As the annual Amazon Prime Day sales event gets underway (here all week!), it's a great place to pick up bargains on wireless headphones, Bluetooth speakers and OLED TVs – it's just not that great for hi-fi deals.

Equally, you might not want to fork out for a Prime subscription, or you might just not be keen on buying from the giant retailer anyway. If you are a hi-fi fan or embarking on your home audio journey, I would always recommend heading to one of the specialist retailers.

They can give you dedicated advice, help with set up, and there's usually a friendly (real) person on the phone who can help with any query too. It's a personal touch that I've always appreciated whenever I've bought from these specialists in the past 14+ years since I started reviewing audio products.

Happily, these specialist retailers – such as Richer Sounds, Peter Tyson, Sevenoaks in the UK – also offer some tremendous deals on hi-fi that you won't find anywhere on Amazon. If you're looking for gigantic savings on some premium floorstanders, discounts on What Hi-Fi? Award winning products, deals on high-end Naim kit or even some money off a lovely turntable – then you're in luck.

Below, I've highlighted some fantastic deals on hi-fi products that the What Hi-Fi? team (including myself) have tested and can personally recommend. My personal favourites are the sub-£1000 price on the Sonus Faber Omnia wireless system (I just wish I had the space to place it in my home), and the gigantic 70% discount on the retro-inspired JBL stereo amp. If only I had the need for another amp...

If you've got the budget, why not take the plunge and upgrade your system, and bag a fantastic bargain along the way? Happy shopping, and be rest assured that Amazon could never match these deals.

MORE:

Prime Day 2026 LIVE: the best headphone, speaker and vinyl deals picked by our hi-fi experts

I already own the best OLED available, so why am I thinking of buying this other TV on Amazon Prime Day?

The best hi-fi deals currently around, across all retailers

A few months into my new job as Managing Editor of What Hi-Fi? Sound and Vision, the ink barely dry on the ‘S&V’ rebrand, an Apple press release arrived about a new portable music player, roughly the size of a pack of cards, that could hold a thousand songs.

I had joined What Hi-Fi? in 2001 from the computing and technology press, already fluent in digital and the impact the internet was having. I’d even met Steve Jobs. But in the rarefied world of hi-fi, all the iPod warranted in our November 2001 issue was 70 words in the News in Brief section, headlined “Apple’s MP3 Jukebox”.

But hey, What Hi-Fi? had been going 25 years by then – it had already seen a lot of newfangled things come and go.

A quarter of a century on from that passing mention, the iPod that changed everything is itself a museum piece – while the physical formats that downloads then streaming were supposed to kill are having the last laugh. The vinyl revival continues apace, CD sales are enjoying a resurgence, and even cassettes are back in style.

And still, What Hi-Fi? covers it all – informing a growing global readership on how to enjoy more from your music, TV and movies – however and wherever you choose to consume them.

In my ten-year tenure at What Hi-Fi?, I was Managing Editor, Editor, Editor in Chief and Brand Director. I oversaw the launch of international editions, moved our test rooms to Teddington, hosted a decade of What Hi-Fi? Awards, and sat through more format wars than I care to remember – SACD vs DVD-Audio, Blu-ray vs HD-DVD, DTS vs Dolby vs THX and more. I watched plasma televisions rise, peak with Pioneer’s extraordinary Kuro and then quietly surrender to LCD (until OLED entered stage left).

I’d seen the hi-fi industry begin to consolidate, some great names disappear, and a few genuinely visionary engineers transform the way the world enjoyed music and movies.

We were never afraid to tell people what NOT to buy, either, especially during those febrile format wars. In the short-lived era of DVD recorders, with competing ‘standards’ to choose from, we urged consumer caution – our national media campaign of ‘Don’t buy a turkey for Christmas’ cost us a lot of advertising pages from irked manufacturers (my name was mud in the C-Suite).

But first, back 25 years to a day when all these things seemed utterly insignificant. On 11th September 2001, I was at a far-flung printing plant with our Production Editor, press-passing the latest issue of What Hi-Fi?. We weren’t entirely happy with the colour balance of the magazine since the redesign, so we were onsite to work with the printers to get things spot on.

Back then, a press pass involved much sitting around in a break room – TV news on in the background – waiting for the presses to be loaded up with the next section of the magazine. You’d then go into the print room – roaring presses churning out thousands of pages a minute – to review and agree output with the technicians.

Just before heading in to pass the first magazine section, the TV cut to pictures from New York, where it seemed a plane had accidentally hit the World Trade Center. By the time we took our next break, the second plane had struck the Twin Towers, and we realised the news was much, much darker.

The rest of that afternoon was surreal. Around us, other magazine makers and print staff were moving between stunned silence and urgent phone calls – frantically checking whether anything in their forthcoming issues needed to be pulled, whether any feature or advertisement was suddenly, horribly wrong for the moment. The ordinary machinery of publishing, grinding on, because it had to.

Somehow, we completed the press pass, before spending the night in a regional hotel, drinking endless cups of tea, glued to the TV watching history unfold through our tears. Magazine making had never felt more futile.

Let’s lighten the mood with tales of when things went wrong for more innocent reasons. Such as the Moscow launch of What Hi-Fi? Russia, where one magazine executive slid off his stool mid-presentation after too much local vodka. Or the time the repro house forgot to add any of the adverts into the Buyer’s Guide section (plenty of white space to write notes in that issue).

Or the infamous cover-flap incident.

We had a big subwoofer test that month, and the cover promised – in the largest, boldest type we could fit – BIGGER BETTER BASS. What nobody thought to check was how it sat under a promotional cover flap that was running on that issue. Which is how a magazine about high-performance audio came to sit on the nation’s newsstands with BETTER ASS screaming at passing shoppers in giant capitals…

My ten years at What Hi-Fi? raced by, in a rhythm of CES launches, Bristol Hi-Fi Shows, manufacturer press trips, ‘Summer of Sport’ TV-test specials, IFAs, What Hi-Fi? Awards, bumper peak-season issues, and the growing demands for online content.

All this and many, many hours sat on a test-room sofa, evaluating products with the best team – energetically debating up to (and beyond) publication about the merits of particular products and technologies, discovering new music, perfect test tracks and more. (The ‘new’ music I introduced was most likely something recorded before I was born. Sorry not sorry.)

It was a magazine of many Andrews – four of them in the editorial team at one time – including the inimitable Andy Clough, editor extraordinaire, whose dry wit, attention to detail and peerless industry contacts powered What Hi-Fi? into the 21st Century. ‘Cloughie’ was taken far too young, as was legendary Buyer’s Guide editor, Caroline Osborn, who notched up four decades of What Hi-Fi? service. The team was hugely enriched by her diligence, kindness, and cake tins of awesome chocolate brownies.

Because brands and technologies rise and fall, but it’s people – yes, even in the age of A.I. – that make the difference. Happy 50th Birthday, What Hi-Fi?!

MORE:

1976 vs today: veteran audio experts discuss the biggest shifts in music and hi-fi during What Hi-Fi?'s 50-year lifetime

A look back to 1976 and the first issue of What Hi-Fi? magazine

Apple at 50: how Cupertino changed the audio world time and again – and not always for the better

Integrated amplifiers come in all shapes and sizes. Some look great, some sound great, some are simply too much of a bargain to resist. Only once in a blue moon does an amplifier meet all three of these criteria.

But with a Prime Day discount taking the Cambridge Audio AXA35 down to just £299 on Amazon, Cambridge Audio and Richer Sounds, this stereo integrated amplifier might just have struck that seldom seen combo.

• View all the Prime Day deals

Available until 14th July, this deal is well worth considering for anyone looking to take their first steps into the world of hi-fi separates.

We first heard the AXA35 in 2019. Even then, we said it was a "great budget buy" that would present its price competitors with a tough, "confident sounding" rival.

With this Prime Day price reduction, we find ourselves agreeing more than ever with our previous assessment.

The AXA35 features two 35 watt channels, with four line level inputs for connection to audio sources, such as CD players and music streamers.

Input selection is simple via the unit's onboard buttons, and a volume dial and menu button allow for tonal tweaking of the amplifier's individual channels. Notably, these changes can also be made with an included remote.

During our review, the AXA35 impressed us with its "precise and assured" sound. Listening to Like A Dog Chasing Cars from The Dark Knight soundtrack, we noted that its dynamic skill came to the forefront when conveying drama, with a performance that was spirited, "but by no means aggressive".

The amplifier also won favour among our review team for its low-frequency response and tightly focused reproduction of vocals.

That said, we were disappointed to find that the AXA35 did not include Bluetooth connectivity, but an in-built moving magnet phono stage for connecting to a turntable softened the blow.

If you are hunting for a solid and affordable stereo amplifier, this Prime Day deal might be the one for you. The Cambridge Audio AXA35 is now available for £299 from Amazon, Cambridge Audio and Richer Sounds.

MORE

Read our full Cambridge Audio AXA35 review

Take a look at our best stereo amplifiers 2026: 8 class leaders chosen by our review experts

Catch up on Prime Day 2026 LIVE: the best headphone, speaker and vinyl deals picked by our hi-fi experts

We’ve all been there: that sinking feeling as you plug in a new pair of headphones to your laptop, only to find they aren’t quite what you imagined.

It’s a tough situation – especially if you have already thrown away the receipt – but before you rule out your latest cans, you might want to invest in a dedicated digital-to-analogue converter, or DAC, which will boost the sound quality of the digital music stored on your laptop.

Starting this Prime Week, Cambridge Audio has you covered with a £50 discount on its five-star DacMagic 200M headphone amplifier/DAC. It’s available for just £299 right now at Amazon.

Whether you are looking to use this versatile DAC alongside your main hi-fi rig or as part of a desktop setup, having a good quality DAC will make all the difference to the sound of your music library.

Cambridge Audio’s DacMagic 200M isn’t short on connectivity. With twin coaxial (up to 24-bit/192kHz hi-res file support) and optical (up to 24-bit/96kHz) inputs for digital sources, a USB-B socket (32-bit/768kHz, DSD512) for hooking up to a laptop, and balanced XLR and unbalanced RCA analogue connections, there’s not much this DAC can’t handle that we would want it to.

In-built support for aptX Bluetooth also makes this a convenient option for streaming to wireless headphones, and a 6.3mm headphone socket lets you plug and play, straight from your desk.

We found the DacMagic 200M’s sound to be characteristic of Cambridge Audio's other products, presenting a “full, smooth tonality that’s complemented by an open, expressive and authoritative manner”.

While that sense of authority was most apparent in the “rich punchy” low end, we felt this DAC has a “nicely proportioned, equally talented frequency range”, which allowed us to “sit back and enjoy the music”, irrespective of genre.

And its flexibility doesn’t end there; the DacMagic 200M sounds great paired with most sources. Hi-res audio really shows off what it can do, revealing textures and details that other equipment might miss, but even while streaming via Bluetooth, we described its performance as “exemplary”.

The DacMagic 200M isn’t exactly a fresh face – we tested it back in 2021 – but it remains an excellent desktop DAC. And it can be yours today for a great deal price of just £299 from Amazon and Cambridge Audio.

MORE:

Read the full Cambridge Audio DacMagic 200M review

Check out our best DACs 2026: USB, desktop and portable digital-to-analogue converters

Take a look at our Prime Day Hi-Fi hub

Sony is always good for a Prime Day deal, and this year has been no exception. We've spotted the lowest-ever price on the WF-1000XM6 wireless earbuds, but if you're just getting into the world of vinyl, there's also a significant saving to be had on Sony's outstanding PS-LX3BT Bluetooth turntable.

The affordable deck is perfect for anyone dipping their toe into the sea of vinyl for the first time, and with the excellent plug 'n play spinner falling from £299 to £235 at Amazon, now is the time to strike. It's not the first time we've seen it at this price, but we still think it's a great deal that shouldn't be ignored.

The PS-LX3BT is such an easy to use turntable that we'd highly recommend it to anyone who wants to dip their toe into vinyl waters.

Its automatic operation means you don’t even need to adjust the tonearm, while playing and stopping tracks is made easy via ‘start’ and ‘stop’ buttons respectively. Once your record has reached its end, the arm will automatically return to its resting start position, so you barely have to touch it at all.

