired headphones.
Spotify Lossless might not have been a perfect upgrade, but it’s sure to make a big difference to the service’s reported 281 million Premium subscribers. I still get a little buzz every time I see the green “Lossless” indicator in the Now Playing view, and it’s the perfect excuse to listen to my library all over again.
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