Speaking of tonearms, the Sony deck features an aluminium model with a precision pivot bearing, as well as an aluminium die-cast platter and a rubber mat. You also get a pre-fitted moving magnet cartridge with a tracking force of 3.5g, but as there’s no quick way to remove it from the tonearm, your options for upgrading are limited.

The PS-LX3BT offers Bluetooth streaming with support for the aptX Adaptive codec for hi-res streaming up to 24-bit/96kHz to compatible Bluetooth speakers and wireless headphones. That's a great bonus if you have, say, a JBL Charge 6 or Flip 7 knocking around and want quick and simple streaming to impress your mates.

Impress is the word. Within a proper hi-fi setup, the PS-LX3BT sounds punchy, alive and focused, with a balance that blends muscle and drive with enough space to give your music room to breathe. Affordable Bluetooth record players can often sound compromised, especially at the cheaper end of the market, but that's not a criticism we could level at this Sony.

All in all, an excellent starter point for users seeking a lethal blend of performance, usability and flexibility. Check it out at Amazon this Prime Day.

MORE:

Amazon Prime Day 2026 Live Q&A: personalised hi-fi and home cinema buying advice, direct from our experts

Discounts galore! These are the best early Amazon Prime Day Bluetooth speaker deals

These are the best Bluetooth turntables you can buy

Amazon Prime Day has barely even started yet, and already this might be the best hi-fi deal you're going to find all week. The JBL SA550 Classic stereo amplifier has absolutely plummeted from from £1749 to an unbelievably low £499 at Peter Tyson, meaning you could save £1250 on some proper hi-fi pedigree.

We'll repeat that. £1250. It boggles the mind.

You'll have to head over to Peter Tyson to take advantage, but that doesn't matter! We're looking for the best deals across all major retailers during the Prime Day period, so don't think that we're restricting ourselves to Amazon-only.

Best JBL SA550 Classic early Prime Day deal

The JBL SA550 Classic integrated amplifier blends stylish retro appeal with great build quality and, at this level, a stunning low price. The amp feels solid to the touch, while the front panel's brushed fascia contrasts neatly with its exterior wooden panels to add an air of luxurious desirability.

Its power output is rated at 90W into 8 ohms, with the amp favouring Class G amplification and twin internal power supplies for greater efficiency.

In terms of connectivity, the JBL amp offers aux and headphone inputs at the front, while the back panel houses a set of speaker terminals, four analogue inputs (including a moving magnet phono stage for a turntable), and three digital inputs, which feed the amp’s ESS ES9038K2M DAC chip.

There's also Bluetooth connectivity with support for aptX Adaptive if you have a compatible source.

It's not like JBL is giving away a white elephant here, either. During testing, we found the SA550 Classic incredibly easy to get along with thanks to its smooth, cohesive and weighty delivery. To quote from our review: "thanks to the amp’s smooth nature, high frequencies never come close to sounding uncomfortable, even with particularly poor recordings."

It's capable of being a lot of fun, too. A track such as Empire State Of Mind by Jay-Z and Alicia Keys goes hard thanks to the JBL's enthusiastic reproduction of the track’s thumping bassline, and despite sounding a little fat, it still does more than enough to capture the song's propulsive energy.

We thought the JBL was a good shout at its full asking price, but now it's crashed down to £499 at Peter Tyson, we think it demands an even closer look. More than £1000 off? Bafflingly outrageous value. Has the best Prime Day discount just arrived, and it wasn't even on Amazon? Quite possibly.

MORE:

Amazon Prime Day 2026 Live Q&A: personalised hi-fi and home cinema buying advice, direct from our experts

Discounts galore! These are the best early Amazon Prime Day Bluetooth speaker deals

These are the best stereo amplifiers you can buy

Amazon Prime Day (or should that be week?) is finally here! The online shopping giant is running a steady stream of discounts on headphones, speakers, streamers and more from Tuesday 23rd to Friday 26th June, and we are here to help.

We're already seeing solid savings and good discounts on five-star kit over at Amazon, with £50 off the premium Sony WF-1000XM6 wireless earbuds and 25% off the excellent Sony PS-LX3BT Bluetooth turntable.

Don't forget, though, that other specialist hi-fi retailers are running their own separate, concurrent events, offering massive savings on more traditional kit which are sure to be of interest – such as this huge £500 discount on Bowers & Wilkins floorstanders.

Throughout the event, our expert audio team will be on hand, updating this page with the top deals they’ve spotted and recommend.

Every deal, aside from some exceptions that we’ll flag, is on a product we’ve fully tested and recommend. We will also check and flag when relevant, a product’s price history to make sure it hasn’t been significantly cheaper in the past.

If you can’t find what you’re after on this page, or just want to ask for some general advice, our deal experts will also be running a Prime Day 2026 Live Q&A, every lunch time (1.00-2.00 pm UK time) each day.

If you are also interested in picking up a saving on a TV or soundbar, also make sure to check out our Amazon Prime Day 2026 home cinema deals live hub.

The very best deals right now

• JBL Charge 6 Bluetooth speaker: £100 at Amazon (save £70)
• Sony WH-CH720N: £60 at Amazon (save 20%)
• Sony PS-LX3BT turntable: £223 at Amazon (save 25%)
• Bang & Olufsen Beosound A1 (3rd gen) BT speaker: £209 at Amazon (save £90)
• Sony WF-1000XM6 premium wireless earbuds: £199 at Amazon (save £50)
• Sony WF-C510 cheap wireless earbuds: £38 at Amazon

Quick links

• Check out all of Amazon's Prime Day hi-fi and audio deals
• Want headphones only? Discover all of Amazon's headphones deals this Prime Day
• Check out Amazon's device deals, including Alexa smart speakers, all in one place

Meet the team

A word of advice

Our team has already published a full "what to expect from Prime Day 2026” guide, where you can see our experts’ full predictions. But the short version is: we’re expecting it to be a marathon, not a sprint.

Prime Day brings a lot of deals, often on products we’ve not reviewed or don’t recommend, even heavily discounted. So we’d strongly recommend making a hit list of products in the category you’re interested in that you know will meet your needs.

For example, if you’re after a set of new wireless cans, jump to our best wireless headphones guide, or current list of Award-winners, and identify the top option for your specific needs and budget. Don’t go in blind, and grab stuff on impulse – that’s how you end up with buyer's remorse.

What are the main deals we’re expecting?

When it comes to specific deals, Prime Day usually brings a wealth of decent headphone and earbuds deals on Amazon.

During past events, we’ve seen top savings on five-star Award-winning pairs from all the major players, and we’re not expecting 2026 to be any different. If you’re after something affordable, we’d recommend keeping an eye on our current Sony Award-winners: the Sony WF-C510 earbuds and Sony WH-CH720N over-ears.

If you’re after something more premium, the Sony WH-1000XM6 and Bose QuietComfort Ultra (2nd Gen) will also likely see decent discounts – though not necessarily the best we’ve ever seen, based on past Prime Day patterns.

For speakers, we’re expecting some decent deals, but be warned, these tend to be more muted during Prime Day – think 10-15% off rather than half price.

If you are shopping for proper hi-fi, also remember to check the specialist retailers, which tend to offer the best savings, and don’t be afraid to consider older models. These tend to get the biggest discounts as retailers try to clear stock. Our editor in chief, Alastair Stevenson, is keeping a close eye on the Dali Oberon 5 because of this.

This JBL amp gets things started with a bang!

This could be the deal of Prime Day and we've only just started. Plus, it's not even on Amazon!

The JBL SA550 Classic integrated amplifier blends stylish retro appeal with great build quality and a stunning low price. The SA550 Classic has been low before, but this time it has absolutely plummeted from from £1749 to an unbelievably low £499 at Peter Tyson, meaning you could save £1250 on some proper hi-fi pedigree.

We'll repeat that. £1250. Why are you even still reading this?

JBL Charges back into the fray!

It wouldn't be Amazon Prime Day with a JBL deal or two to recommend. We've spent the last few Prime Days recommending the eternally incredible Charge 5 (a certified legend, let's be honest), but now there's a new Charge, and it's possibly the best that JBL has ever produced.

JBL loves a good discount during big sales events, and the Charge 6 continues that tradition thanks to its remarkable £61 drop. Say what you what about JBL, they're nothing if not generous.

Q Acoustics' five-star towers drop to their lowest-ever price

The Q Acoustics 5050 are some of the best mid-price floorstanders we've tested in the past few years, representing the best of Q Acoustics' re-invention of its 5000 line. That What Hi-Fi? Award wasn't given for nothing, after all.

The five-star towers also just got a lot more affordable for Prime Day, but not over at Amazon. The 5050 are down to £999 at Sevenoaks, Richer Sounds and Peter Tyson, knocking £300 off what was already a very competitive price and representing the lowest we've yet seen for the five-star towers. Lovely.

Our old Sony favourites drop to under £60

The longer they've been around, and the more time we've spent with them, the more we've realised just how fantastic the Sony WH-CH720N are. In terms of sound-per-pound performance, these might be the best wireless headphones Sony has ever made. Seriously, they're that good.

Every time they're on a discount or deal, we recommend them heartily. As a pair of budget ANC over-ears, nothing comes close to matching their excellent noise cancelling, their punchy, deeply involving sound or their solid array of features. No, their build isn't that luxurious, but that clearly just freed up more funds to be used on getting these budget over-ears sounding as good as they possibly could for the price.

Grab them now, or wait and see if they go lower this Prime Day week.

B&O's Beosound Bluetooth speaker is a bargain beauty

We find it hard not to want a Bang & Olufsen Beosound A1 (3rd Gen) Bluetooth speaker. Given that it's such a beautifully made object, the fact that it even makes a sound at all is essentially a bonus. The sound it does make is rather nice, with a sparkling midrange and plenty of detail and smoothness that really shines with certain tunes. It's not as punchy or dynamic as a rival JBL, but its way with vocals is a real highlight.

Plus, it's much nicer to handle than a JBL. Not as rugged or robust, but that pearl-blasted aluminium body and leather carry strap are just so stylish, while an impressive IP67 rating will keep your speaker safe from splashes, dust ingress and even submersion in water for around 30 minutes.

The Beosound A1 (3rd Gen) is an 'I want one of those' speaker. At £80 off, you're well within your rights to covet one.

Tomorrow's the big day...probably

We're pretty much signing off on our Amazon Prime Day coverage for today, but we'll be back tomorrow when Amazon's flagship sales event really kicks into gear.

Today was something of an aperitif, a taster of what's to come over the next three or four days. Prime Day is officially Tuesday, June 23rd through to Friday, June 26th, meaning it shouldn't really be called 'Prime Day', singular, but Prime Days, plural. Don't get us started...

Anyway, tomorrow is the day to really start taking thing seriously, because that's when we expect an absolute avalanche of audio products, from hi-fi to headphones, to start enjoying serious discounts. It might not be the day when things drop to their absolute lowest, though, so bear in mind that bigger price cuts could arise as the week progresses.

Whatever the case, stick with this page for all of the best deals we uncover, hour by hour, day by day. Who knows? You might just find the deal of your dreams...

Sony's XM6 buds get a major discount!

Morning shoppers, and welcome to Amazon Prime Day! That's right, the next few days will see all manner of tech deals drop on Amazon (other retailers are also getting involved), and our deals experts are here to bring you the best savings we've spotted.

I'm Andy, and I'm here to get the ball rolling with the lowest price we've seen so far on the excellent Sony WF-1000XM6 wireless earbuds. Launched earlier this year, these Sony buds have set the benchmark for other premium wireless earbuds thanks to their stellar sound quality and awesome noise-cancelling. Now down from £249 to £209.99 at Amazon - that's a great saving of 16%!

A super deal on a five-star plug 'n' play turntable!

You wait around for one great Sony deal, and two come at once! Not only have we spotted the lowest-ever price on the WF-1000XM6, but there's also a significant saving to be made on Sony's excellent PS-LX3BT Bluetooth turntable.

Perfect for anyone dipping their toe in the sea of vinyl for the first time, this excellent plug 'n play deck is down from £299 to £235 at Amazon, which is an impressive 21% saving! It's not the first time we've seen the turntable at this price, but we think it's a low price that shouldn't be ignored.

Fantastic floorstanders hit their lowest price yet!

As is the case on Prime Day, not all the best deals are on Amazon! Take the saving we've spotted on the Q Acoustics 5050 floorstanders, which are down to £999 at Sevenoaks, Richer Sounds and Peter Tyson.

These top towers originally cost £1299 when we reviewed them back in August 2024, but they are now regularly discounted, which is great news if you want a floorstanding bargain or perhaps want to upgrade from budget standmounters.

They sound very mature for the money, deliver impressive clarity and scale and boast a slick build and finish.

Cambridge Audio pairing could be the perfect starter combo – save £100!

Looking for your first hi-fi system using separates? You might want to cast an eye over this quality pairing from Cambridge Audio. Both the AXA35 stereo amplifier and matching AXC35 CD player are currently discounted at Amazon.

Originally priced at £349, they can be picked up for £299 each at Amazon, – do the math, and it amounts to a total discount of £100 – not too bad, we think you'll agree!

The AXC35 is a slimline, no-frills CD player that's not only capable, but great value for a first rung on the hi-fi ladder. Its AXA35 amplifier partner is a born entertainer thanks to a punchy and dynamic sound. Put them together, and you've got a tempting starter package.

This one's for you, Apple fans!

Apple's perennially popular AirPods line of earbuds doesn't always get the biggest discounts, so when one comes along, it's always worth flagging.

This Prime Day, the AirPods 4 with ANC are now down to £125 at Amazon with a Prime membership, the lowest price we've seen yet on what are, in many ways, some of the most impressive earbuds Apple has yet made. The AirPods Pro 3 sound better, but the ANC and audio quality from these fourth-gen buds is seriously impressive given their open configuration.

You'll need to be a Prime member to get this saving, but the non-deal price of £125 is not too shabby, and still a drop from the previous low of £139.

The best super-budget music streamer drops for Prime Day

If you're just beginning your hi-fi system journey but don't really know how much to spend or what to buy, the WiiM Pro Plus is a great place to get the ball rolling.

At just £175 thanks to Prime Day, it's one of the most affordable music streamers you can get your hands on, and what's more, it actually sounds incredibly decent for the money. Detailed, expressive and organised, it really delivers on its sound-per-pound promise.

Plus, it's incredibly easy to set up and use, with a delightfully intuitive control app that will guide you through your nascent hi-fi journey. Until something comes along to beat it (it seems unlikely at this point), this is the entry-level music streamer we're recommending this Prime Day.

Looking for premium floorstanders? We've got two superb deals for you

Floorstanders are naturally more expensive than their smaller standmount siblings, and deals on superb models from legendary hi-fi brands are worth snapping up on. We've spotted two great deals: one from Bowers & Wilkins, one from Focal.

LOWEST-EVER PRICE:
The Bowers & Wilkins 603 S3 are large, well-made floorstanding speakers from the brand's entry-level range, and will fill a room with ease. The sound they produce is weighty with plenty of punch, along with oodles of clarity and detail. You can now snap them up at their lowest ever price of £1499 at Sevenoaks, Peter Tyson and Richer Sounds. This huge £500 saving is available across all three finishes.

MASSIVE £810 SAVING!
If your budget and system are looking for something more premium, the Focal Aria Evo X No3 floorstanders are beautifully constructed tall cabinets that looks classy, and deliver an impressively composed, refined and full-bodied performance. You can now save a massive £810 off the full price, with the pair available for £2689 at Peter Tyson, across all three finishes.

Bowers & Wilkins' stylish, five-star headphones tumble in price

There are plenty of wireless headphones that you could pick up this Prime Day, including five-star options from the likes of Bose, Sony, Sennheiser and Apple.

The thing about the Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S3, though, is that they're incredibly alluring in their design and construction. Few premium headphones look and feel the part in the way that the Px7 S3 do, and that's before you've clamped them over your ears and experienced that rich, detail-heavy sound. ANC could be better, but across most other bases, B&W's classy cans are the real deal.

The best-sounding AirPods? Or the cheapest AirPods?

If you're an Apple user, you'll probably be hunting down AirPods deals every time a sales event like Prime Day comes around. And it didn't disappoint this year either, with the excellent, five-star premium AirPods Pro 3 wireless earbuds now down to their lowest-ever price of £175 at Amazon. That's a solid 20% saving on Apple's best-sounding AirPods yet, with improved noise-cancelling and plenty of additional features (including hearing test and live translation) thrown into the mix.

But if you're not fussed about all the features, prefer an eartip-less design and have a tighter budget? Then the standard AirPods 4 with their 'open' design might be just up your street – they're the cheapest way to get the AirPods experience, and can be yours for £80 with a Prime membership.

A tiny DAC with a tempting discount – but the lowest price isn't on Amazon

Proof that Amazon doesn't always have the lowest prices during Prime Day.... Richer Sounds is offering the five-star iFi Go Blu DAC for £20 cheaper if you sign up to their VIP membership – and unlike Prime membership, there's no fee involved here!

The iFi Go Blu is a tiny DAC and headphone amplifier that you can carry in your pocket, and boosts the sound quality of your Tidal or Qobuz streams from your smartphone or laptop. You can connect headphones either wired – via 3.5mm and 4.4mm headphone jacks – or wirelessly, with aptX Adaptive and LDAC Bluetooth codecs supported.

When we tested it, we were surprised to discover it's about the size of two postage stamps, but the tiny Go Blu brings out a cleaner, detailed performance and wider soundstage from your hi-res files – no wonder it got five stars in our review. Snap it up for just £129 at Richer Sounds VIP.

An unbelievable deal – save £3000 on high-end floorstanders

Could this be the best hi-fi deal of the week?

Wharfedale's high-end Elysian 4 floorstanders are gorgeous, impressing us with huge sonic scale, astounding bass depth and agility, along with an immaculately finished build quality. The problem was, you needed quite a big room to really let them shine.

Enter the Elysian 3. A "baby" version of their five-star siblings, these floorstanders aim to deliver the same sonic scale for (slightly) smaller rooms. The entire Elysian range has been upgraded recently, which means you can now pick up the Elysian 3 for an unbelievable £3000 discount at Peter Tyson – that's half the price!

Free vinyl? Sign us up...

Did you know: specialist hi-fi retailer Peter Tyson is running a promotion where you can get a free Rough Trade e-voucher – in £25, £50, £75 and £100 amounts – when you buy select turntable, cartridge or phono stage products.

For instance, if you buy the Award-winning Pro-Ject Debut Evo 2 at full price of £599, you get a free £25 voucher emailed to you that can be spent on any vinyl record purchase at Rough Trade.

Of course, £25 is just about enough to buy one record these days, but any money helps when feeding this vinyl obsession of ours. This voucher is applied when buying products like the Technics SL-1500C or Dual CS 618Q turntables, the Chord Huei or Musical Fidelity M6x phono stages, and Ortofon 2M Black and Sumiko Oriole MC cartridges, and many more.

Look out for the free vinyl voucher offer highlighted in green on the product page.

The cheapest and best deal this Prime Day? These £30 Sony headphones

There are plenty of hi-fi, wireless headphones and speaker deals. But even with £50, £100 or even £500 shaved off the full price, everything is still a bit expensive, isn't it?

The one actually super-cheap Prime Day deal is on the Sony WH-CH520 wireless headphones. Right now, they're just £30 at Amazon – now that's a proper bargain.

You'll find plenty of dirt-cheap headphones all over Amazon this week, but none of them come close to the performance and quality offered by these budget Sonys, which we gave full five stars to. They're superb value, and they get the sound part spot-on for the price: solid, rich bass and a surprisingly "eloquent" midrange.

For just £30, they're an absolute no-brainer. We'd happily give up a week's worth of Tesco meal deals for them.

AirPods Max 2 get a hefty $150 discount

What links the World Cup 2026 and the AirPods Max 2? You get the best deal if you're in the United States of America.

While everyone in the UK (where team What Hi-Fi? is based) is glued to our TVs as England v Ghana is about to kick off tonight, we are utterly jealous of everyone who's in the stadium at Boston, watching it live.

If you're an Apple fan who's been hankering after the 2nd generation of Apple's over-ear wireless headphones but don't want to pay full price, you're in luck – but only if you're in the USA. AirPods Max 2 are enjoying a pretty big discount right now, and you can snap them up for $399 at Walmart. That's a far better deal than what you'll get in the UK, which is no deal at all. They're still at full price of £499 at Amazon UK.

If you are one of the 12 people left in the UK or the USA who gives more of a hoot about nabbing a proper discount on Apple's premium headphones than about football, then this deal is for you.

Upgrade your system with this fantastic WiiM Ultra streamer – and save £70!

We've already highlighted the super-budget WiiM Pro Plus streamer deal (£175 at Amazon), but if you're after a more premium box that offers a better sound, then you're in luck.

The step-up WiiM Ultra is also enjoying a Prime Day deal, and you can pick up this five-star music streamer for £279 at Amazon and Richer Sounds.

That's a beefy £70 saving on a very well-appointed streamer that delivers a clean, crisp and lively sound performance. We found it to be an open and easy-going listen, and that it "packs enough punch and pizazz to keep you interested" when playing our Tidal playlists and hi-res music library through it.

It sports a nice touchscreen display that's interactive, shows off album artwork in colour, and lets you access presets (favourite albums, playlists or radio stations) with a tap. Bonus connections include an HDMI ARC input and a built-in moving magnet phono stage. The only blight is that it doesn't have AirPlay, both otherwise the Ultra is a dream to use.

If you're looking to freshen up your old hi-fi system by adding a wealth of streaming features and more, this compact WiiM streamer is a great way to do it.

In 1976, Steve Wozniak demonstrated his Apple 1 prototype computer a few months after he, Steve Jobs and Ronald Wayne founded the company; Peter Frampton released what would become one of the best-selling live albums in history; and JVC launched (and won) the video cassette format war against Sony’s Betamax with its VHS (Video Home System) player.

It was also a golden year for hi-fi – particularly in Britain – and not only because What Hi-Fi? arrived in newsagents for the first time, the debut (mostly black-and-white) issue claiming to provide the price of every piece of hi-fi equipment on sale in the UK.

Arcam and its debut A60 amplifier were born, KEF launched the first speakers to benefit from computer-aided design (CAD), and Pioneer released a new king in the ‘Watt Wars’ era with its SX-1250 receiver.

At that time, the main concerns of an electronics engineer were, according to Cambridge Audio’s head of engineering, Nick Brown, “analogue performance across a handful of inputs, whether the remote control worked across the room, and whether the packaging survived a drop test.” Amplifier design was, he says, already hard, but today it’s a different discipline entirely.

And the same can be said when it comes to wider hi-fi sources and electronics, loudspeakers, and audio-enhancing accessories that weren’t even necessary way back when. We asked several hi-fi brands to pick the technological groundbreakers that changed it all…

An expanding canvas of features and protocols

For Brown, the technological landscape has gone from balcony garden to sprawling arboretum, now that modern amplifiers must handle an array of analogue and digital connectivity, connect reliably to TVs, PCs, gaming consoles and Bluetooth devices, and sometimes incorporate networked and wireless technologies.

“Control might come via an IR remote, a Bluetooth remote, or a mobile app,” he adds. “Customers want sound profiles they can adjust. Regulators want the whole thing running in under half a watt in standby and waking up in seconds.

“Every one of those connections has to be tuned, verified and tested for consistency. Take eARC, for example: supporting it properly means testing against as many television models as we can get our hands on, because TV manufacturers implement the standard differently, and what works perfectly on one television can behave unexpectedly on another. The specification exists, but the real world doesn't always follow the rules.

“The knock-on effect across the whole development process is significant. Where product development once drew on a relatively small core team, it now pulls in software engineers, network specialists, UX designers, compliance experts and more – all working in parallel, all needing to get it right. Perhaps the most telling sign of where things have landed: our fastest-growing team right now isn’t electronics or software. It’s QA [Quality Assurance].”

Along Brown’s line of reasoning, it’s not one game-changing technology per se, but the nature of the game changing entirely. Not only has the hi-fi world expanded to accommodate the mushrooming features brought by digital and the internet, but it has also had to learn to play ball with the ever-expanding world of household electronics, ordinance and all.

Digital disruption on sound quality

Of course, the arrival and continual maturation of digital audio have played a pivotal role in how hi-fi has transformed not just logistically but also sonically in the past 50 years. QED engineer Jon Jeary highlights the Compact Disc as “the ultimate game changer” for democratising access to high-end hi-fi.

“Suddenly, a system costing only a few hundred pounds could potentially rival vinyl or reel-to-reel setups that had cost thousands just a few years earlier,” he says, recalling an experience he had between 1976 and the earliest years of the CD.

“The year What Hi-Fi? launched, I bought the latest Steve Miller Band album on vinyl,” says Jeary. “On the way home, the record warped slightly in the summer heat. Played on my father’s respectable and relatively expensive system – a Garrard SL75B, Trio KA2002 amplifier and Wharfedale Kit speakers – the first track on each side suffered audible wow, flutter and even a jump.

“Yet we still loved the music and accepted the limitations: pops, clicks, end-of-side distortion and a restricted soundstage. That skip simply became part of the song.

“Nine years later, I heard the same album on a friend’s Philips CD104 [player]. The difference was astonishing: no scratches or jumps, an inaudible noise floor, perfect stereo separation, negligible distortion and a ruler-flat frequency response.

“For the first time, I realised as a student I could realistically own a system capable of challenging my rich uncle’s prized Revox reel-to-reel setup.”

Digital audio formats and technology ushered in a different – and technically ‘better’ – sound, but their watershed innovation – network streaming – introduced problems of its own, and, according to Chord Company’s Patrick Mitchell, the quest to solve them has had a huge impact on the modern audio engineering landscape.

It has allowed hi-fi streaming to be the game changer it has become in the high-end space.

“Optimising a digital system has introduced a whole new set of environmental variables that simply didn't exist when we were spinning isolated discs,” says Mitchell. “When you introduce a network streamer, the audio system becomes physically connected to the broader domestic data network – an environment originally designed for office computers, smart TVs and home appliances; not delicate audio signals.

“Standard home networks are inherently noisy environments, and that hidden electrical noise can heavily mask the subtle details that make recorded music sound real.”

While hi-fi has always grappled with the detrimental effects of external noise, streaming has, Mitchell says, removed the natural isolation of physical media, which more or less has a self-contained playback loop.

He argues that in order to maintain audio quality in digital streaming systems, the network path needs to be treated “with the same care and engineering prestige traditionally reserved for premium analogue playback”.

For a cable company such as Chord, this has blown the windows wide open for creating devices that break that unhealthy electrical path and strive to reduce noise, such as network filters and switches.

Parts progression

While the same types of parts are by and large the same for analogue designs as they were 50 years ago, componentry has improved as techniques, materials and research have, and naturally you now have digital elements in the hardware mix.

“The list of improved parts and techniques is almost endless,” says Cyrus’s managing director, Nick Clarke, whose list of examples includes the use of phase change materials for heatsink bonding and a higher current handling in a given transistor package for an amplifier output stage.

For Jack Oclee-Brown, KEF’s senior vice president and chief technology officer, one specific part-progression stands out as particularly groundbreaking for the hi-fi market: the magnet.

Magnets are crucial elements of loudspeaker, headphone and phono cartridge design; they convert electrical signals into mechanical movement in speakers and headphones, and vice versa in cartridges.

“In 1984, a new type of magnetic material based on the element neodymium was developed, offering far higher strength than previous materials,” says Oclee-Brown, adding that neodymium magnets are still the strongest type commercially available today.

“Toward the late 80s and early 90s, neodymium magnets started to find their way into audio products and brought about a technical revolution. At KEF, we used this new type of magnet to allow us to miniaturise the loudspeaker tweeter, placing it at the centre of the midrange driver to create our famous Uni-Q driver array.

“Headphones could be made smaller, lighter and more portable; products like Apple’s AirPods could not exist without neodymium magnets. Whatever you might think of the sound quality, neodymium magnets allow tiny speakers to be buried inside our phones and tablets.”

Magnets in audio (and other industry) applications are also a ‘watch this space’ solution, says Oclee-Brown, who says that they need more research and innovation. “Neodymium magnet demand is rising year-on-year, and the search for greener and more sustainable alternatives is an important field that some companies, like Niron Magnetics, are already working on,” he adds.

From educated guesses to simulated trials

So we have the quantum leap from analogue to digital in how we consume and perceive sound, the many more features to engineer (and engineer around), advanced and innovative componentry, and the closer relationship to the wider technology of the home to accommodate.

But arguably just as significant are the ‘behind the scenes’ technological advancements that shape how audio design, engineering and manufacture look today.

In his 38 years as an audio engineer, during which time he has designed and built products for the likes of Audiolab, Arcam and Harman International, Nick Clarke calls out the impact of Computer Aided Design (CAD) as the biggest change.

“When I started in this industry [1988], there wasn’t any,” says Clarke. “We laid out circuits manually after sketching the idea on paper using black tape on a sheet of plastic at a 2:1 scale so that you had a chance of producing this by hand. This was then sent away and photo-reduced to a 1:1 master, from which the (usually) single-sided PCB was produced.

“There was no link to the mechanical parts of the product design, so that required a lot of work to ensure the PCB and the mechanics matched, and the components were large through-hole parts that were manually fitted and hand-soldered.

“The whole process was costly, labour-intensive, time-consuming and fraught with opportunities for something to go wrong, with absolutely no error checking other than either peer reviews, or building it, seeing what you had done wrong and going around the loop again.

“Today, you have extremely advanced CAD software for both the PCB and the mechanics, which link together in such a way with a vast amount of automated checks that it is virtually impossible to produce a PCB that has errors that would prevent manufacture or doesn’t fit in the casework.

“It is, too, like American mathematician and computer scientist Richard Hamming said: ‘The purpose of computers is insight, not numbers.’ Not only does the use of computer design allow for more accurate ‘doing’, but also more extensive experimenting.

“We can now use simulation tools for trialling circuit ideas or the thermal efficiency of heatsinks – tasks which in the past would have been very educated guesses at best or total blind alleys at worst,” says Clarke.

“It’s no substitute for clever ideas or innovative design, but they allow you to try a lot more things a lot more quickly and that collectively drives higher performance across products at every level of the market.”

Similarly, Peter Comeau, the IAG Group’s director of acoustic design for brands including Mission, Wharfedale and Quad, singles out the monumental impact of advanced measurement methodology and the arrival of simulation tools on speaker design.

“When I first became interested in loudspeaker design, as a teenager in the late 1960s, measurement typically consisted of hoisting a baffle high above the ground on a crane with a microphone suspended a yard or so from it,” Comeau remembers.

“Then, in the ’70s, anechoic chambers became more prevalent, and we had Bruel & Kjaer sweep [noise] generators and a pen graph response tracer to help view frequency response and harmonic distortion.

“Today, there’s a whole raft of measurement systems and software analysis and simulation to help, stretching from laser scanning of cones and domes to crossover software optimisation.

“Does this actually help us design better loudspeakers? The short answer is ‘yes’; we can make better diaphragms and motor systems, control cabinet vibrations successfully and simulate the power response of loudspeakers in rooms.”

Like Clarke, Comeau commends such technology’s ability to speed up prototyping and trialling, as well as facilitating a greater understanding of the problems involved in achieving good sound.

Despite that, however, he still champions what has, since and prior to 1976, been crucial to obtaining that end goal: using our ears: “The process of hours and hours of fine-tuning, experimentation and tweaking that is as relevant today as it always was.”

It hails back to Clarke’s point that, while technologies are advancing, they only work if, in his words, “you have the knowledge of how to use them and what they can do for you (and sometimes, more importantly, what they can't).”

The technological game has changed significantly in the past five decades, absolutely; but designer and engineer know-how remains at the heart of it all as much today as it was back then.

MORE:

1976 vs today: veteran audio experts discuss the biggest shifts in music and hi-fi during What Hi-Fi?'s 50-year lifetime

"The concept is spot on and it could be a signpost to the future of surround" – revisiting our review of the world's first soundbar

9 debut stereo amplifiers from iconic hi-fi brands – legendary amps from Audiolab, Cyrus, McIntosh, NAD, Naim and more

Cassettes are going the way of vinyl, with sales up 53 per cent last year in the UK, hitting 164,000 units. This is not solely a British phenomenon – 446,500 tapes were sold in the US in the same year, an increase of 17.5 per cent year-on-year.

Which got me thinking. Could we see the OG portable cassette player, the Walkman, make a comeback? And not as a Walkman-branded phone or digital music player, but as a proper, bona fide tape player? As the proud owner of at least two Walkmans during my childhood, I certainly hope so.

Here's why the time is right for the Sony Walkman to once again strut its stuff.

1. A big anniversary is coming

It seems like only yesterday that we were celebrating the iconic player's 40th birthday – but its 50th is just three years away.

Mark the date in your diary: 1st July 2029. That's when the grandaddy of portable tape players hits the half century. The world of music on-the-go has changed massively since then, with first compact discs, then MiniDiscs, digital downloads and now streaming all having their time in the sun.

But the backlash against digital is building. As vinyl's sustained resurgence has shown, people are willing to put up with the inconvenience of physical media if it makes for a more rewarding experience. While no one's arguing cassettes are the last word in sound quality, they certainly have their appeal. A special edition Walkman would make the perfect 50th birthday present from Sony.

2. Sony is no stranger to special editions

Sony loves a special edition product. Recently we reviewed the Sony 1000X The Collexion, which was launched to celebrate a decade of Sony's world-conquering 1000X wireless headphones.

Sony deserves credit here. It would've been very easy for it to release the Award-winning WH-1000XM6 with a slightly different finish, but instead, it chose to launch a proper standalone product.

Admittedly they 'only' scored four stars, as opposed to the fives that Sony headphones are accustomed to. But it shows that Sony is not above celebrating its heritage, and in the most appropriate way possible – by releasing something new.

3. The digital backlash continues

No one's arguing with the convenience of streaming, but more and more people are seeing the appeal of physical media. It's tactile, it gives you more of a connection with the artist, and it's easy to display and show which artists you like. You can't put a stream on your shelves.

This cuts across age groups. Yes, there are those of us old enough to remember vinyl and cassettes the first time around, but Gen Z is also discovering the joy of cassettes. (It helps that they're much more affordable than vinyl.) As Sound Records' owner Gareth Simon told us earlier this year: "The kids have figured it all out – they see vinyl as a way to express their interests in a physical form."

I recently used the Gadhouse Miko Bluetooth cassette player, and while I wasn't enamoured with the sound quality (especially over Bluetooth), I did get an undeniable thrill out of feeling the cassette turning inside the player. As I wrote at the time: "Seeing the cassette's spokes revolve, and feeling the player's mechanism at work in your hand, makes it feel alive in a way that a solid-state device never will. It connects you to the medium as a physical thing, rather than a bunch of ones and zeroes flying through the air."

4. The nostalgia element

I'm not alone in feeling this nostalgic thrill. Whenever I told anyone I was trying out a portable cassette player that has Bluetooth, the reaction was the same: "Cool!" Or a slight variation thereon. Now admittedly these were all men of a certain age, but you get my point. Cassettes have made a comeback. And so should the Walkman.

Whether Sony should stuff it with mod cons like Bluetooth... sure, I mean, why not? As long as it sounds good. And if it can implement the mega bass feature of my childhood Sony WM-EX16, then even better.

But really this is about celebrating an iconic product that changed the face of portable music half a century ago. Make it so, Sony, and I'll get my pre-order in now.

MORE:

Sony Walkman turns 40: 6 things you didn't know about the iconic player

Feeling nostalgic? We Are Rewind's limited edition cassette player takes you back to the '80s

Is the cassette tape a viable hi-fi format in today's audio world? Discuss

You never feel the need to upgrade your TV like you do during the FIFA World Cup.

The 2026 tournament features 48 teams for the first time, meaning if you were dedicated (and temporarily nocturnal) you could watch 104 matches of high-quality football.

That's a lot of time to be staring at your TV – but luckily, if you do want to upgrade, you don't have to break the bank.

We've rounded up some of the best TVs under the £1,000 mark, all of which have been reviewed and rated by us and earned at least four stars – or in some cases, five stars and even a What Hi-Fi? Award.

This also clashes rather nicely with early Prime Day deals, so there are particularly good savings available right now on all the models below.

We'll go into more detail on what we like about the TVs below, but for now, have a look at our expert picks.

The LG C5 OLED won multiple gongs at the most recent What Hi-Fi? Awards, thanks to its excellent picture quality and flawless gaming specification. If you’re going for OLED under a grand, this is the model to get – the 42-inch LG C5 and 48-inch LG C5 are just as good and even cheaper.

We only reviewed the Amazon Ember QLED with Fire TV in March, but it has already received a staggering £450 discount for Prime Day. Have no fear, this has nothing to do with the quality; Amazon’s latest QLED offers a sharp and detailed picture with minimal fuss, as well as audio that defies expectations.

The TCL C6KS was already exceptional value for money at full price – we liked it so much we gave it a What Hi-Fi? Award – and now it’s available for even less. A good Mini LED at this price is hard to find, but the C6KS has a rare all-around ability thanks to its 160 dimming zones, support for all four HDR formats and user-friendly Google TV operating system.

Samsung has had a lot of competition in the budget TV market in recent years, but the 65-inch U8000F shows it can still do big-screen on a budget. The Standard mode is enjoyably punchy and bright, and there is a lot of smart TV content available in one great value package.

The TCL C7K is the current Award-winner for the best large-sized budget TV, thanks to more features than you have any right to expect for the money. For less than £720 now, you’ll get a 65-inch Mini LED with Quantum Dot colour and excellent gaming support. That’s before we even mention the 1008 dimming zones and support for all four HDR formats.

Previously known as the Amazon Fire TV Omni Mini-LED, the 65-inch Amazon Ember Mini-LED with Fire TV is a solid entry to the mid-range market with a sharp picture and excellent app support. And with an early Prime Day discount, it’s now quite the bargain.

MORE:

Best LG C5 deals for all sizes

And the best TVs for all budgets

Prime Day Predictions: The What Hi-Fi? team’s hopes, fears and dreams for Amazon Prime Day

Bang & Olufsen has unveiled its Beosystem 3000c Dune Grey Edition, a compact music system comprising a restored Beogram 3000 Series turntable alongside a pair of modern Beolab 8 wireless speakers.

As part of the Danish brand's 'Recreated Classics' initiative, the limited edition Beosystem 3000c setup pledges to "bring together the tactile ritual of vinyl and the flexibility of contemporary listening in one compact music system".

At the centre of the setup is an original, restored Beogram 3000 Series turntable, the first of which launched in 1985, sporting a lightweight tonearm and B&O's 'Optimum Pivot Point' technology for reducing vibrations from interfering with playback.

In case you're unfamiliar, the Beolab 8 are wireless speakers with built-in network streaming capabilities, supporting Tidal and Spotify Connect alongside Chromecast AirPlay 2, and Bluetooth 5.3. To get a standalone pair, you'll tend to pay around £2199 / $2749 / AU$4499.

The Dune Grey Edition of the Beosystem 3000c pairs grey aluminium with dark walnut details on both the speakers and the turntable, a combination "inspired by the tones and textures of the Nordic coastline".

Getting hold of a system will put you in a rather exclusive club. The Beosystem 3000c Dune Grey Edition is limited to 100 pieces worldwide, with each unit individually numbered, engraved, and accompanied by a certificate of authenticity.

According to Mads Kogsgaard Hansen, Director of Product Circularity at Bang & Olufsen: “Our Recreated Classics programme goes beyond the preservation of nostalgia. It is about honouring the fact that exceptional audio designs continue to matter to people over time. The Beosystem 3000c represents a more intentional way of listening, built around ritual, presence and emotional connection to music".

The Beosystem 3000c Dune Grey Edition is available now from selected B&O stores, priced at £22,800 / $30,000 / €27,000.

MORE:

Mark your calendars: the dates for the What Hi-Fi? Awards 2026 have been confirmed

Prime Day Predictions: The What Hi-Fi? team’s hopes, fears and dreams for Amazon Prime Day

Best turntables: the finest record players for your vinyl

Another year, another Amazon Prime Day event slap bang in the middle of the summer.

However, things will be slightly different this year: the gargantuan sales event has been pushed forward from its usual July date to June.

What will not change, however, is the sea of deals that will flood Amazon’s homepage over four days next week.

So, in advance of the event kicking off on 23rd June, the What Hi-Fi? team have shared their thoughts on what might be to come, whether it’s old reliables that are practically guaranteed a discount or five-star favourites that are yet to see their first drop.

If you’re after some shopping inspiration or just want to see if our predictions line up with your own, take a look below.

Dolby Atmos soundbars are always a big ticket item during Prime Day. Over the years, we have seen huge savings on Award-winning units appear during the event. Last year, some highlights include 30 per cent drops and more, on everything from the Sonos Arc Ultra to the Samsung Q990D system.

And I expect similar discounts to appear on most soundbars, especially older models from last year. Why do I say “most”? Because there’s one exception, which I expect to stay belligerently at full price, or not far off it, throughout the event: the KEF XIO.

Despite coming out last year, the XIO has yet to enjoy any hefty discounts at all. The closest we’ve seen are cashback offers, which require you to claim the savings back after paying the full £2000 regular price.

Which is a shame as, while there are plenty of good options below the XIO, it is the best premium option you’ll find for two grand on the market right now. The only other option, really, is the even more expensive Naim Focal Mu-so Hekla we reviewed recently, which is £1000 more and also unlikely to be discounted during Prime Day.

That’s why I told buyers, back during Black Friday 2025, that if they want the best experience possible with a soundbar they should just buy the XIO, even at full price.

I’ve made no secret of the fact that the Sony Bravia 8 II is one of my favourite TVs of all time – it’s also the reigning TV Product Of The Year in the What Hi-Fi? Awards.

Because it’s been out for a little over a year now, the Bravia 8 II has already been heavily discounted, making it much more affordable than newer flagship OLEDs. And I’m expecting some cheeky extra discounts to appear during the Prime Day sales – though probably at retailers such as Richer Sounds and Sevenoaks, rather than Amazon itself.

If I didn’t already have one as my home TV, it’s the Bravia 8 II I’d be hunting for this week.

The Dali Kupid bookshelf speakers won us over from the second they entered our test rooms, with their appealing, compact design in colourful hues making them stand out from the usual traditional models. Their lively, detailed, agile and enjoyably dynamic sound sealed the deal even further to win a What Hi-Fi? Award trophy.

Dali will have squeezed all the performance it can out of the Kupid to fit that affordable £299 price tag – but I’d love to see even a tenner or £20 shaved off that price to sweeten the deal. If they do drop in price during the Prime Day sales, it’s a deal I won’t stop shouting about for anyone looking for great budget speakers.

Prime Day tends to do two things: sink already-discounted products lower than ever; and, if you’re lucky, introduce first-time drops on never-before-slashed goodies.

While I fully expect established droppers to match, or even exceed, their previous lows, especially for products that have been around for a good while, I am fairly confident in saying that Prime Day will be the time for many relatively new products to take a cheeky tumble in price.

Those drops might not be absolutely gargantuan, but if you’ve had your eye on any of the gear that made its debut in 2026, especially wireless headphones, earbuds and Bluetooth speakers, this could be your first major opportunity to get them at lower than their standard RRP.

There are quite a few potential bargains falling into this particular camp at the moment. They include the five-star Sennheiser Momentum 5 Wireless over-ears, the JBL Go 5 Bluetooth speaker and, just perhaps, the outstanding Sony WF-1000XM6 wireless earbuds. All arrived in 2026, and all could see their first major discounts arrive when Prime Day hits next week.

Bookmark your favourites, have a little patience, and then strike when the time is right.

If there’s one Prime Day deal I’m willing to bet on, it’s that Amazon’s range of first-party AV devices will be discounted by a considerable margin. Historically, we have seen Fire TV Stick streamers at less than half price, and Amazon’s Ember QLED TV (formerly the Fire TV Omni QLED) has also dropped significantly in these sales.

I admit I’m cheating slightly with this prediction. Amazon has already slashed the price of some, although not all, of its first-party AV products.

The 65-inch Ember QLED, which we reviewed at £1050, has dropped to an unbelievable £600 already, thanks to an “Early Prime Day Deal”. While we’re not seeing the same level of early savings on the Fire TV streamers yet, there are inklings that similar deals could arise.

The Fire TV Stick 4K Plus Plus – which Amazon renamed from Fire TV Stick 4K due to the introduction of the Fire TV 4K Select – is already down to £25 from its usual £60 price, which means we could see a similar saving on the Award-winning Fire TV Stick 4K Max. It’s not guaranteed, but I’ll eat my proverbial hat if the rest of the range isn’t reduced.

The moral of the story here is that, if you were planning on buying a streamer, then hold fire (pun intended) – you could save a solid chunk of change by waiting until next week.

We have had countless Dolby Atmos soundbars in our test room over the years, but not many have left such a lasting impression as the Sonos Arc Ultra. It secured a What Hi-Fi? Award last year, and has been batting off the competition since.

The 9.1.4 all-in-one system offers a clean, detailed sound that immediately immerses you in whatever you’re listening to. On top of that, the bass is agile and punchy which adds an extra weight to your listening experience.

When the soundbar launched in 2024, it had a price tag of £999 / $999 / AU$1799. Right now, you can get it at a range of retailers for less. In the UK, for example, it has gone down to £799 at the moment. I have my fingers crossed, though, that we will see an even bigger discount on this five-star model, especially as it is no longer the new kid on the block.

If it’s hi-fi separates you’re after this Prime Day, then you might be a bit disappointed next week. After covering hundreds of deals for What Hi-Fi?, it’s become clear to me that Amazon can be very hit and miss when it comes to the turntables, amplifiers and streamers we rate and recommend. You're better off checking with specialist retailers such as Richer Sounds and Peter Tyson, which may well have their own rival sales.

Where Amazon sales excel, however, is in headphones and wireless speakers. I’m optimistic we will see some discounts on JBL's Bluetooth speaker range, as well as Sony’s popular headphone lineup – from the budget Sony WF-C510 all the way up to the mighty Sony WH-1000XM6.

It also seems far too much of a coincidence that Prime Day has moved up to clash with the World Cup. There have already been aggressive discounts on Amazon’s Fire TV models, and I expect more home cinema bargains to appear to capitalise on those looking for a mid-tournament refresh.

MORE:

Should you wait until Prime Day to buy a new TV?

Ready for the World Cup? These are the 3 projectors you should consider

World Cup 2026: these are the 5 best headphones – wired and wireless – for keeping up with the football

What makes a good radio? Clear sound and strong reception are fundamental, but high on the priority list should undoubtedly be ease of use. With multiple stations to access if you’ve got FM or DAB tuners, not to mention vast internet radio options and the added bonus of Bluetooth streaming in today’s digital radios, navigating your way through the multitude of options and hitting upon exactly the station you want within seconds is no mean feat.

Luckily, Roberts has some expertise in this area. The British brand has been making radios since 1932, with recent models including the network streaming-enabled Stream 94L (which is a former Award-winner) and our current favourite, the tiny but mighty Revival Petite 2.

The Roberts Stream 219 internet radio is the latest addition to the stable, and it packs in plenty of features for the £150 asking price.

Features

If you’re a radio fan, you are well catered for. FM and DAB/DAB+ tuners are included for your local stations, while you can fire up any internet radio station from around the globe thanks to the onboard wi-fi powers.

The Stream 219 has multiple buttons and dials to find your way across the numerous stations and sub-menus, and the controls feel swift and intuitive. This means scrolling through a long list of local DAB+ stations and switching between sources doesn’t take long at all, with every option labelled clearly.

You can also save up to 60 presets – 20 each for FM, DAB and internet radio – with five dedicated preset buttons available on the unit to quickly access your favourite stations. Handy.

The Stream 219 isn’t just a radio, it caters to wider listening habits as well: Spotify Connect and Bluetooth streaming are on board, and there is even a portal for podcasts.

Physical connections include a 3.5mm auxiliary input and a USB-A port, for plugging in sources like an MP3 player, or USB sticks and hard drives filled with music files (MP3 or WMA, no hi-res playback here). You can also charge your smartphone using the USB-A input. Handy.

All sources can be easily selected from the main menu, which is the small colour display on top of the Stream 219. Simply spin one of the dials to select your source, and the sub-menus will give you options to choose stations in a variety of ways – by region, popularity, genres or simply by searching for it.

All of these actions can be done by twiddling the dials and pressing the sturdy buttons, or a combination of both. It can be complex at first, but we find the actions become second nature once you’ve done them a couple of times.

If accessing the thousands of internet stations through the unit feels unwieldy, you can download the free Oktiv app for a more streamlined control from your smartphone.

In the Stream 219’s settings menu, you can set dual alarms; choose the sound quality level (we left it on high); check your network settings and software updates; set the display’s brightness levels and more. Inputting your wi-fi password will be the most laborious part of the radio’s set-up, but you’ll only need to do it once. We transported the Stream 219 between our home office and our work office, and it connected to the respective wi-fi networks with no prodding on our part.

One final bonus feature is that if you love listening to radio plays, sports coverage or the Shipping Forecast late into the night, there is a 3.5mm wired headphone port for private listening.

Build & design

The top of the radio’s unit that houses the controls, dials and 2.4-inch LCD screen is positioned at a slant, which makes it easy to access from most angles. We also found that this glassy surface is a dust magnet, so we would keep a microfibre cloth at hand for a regular clean.

The screen shows off album artwork and station logos in full colour, although the contrast weakens when viewed from an angle.

That aside, the buttons and dials feel reassuringly tactile when used. We like the physical dials for adjusting the bass and treble levels, which lets you tweak the sound on the fly, as you see fit.

The unit itself is a fairly chunky size to accommodate two 7.6cm (3-inch) full-range drivers within. We have become accustomed to Roberts’ heritage-styled radios that feature lovely leatherette coverings and wood panels, so this more minimalist, ‘modern’ look is a little bit of a departure, prioritising practicality over more luxurious details. The cabinet’s plastic build feels a little cheap to the touch, but it is a robust build overall.

The mainly mains-powered Roberts Stream 219 can also be turned into a portable radio, hence the sturdy carry handle integrated into the unit that makes it easy to carry the radio from your kitchen to the garden. You’ll just need to buy and slot six AA batteries into the back of the radio to make it portable.

Sound

The sound quality of FM/DAB radio will in part depend on your proximity to a local transmitter, and luckily we enjoy a strong reception as we test the Stream 219.

We play a variety of broadcast radio and music streams – World Cup news, Seattle's KEXP internet radio station, the No Such Things As A Fish podcast, a few hours of calming Classic FM, and our Tidal and Apple Music playlists over Bluetooth – and find ourselves getting along with the Roberts radio’s sound with ease.

The sound is clear and projected well into the room, with no sharpness or coarseness to the treble, although it starts to shine bright at higher volumes. There is no flab or undue boominess in the bass, either. Songs such as Alt-J’s Breezeblocks and The Beatles’ Come Together flow with a steady, agile rhythm, and there’s a good amount of detail when we tune into the news or start tapping along to Guy Garvey’s finest curated tracks on BBC 6 Radio.

While the radio doesn’t quite convey the wide-ranging dynamic scope of a full orchestra, or of the plunging basslines in Billie Eilish’s bad guy, there is a good amount of breathing space between instruments in the mix. Edges of notes sound tidy, and the sound projected into the room is pleasingly clean and open.

We find throughout our testing time that the midrange sounds a touch hollow, which robs voices of some natural warmth and solidity. As a result, the subtler inflections from presenters and musicians don’t come through with as much expression and subtlety as we’d like.

When so much of broadcast radio is dependent on the spoken word, this is a noticeable chink in the Stream 219’s armour. Tweaking the treble and bass levels balance the midrange somewhat, but doing so compromises other elements of the Roberts’ sound; this is where we wish there was a dial dedicated to adjusting the mids.

In comparison, the smaller, Award-winning Revival Petite 2 radio lacks the scale of its bigger brother, but it does offer a more cohesive and detailed sound that is more engaging to listen to. There’s more texture to instruments and voices, with personalities and nuances coming through with greater warmth and dexterity. Admittedly, the Petite 2 does lack the network features of the Stream 219, but there’s only £50 between the two radios.

Verdict

The Roberts Stream 219 gets full marks for its feature set and ease of use. It’s bursting at the seams with multiple music-playing options that would put some premium wireless speakers to shame and, despite the complexity, the physical controls are reliable and nice to use.

We think there’s room for improvement when it comes to sound quality, but it’s a decent performance overall. If you’re after this capable radio’s particular mix of talents at this modest price, you would be well served.

Review published: 17th June 2026

SCORES

• Sound 4
• Build 4
• Features 5

MORE:

Read our review of the Roberts Revival Petite 2

Also consider the Ruark Audio R1S

These are the best digital radios we've tested and highly recommend

How do we get more young people into hi-fi? It’s a question numerous audio engineers and What Hi-Fi?'s team of experts have pondered for many moons.

The answer is tricky to nail down because, as Bob Dylan famously sang, the times are changing, so what worked for one person, even a few years ago, may not be the silver bullet we need to help spread the gospel of good sound right now.

Which is why, when AudioQuest unveiled a new version of its DragonFly portable DAC at High End Vienna 2026 – a device that was the gateway to better sound and start of a lifelong hi-fi journey for many people when it launched in 2012 – I couldn’t resist the urge to chat with its director of marketing, Stephen Mejias, to see if the brand has similar aspirations for the device with Gen Z.

To my surprise, for the DragonFly specifically, the answer is no. But AudioQuest does have some thoughts on how brands should approach the challenge.

A happy accident in the early 2010s

Talking to What Hi-Fi?, Mejias openly told us the original DragonFly’s success with younger listeners was more of a happy accident than an intentional effort.

“[We] are thrilled that DragonFly has reached as many people as it has, but we’re also realistic. We are not actively trying to attract younger music fans with any of the products we develop, but we’re certainly not trying to turn them away either. We want to create products that help as many people as possible enjoy their music, movies, and games to the greatest extent possible,” he said.

“Occasionally, as has been the case with DragonFly, that will mean reaching a relatively younger audience. We love that. But any success in reaching younger listeners was not so much the plan as it was a wonderful by-product of a job well done by everyone involved.”

He added this has not changed with the new DragonFly Copper, which the brand has designed with the same performance-per-pound (or dollar) focus.

“AudioQuest products are designed to represent outstanding value and performance within the context of their prices, and we do endeavour to create products that will appeal to anyone interested in enjoying more immersive, more emotionally compelling listening experiences. [But] it would be disingenuous to say that we have a plan for attracting younger music fans.”

But it does have a hot take…

Despite not overtly focusing on attracting younger audiences, Mejias told us AudioQuest does have some theories about why so many hi-fi brands are struggling to attract Gen Z – and what can be done to change the situation.

The main issue is that traditional hi-fi, which involves large racks and lots of excess space for products, according to Mejias.

“Young people are relatively active, their time is limited and spent doing multiple things at once [...] they are not just stopping all other activities to listen to music,” he told us.

“[They] do not have a lot of space that they control – that is, they don’t yet own their own homes, but rather either share an apartment or flat with roommates, live in dorms at school, or at home with their family – and they haven’t fully established themselves in the workforce. All these very important factors are in direct opposition to a pastime such as audiophilia that demands dedicated time, a controlled environment, and often lots of money.”

Which is why he thinks more affordable, portable, or at the very least plug-and-play systems are more likely to appeal to younger fans than traditional separates.

“The answer seemed clear to me then and remains so now: if we, as an industry, truly want to attract a younger audience, then we should make products that young people actually want to own, at prices they can actually afford, and that fit into their lifestyles,” he said.

“The fact that DragonFly is small, portable, works with mobile devices, makes an obvious and meaningful improvement to any music file played through it, is pretty to look at, fun to hold, and is relatively affordable does indeed make it attractive to a more diverse audience than, say, a pair of monoblock amplifiers and full-range loudspeakers.”

Mejias isn’t alone in his belief. US analyst firm Market Reports World, listed DACs, active speakers, and personal audio equipment as growing markets for the 18–34 demographic. Numerous traditional hi-fi firms have also cited systems, both active speakers and all-in-ones, as key growth areas. Cambridge Audio cited attracting younger music fans as a key reason it launched its new L/R Series of active speakers earlier this year.

Do you agree with Mejias? Let us know in the comments section below!

MORE:

These are the best DACs we have tested

We rank the best hi-fi systems

Our picks of the best wireless headphones

Focal has a new flagship active wireless speaker system, and you'd better start saving it you want to get your hands on one.

The new Focal Diva Alta Utopia sits at the summit of the brand's Diva Utopia range, which is made in collaboration with sister-brand Naim Audio. As with the rest of the range, the new system offers built-in amplification alongside wireless streaming powers in a pair of floorstanding speakers – and it's the largest, most powerful and most expensive model yet.

We reviewed the first of the range, the five-star Diva Utopia system in late 2024, and found it a very impressive offering.

Focal pledges that this new flagship Alta Utopia system is "aimed at the most demanding audiophiles looking for an exceptional system", taking the ingredients of the established lineup and elevating them to new heights.

The Diva Alta Utopia features a new generation of the brand's 'Prism' tweeter, a 27mm unit which combines multiple materials for "the perfect balance between lightness, damping and rigidity".

That tweeter is complemented by a reinforced 13cm 'M-profile' midrange driver, with carbon reinforcement and a sealed enclosure that aims to offer a detailed, natural sounding mid-frequency reproduction.

Four 20.5cm woofers in each tower tease a deep and articulate bass, while a 16.5cm 'W' mid/bass driver uses a cone with two sheets of glass on either side of a central foam body, which, says Focal, grants the ideal blend of lightness, rigidity and damping.

The active system packs a huge 600 watts of Class A/B power per speaker, which is distributed over four dedicated amplifiers to provide what Focal says is an "exceptionally wide" sound with "no dynamic compression".

Thanks to the implementation of Naim's Pulse streaming platform, the flagship system can accept high-resolution files up to 32-bit/384kHz PCM. The Diva Alta Utopia uses Focal's 'Ultra Wideband' technology to ensure 24-bit/192kHz wireless support between the speakers, and a hi-res connecting cable is also provided.

'Focal Time Management' tech is integrated, wherein the speakers' drivers are arranged in a curved arc to obtain a more consistent and realistic sound image at all times. This design is in keeping with Focal's Utopia series of passive speakers.

Streaming support is extensive, with UPnP compatibility allowing you to stream digital files across a home network from a NAS unit, and the system is compatible with the most popular platforms, such as Spotify Connect, Tidal Connect and Qobuz. AirPlay 2 and Google Cast are also on board, while aptX Adaptive codec support allows for 24-bit Bluetooth playback from a compatible source.

For physical connections, the primary loudspeaker houses HDMI eARC, optical, USB-C and RCA line-level inputs, and an ethernet port if you prefer a wired connection to the internet. Those physical connections are mounted to a curved heat sink, designed for maximised thermal dissipation, while an aluminium base aims for optimised airflow and better ventilation.

The Focal Diva Alta Utopia is available now, in five distinct finishes: Grey Felt, Ivory Felt, Black High Gloss, Off White High Gloss, and Dune High Gloss.

The price? A rather hefty £165,000 / $199,999 / €190,000 for the felt finishes and £175,000 / $210,000 / €199,990 for high gloss. That's considerably higher than the original Diva Utopia we tested at £29,999 / $39,999 / AU$59,999 per pair.

MORE:

Read our recent Focal Mu-so Hekla review

It's official: Naim and Focal have a new owner

Best active speakers: our experts pick the top pairs with built-in amplifiers

Let's be candid about it – Father's Day can sneak up on the best of us. But for those of you looking to splash out on dad this weekend – and you've left it very last minute to buy something meaningful – this Ortofon MC Quintet Blue moving coil cartridge might be just the thing.

If your dad has a turntable that is in dire need of an upgrade, then one way to refresh it could be by updating the cartridge. The five-star Ortofon Quintet Blue is a former What Hi-Fi? Award-winner that will do the trick, and you can even make a decent saving thanks to its current discount.

Available for just £399 from Peter Tyson, this deal could complete or upgrade your old man's vinyl setup. But act fast, as there's only one left in stock!

Ortofon has been making moving coil cartridges for almost 80 years. In that time, the company has produced more than 100 different models, and this experience makes itself known in products like the Quintet Blue.

Moving coil cartridges tend to be more pricey than moving magnet designs, but the Quintet Blue walks the line between affordability and precision by implementing an elliptical tip and aluminium cantilever into a design that is otherwise reminiscent of Ortofon’s more premium Black cartridge.

Weighing 9g, the Blue should sit comfortably at the end of most tonearms, and is easily mounted via a squared-off ABS body with captive threads.

The cartridge’s output voltage of 0.5mV (1kHz, 5cm/sec) is also fairly respectable for a moving coil, which tends to output lower voltages than a moving magnet design, but it is still low enough that you'll need a dedicated moving coil input on your amplifier or phono stage.

If you are buying the MC cartridge for Father’s Day, it might be worth checking whether your dad’s system already has these features.

So let's talk about the sound. In our review, we described the Quintet Blue as a “terrific performer”, adding that we were impressed by its “refinement and ability to render treble textures”.

Rhythmically, we found it “surefooted” with a “fine sense of drive”, but did note that it fell slightly behind the similarly-priced Goldring 2400 moving magnet cartridge when listening to heavy rock music.

If your dad has been looking to add a moving coil cartridge to his record player, as dads sometimes do, this bargain could be just the thing for those willing to spend a little extra on Father’s Day.

Whoever you're buying for, there’s only one left in stock, so don't hang around if you want to pick up this Ortofon Quintet Blue MC cartridge for just £399 from Peter Tyson.

MORE

Read our guide to the best cartridges: budget and premium options for your turntable

Check out our Ortofon Quintet Blue review

And our best turntables 2026: top record players tested by our expert reviewers

The High End Show is always a fun time for hi-fi enthusiasts. Bringing together the crème de la crème of premium audio under one roof, the expo always delivers a wealth of sonic treats.

And despite changing location to Vienna, from its traditional Munich, this year’s show was no different. Our team on the ground saw everything from swish new premium B&O speakers to chic new CD systems from Ruark.

But for me, there was one shining star that attendees may have missed, due to its pocket-sized nature – the new DragonFly Copper from AudioQuest.

Why am I choosing a tiny mobile DAC / headphone amp over the sea of premium separates and speakers at the show as my highlight? The answer is a simple one; I’ve got history with the DragonFly.

The dalliance started in 2012 with the launch of the original DragonFly DAC. Though I grew up with hi-fi and continued to enjoy it as a young adult, the DragonFly was the first piece of audio hardware I reviewed as a journalist. As the saying goes, you always remember your first.

But that's not the main reason I remember the unit so fondly; it was also a top performer that genuinely revolutionised how I listened to music on the go at the time.

People may not remember it, but 2012 was a pretty dire time for mobile audio. I know that because I also reviewed mobile phones during the period and can personally confirm their audio quality was pretty poor.

I loved my Nexus 4, but, like nearly all of the phones at the time, its audio was sub-par, even with a decent pair of wired cans attached, and it wasn’t alone. Pretty much every laptop, tablet and mobile device you could use as a source didn’t cut the sonic mustard back then.

So having this tiny, affordable USB dongle that, to put it bluntly, just made things better, was a lifesaver – especially for a 20-something who regularly had to take red-eye flights across the pond for work.

We may be used to the idea now, with other players, including iFi, releasing a steady stream of similar products, but the DragonFly was the first properly good mobile DAC I experienced.

Which is why it has a room reserved in my memory palace, and I was genuinely a little sad when the AudioQuest DragonFly Cobalt DAC went out of production and was removed from our best DACs guide earlier this year.

It’s also why I was elated to see it return at High End Vienna and can’t wait to get a unit in for review and see if the new Copper lives up to the DragonFly’s legacy.

If even a smattering of the firm’s performance claims – which range from improved current efficiency to significantly meatier output power – ring true, then we could be in for quite the treat.

MORE:

These are the best portable music players

We rank the best wired headphones

Our top picks of the best headphone amps

Wharfedale has revamped its top-of-the-range Elysian series of loudspeakers.

The Elysian Series R now replaces all of the five established models in the range, including the five-star Elysian 4 floorstanders, promising "elevated engineering and an even more captivating musical performance".

The new line-up consists of the Elysian 1R two-way standmounts, the Elysian 2R three-way standmounts, the Elysian 3R and 4R three-way floorstanders, and the Elysian CR centre channel.

Wharfedale describes the new R range as an evolution of the previous Elysian speakers rather than a full-scale reinvention, with components revisited and refined to deliver "greater accuracy, transparency and musical realism".

The Elysian R range deploys enhanced 'Air Motion Transfer' (AMT) tweeters, designed for greater sonic resolution and accuracy alongside ultra-low distortion. The AMT tweeters have been updated with a new "ultra-light" pleated diaphragm, with an "enlarged, high-specification design" combined with the acoustically damped rear chamber. This should result in a more open and effortless quality to the high frequency performance.

Apart from the smaller Elysian 1R, all of the new speakers house a 15cm midrange driver with a cone constructed using a woven glass fibre matrix, which Wharfedale promises results in "astonishing realism and tonal accuracy".

Depending on the model, either an 18cm or 22cm glass fibre matrix bass driver is used, which has also been refined alongside the motor system, in pursuit of better depth and control at the lower end of the frequency range.

Wharfedale's the Slot-Loaded Profiled Port returns to work alongside the bass drivers, while the brand has refined other areas of the speakers throughout. These include revised crossovers to improve transparency, and components and circuit board layouts chosen for the shortest signal path and less electromagnetic interference.

For the cabinets, all five Elysian R models feature Wharfedale’s latest Panel Resonance Optimisation System (PROS), whereby a multi-layer construction of woods of differing density is accompanied by strategic bracing for enhanced structural integrity and reduced panel resonance.

All five Wharfedale Elysian R Series speakers will be available from late June in a choice of matt black, matt grey or piano lacquered walnut wood veneer finishes. Prices are as follows:

- Elysian 1R standmounts: £3499 / $5995 / AU$7999 per pair (stands £399)
- Elysian 2R standmounts: £4999 / $8495 / AU$11,999 per pair (stands £449)
- Elysian 3R floorstanders: £5999 / $9995 / AU$13,999 per pair
- Elysian 4R floorstanders: £6999 / $11,995 / AU$15,999 per pair
- Elysian CR centre channel: £3499 / $5995 / AU$7999 (stand £449)

MORE:

Read our recent Wharfedale Diamond 12.3i review

"It's the last physical format we'll ever have." How the demand for CDs, tactility and good design led to Ruark's new R710 streaming amplifier

Best floorstanding speakers 2026: budget to premium models tested by our experts

Is your dad like mine and claims he doesn't actually want anything for Father's Day?

Of course, you still have to get him something – and we've put together a snazzy little gift guide to help you.

Whether you have a commuter dad who could benefit from some noise-cancelling headphones, a garden dad who would love a Bluetooth speaker or a home cinema dad who watches late-night action films, there's something here for whatever his tastes are.

All of the physical products below have been reviewed and rated by us, and must receive at least four stars to earn our sought-after recommendation. So even if you know nothing about hi-fi and home cinema, you can be sure you're getting your dad a quality gift.

The ultra-portable, ultra-affordable Tribit Stormbox Micro 2 is one of the most wallet-friendly portable speakers we've come across, but, importantly, it also offers good sound quality for the money.

The Sony WH-1000XM6 won Product of the Year in the wireless headphones category at our most recent Awards ceremony, and are still our best overall pick of the best headphones. If your dad regularly spends his time on trains, planes or buses, then the excellent noise-cancelling, exceptional detail and comfortable fit make these a go-to option.

The Panasonic DP-UB150EB is a great value 4K Blu-ray player. Picture quality is admirable – especially when it comes to dark details and 4K upscaling – and the player can handle up to 7.1 audio with an impressive sense of scale.

The Sonos Era 300 is a wireless speaker that offers huge scale, an engaging sound, a wide range of features and a seamless Sonos experience. It's also convincing with spatial audio, music that uses the Dolby Atmos format to create multiple channels of audio beyond the standard two.

We're sure Apple AirPods need no introduction. The Apple AirPods Pro 3 are our favourite overall thanks to their spacious, powerful and dynamic sound, impressive ANC and Apple's intuitive user experience.

If your dad needs something to listen to on his new headphones, then you can currently get three months of Audible for only $0.99 a month. Given that it's usually $8.99 a month, that's quite the saving.

If your dad is still listening to the tinny built-in speakers of his TV, a soundbar will be revelatory. The diminutive Creative Stage Pro comes with a soundbar and subwoofer that are compact enough for small spaces, but still sound crisp, detailed and emotive.

If your dad has crates of dusty records, then the Sony PS-LX3BT is an effective and affordable way to get back into vinyl. It comes with Bluetooth functionality, so your dad can connect his wireless headphones too.

The Audio-Technica Sound Burger may look like a novelty, but this portable record player is also an enjoyable, well-made concept with plenty of unique features. Especially recommended if your dad had the original back in 1983.

MORE:

Our pick of the best wireless headphones you can buy

And the best TVs for all budgets

Looking for a bargain? Here are the best budget soundbars

When Ruark Audio launched the R410 all-in-one system and R610 streaming amplifier in the last couple of years, the 40-year-old brand thought it was done with CDs. These hi-res streaming-laden music systems also featured radio tuners and a phono stage, but silver disc playback was never part of the picture.

But then everyone started asking about CDs, says owner and managing director Alan O’Rourke. That led to an optional CD drive being offered that you could connect via USB-C to any of the R100 series, but a more integrated solution was clearly needed.

The new Ruark R710 streaming amplifier with integrated CD player launched at High End Vienna 2026, and it shows just how strong customers’ demand for CD playback currently is. This reflects reports across the wider hi-fi and music industry, where physical media as a whole has been on the rise for years, buoyed by vinyl’s astounding continual popularity, and a slow but steady rise in sales of CDs as well.

A recent BPI report shows that CD sales rose by 3.1 per cent to £99.6m last year, which is the format’s best annual revenue total since 2021. As a more portable and wallet-friendly alternative to vinyl records, CDs still have such great appeal – and new releases are the driving force behind the sales, too.

"As human beings, we're natural collectors – we like to collect stuff"

The yearning for more tactility with our music and products is another trend that goes hand-in-hand with the popularity of physical media, too. While streaming remains unquestionably dominant, O'Rourke says he doesn’t see the demand for CDs or CD players going away now.

“It’s the last physical format we’ll ever have,” he says, with CD's sound quality proving to be still comparable to (and more permanent, and lossless than) that of streaming services. And they're cheaper than vinyl records, too.

When I spoke to Alan ahead of the High End Vienna hi-fi show, he said that he feels the CD resurgence is thanks to the younger generation as well as those of us who have had our collections for decades. We might discover music via streaming, but then buy it on CD (or on vinyl record) if we like it enough.

"As human beings, we're natural collectors – we like to collect stuff," he says. As opposed to the idea of never actually owning your music, with it being "there in the ether somewhere... I think it's nice to have a CD or vinyl you can actually hold. It's nice to, every now and then, get a CD out and play it".

"I think that's what will happen with the R710," says Alan, with people easily able to play a CD from their collection when they want, and realise – as many people did with vinyl – that it still "sounds pretty good".

Ruark says the CD player integrated in the R710 is a proper CD drive mechanism, not a ROM or DVD drive such as we’ve encountered in cheaper recent products, with the brand saying they’re on their 4th or 5th mechanism supplier now – and it’s of good quality, we’re assured.

Ruark’s inclusion of a CD player in its newest product isn’t a one-off curiosity, either. The more affordable R series of products includes the table-top R3 system, which has long included a CD player alongside radio tuners and Bluetooth/Spotify.

The R3 (now in its R3S iteration) is still a big seller at home stores such as John Lewis in the UK, along with the smaller R1 radio. “As hi-fi guys", says Ruark, the team were surprised by how many people were buying these compact products.

Ruark was founded in 1985 with passive speakers, but around the turn of the millennium when the BBC was pushing DAB radio the brand decided to pivot from traditional hi-fi speakers into something a little different, more compact, and more lifestyle-friendly. And so the first R1 DAB radio launched in 2004 – and these small-box, integrated radio systems have become almost synonymous with the brand ever since.

Over the years, a series of What Hi-Fi? Awards – for the MR1 desktop Bluetooth speakers, the R1S radio, the R2 Mk4 radio/streaming system – are a testament to the high quality of sound and build you get for the price.

Home is where the art is

Long-time product designer, Jan Paoli – whose first product when he joined Ruark was the turning-point R1 radio – says that the ethos at Ruark HQ has remained the same for the past decades: “We make the products we want in our homes.”

While new technology offers more possibilities, the products’ conception and design remains all about what people – including those on the Ruark team – genuinely want to listen to, look at and enjoy in their houses.

Hence the physical design of the R710 – as with all current Ruark products – is such an integral part of the brand. O’Rourke’s father – the late Brian O’Rourke – was a cabinet maker, and made the wooden cabinets for brands like KEF and Wharfedale, creating the first Ruark speakers with son Alan working as an engineer alongside him.

That heritage follows through in today's products. Ruark's products often look rather beautiful too, with care taken over the cabinets and aesthetics. We find that they fit into most homes and have wider appeal, especially for those customers who wouldn't look twice at a traditional hi-fi separates system but still want great-quality sound in a box that looks stylish, too.

In the flesh, the R710 looks fantastic to our eyes. It follows the same design language as the five-star R610 streaming amp, with wooden details, a large full-colour display screen, and the now-iconic RotoDial controller at the top of the unit which lets you control all aspects of the R710 physically rather than by using an app.

There's a matching Bluetooth remote too, which further extends the tangible connection to the music system. It’s all about offering tactility – Ruark says they’re hearing “people are fed up with touchscreens; they want buttons again”.

Cleverly, the CD drive mechanism is hidden in one of the wooden slats at the front of the unit. It’s near-invisible, but the slot loading mechanism works smoothly when loading and ejecting a CD. You can see it in action in the video embedded below, or on our Instagram page:

Keeping up with the times

Anyone thinking Ruark is only harkening back to the ‘good old days’ of CD and vinyl, and 70s-inspired design, will be pleased to know that the R710 is also packed with modern streaming features.

Yes, it can play CDs and you can connect a turntable to it thanks to the built-in MM phono stage, but the R710 also has networked streaming and DLNA compatibility so you can stream hi-res files from any connected storage.

Tidal Connect, Qobuz Connect and Spotify Connect are also supported, while you can easily stream from devices using Bluetooth (aptX HD), AirPlay and Google Cast. Internet radio is on board, and there is even HDMI ARC connectivity for integrating into a home cinema system.

The only thing the R710 doesn’t seem to have is integrated FM/DAB tuners, which the R610 does. However, the R710 packs a bigger punch with 200W of Class D amplification per channel, a huge step up over the more compact R610’s 75W per channel. It’s also a slightly bigger unit, with the R610 looking almost petite next to its bigger brother.

All you need to do is add a pair of speakers, and to help with that Ruark has launched the fourth-generation Talisman-R floorstanding speakers alongside the R710.

With its trademark sloped baffle (a design carried on from the 1990 original), updated drivers, improved cabinet bracing and decoupled front baffle to further reduce colouration to the sound quality, the new floorstanders are matched – acoustically and aesthetically – to work with the R710.

Listening to the R710 and Talisman-R duo

I recently had a chance to listen to this new R710 and Talisman-R pairing at the High End Vienna 2026 show. The usual caveats about listening to new products in an unfamiliar environment on a busy trade-show floor should be implied, although admittedly the Ruark demo room was nicely isolated from the noise outside it, even if the room wasn’t fully acoustically treated.

We were treated to a few tracks played via Qobuz Connect during the brief demo, and were met with a rich, lush tone that sounded smooth, punchy and detailed. The R710’s increase in power seems to be evident in the ease and confidence with which it handles plunging, deep basslines, as well as the punctuality of notes. It comfortably filled the demo room with a large-scale, open sound, while voices sounded well integrated.

The piano notes in Bruce Springsteen's version of A Rainy Night In Soho certainly sounded solid and richly textured, with Springsteen’s voice coming through all earthy and, well, lush. The overall impression was one of smooth confidence, with greater authority and a good handling of subtle dynamic shifts and engaging rhythmic drive.

Ruark says the team spent a lot of time integrating the drivers on the Talisman-R to get a "natural" sound, with the use of natural materials throughout – silk dome tweeters, fibre woofers – aiding the resultant sound signature. The sloped baffle has been further damped and isolated in this latest model, which promises to improve things even more.

Considering the previous Talisman III received an effusive five-star review from us for its rhythmically exciting, expressive sound, we can’t wait to hear how the new speakers – and the R710 – perform when we get full review samples into our dedicated test room in due course.

It’s hard to separate the sound of the R710 from the Talisman-R – but that’s kind of the point.

We found when testing the R610 and Sabre-R bookshelf speakers that they fit together like pieces of a musical puzzle with the seams near-indistinguishable, and it seems Ruark has repeated the trick with the new pairing. As always, we’ll also be testing the two products individually to see how they fare with price-compatible components and rivals.

The R710 is priced a bit more premium at £2199 (the R610 is £1199), while the Talisman-R are yours for £1500 – as the Sabre-R found, there's no shortage of formidable rivals on the market when it comes passive speakers, so they'll have their work cut out. You can buy the products separately or as a bundle when they're available from October.

When we spoke to Alan O'Rourke earlier this year about the changing trends in hi-fi over the past 50 years, he said that he has seen this rather niche, hobbyist hi-fi industry start to increasingly cater to modern tastes and common budgets, positing that it's now "probably more about hi-fi for the whole family, which is a bit like a radiogram being the centre of home listening again. The market has moved towards making hi-fi more accessible and ensuring it has a wider-ranging appeal”.

With Ruark's visual appeal and living-room friendly design, not to mention the various ways you can listen to music through products like the new R710 – BBC radio, CDs, vinyl, Spotify, hi-res streams – it certainly shows that hi-fi can be accessible, modern and – potentially – offer great sound quality, too.

MORE:

Read our Ruark Audio R610 review

10 of the most exciting hi-fi products we saw at High End Vienna 2026

1976 vs today: veteran audio experts discuss the biggest shifts in music and hi-fi during What Hi-Fi?'s 50-year lifetime

It’s been a tricky few years for Onkyo.

Historically better known for its AV receivers, the Japanese company filed for bankruptcy back in 2022, but not before offloading its core home AV and hi-fi division to a joint venture between Premium Audio Company (the parent company of Klipsch, Integra, Magnat and others) and Sharp.

It teased a return at the end of 2024 before finally launching new hi-fi electronics and an affordable line of powered speakers at CES 2025.

That range of electronics was called ‘Icon’, and it’s the Onkyo Icon A-50 streaming amplifier that you see before you here.

It’s a strong choice of name – but can the level of performance on offer match it?

Price

Priced at £1199 / £1599 / AU$3299, the Onkyo lives in a space where there isn’t too much in the way of major rivals.

The one potential stumbling block to its success is a big one, though. It comes in the shape of the Ruark Audio R610 (£1199 / $1599 / AU$2299), a What Hi-Fi? Awards 2025 winner, no less.

This neat box of tricks offers similar functionality to the Onkyo and has a price tag which is comparable in both the UK and the US.

There is a bit of a gap in pricing when you look at the Australian market, but we think it’s the product most people are likely to compare it to.

Design & build

Once unboxed, first impressions are mixed. Onkyo has gone down the traditional full-width separates route for the Icon A-50 as opposed to the slightly more stylish and more modern design of the Ruark.

There’s certainly nothing wrong with 'traditional', and from a distance everything appears perfectly well-appointed – all the various controls, buttons and switches seem to be proportionate and in the right place.

Once it’s powered up, that sliver of orange LED on the volume control sharpens up the amp’s appearance nicely. It contrasts neatly with its black surround and matches the ladder of LEDs that arcs around the input selector. Each rung glows orange as you cycle through the various options until you arrive at your desired input.

However, your contact points feel a little, dare we say, cheap. The top of the chassis, despite having an attractive pattern of vents, doesn’t feel the most robust.

The power button, depending on how it’s pressed, can make a quite off-putting springy noise, while the volume control makes quite a substantial clicking noise around halfway up its travel.

We weren’t quite sure why the amp was doing this, so we reached out to Onkyo, who told us “to prevent the product temperature from becoming high, the power supply for the amplifier is designed to switch between two levels, low and high, depending on factors such as the volume value, internal temperature sensor, and speaker output level".

It’s a strange quirk and something that we haven’t come across on a product like this before. It’s also something that we did find distracting during testing.

The textured finish to the input selector feels nice to the touch, but the control’s actual movement is a little soft and not quite as precise as we’d like.

Add all the design and build elements together, and we’re left with a feeling that we’re not quite getting our money’s worth.

The supplied remote is a relatively ordinary plastic wand which contains all the basic buttons for changing input, volume and accessing the tone controls.

It does the job without too many complaints, although a couple of times, when controlling the volume, the dial seemed to briefly resist and even go in the opposite direction before rotating the desired way.

Features

Speaking of controls, you are encouraged to download Onkyo’s Controller app before you begin set-up.

Companion apps for anything streaming-related can be hit and miss in our experience, and the Onkyo’s isn’t without issue. There’s plenty of functionality built in, for sure, but it struggles to gloss over what is all too often a frustrating and buggy experience.

What should be a simple set-up process is hampered by an over-complicated and overly fussy menu system and an app that is generally slow and sluggish to respond.

Tidal Connect worked smoothly as you’d expect, but the Amazon Music implementation is sluggish and buggy. On one occasion, we are streaming music using the service through the Controller app and the icons for skipping tracks disappear from the screen on our iPhone 15 Plus.

Through the app, you can access the Onkyo’s basic Dirac Live room correction or the built-in Fidelity IQ calibration. Both of these can use the microphone, which comes with the amplifier and plugs into the corresponding socket on the front panel.

Depending on your room layout and characteristics, you might want to stick with how they calibrate the sound, but we preferred them both turned off. In our acoustically treated rooms, Dirac Live sounded a little lightweight, while the Fidelity IQ option seemed to change the balance and boost certain frequencies at the expense of others, resulting in an unbalanced sound.

Instead, we would suggest actually flicking the switch on the front of the A-50 to turn on Direct mode. With this mode engaged, your music won’t pass through the amp’s tone control circuit and instead travel on a slightly shorter signal path.

In our opinion, it makes a subtle, yet audible difference to the sound quality. Music sounds slightly cleaner and more transparent.

During testing, there were a couple of bugs that cropped up when experimenting with Dirac Live, Fidelity IQ, and Direct mode. On a couple of occasions, the amplifier went rogue and turned the bass up in the tone controls when switching between them. The Onkyo would also occasionally mute the sound when switching between Dirac Live and Fidelity IQ.

We actually found the best part of the control app to be the volume control. Tapping the button on your screen launches a pop-up volume dial, which you slide your thumb around. The dial’s action is nice and smooth, and the amp is quick to respond.

On the front of the amp is a 6.3mm headphone socket, and four LED indicators next to a ‘my input’ button, which you can use to assign a particular source and sound settings to a single preset.

Around the back are three analogue inputs, two optical digital inputs, one coaxial digital input, a USB-A input for an external storage device, an HDMI ARC socket and a phono input for the moving magnet/moving coil phono stage.

Bluetooth connectivity is also included, which allows you to not only beam music to the Onkyo from a smartphone or tablet, but also transmit Bluetooth audio to a pair of Bluetooth headphones for, say, some late-night, wireless listening. The amp is compatible with SBC, aptX and aptX HD codecs.

The networked A-50 can cater for virtually all your streaming needs with support for Spotify Connect, Tidal Connect, Qobuz Connect, Amazon Music and TuneIn internet radio. It also supports AirPlay, Chromecast and is Roon Ready.

Sound

The Icon A-50 is claimed to deliver 110W per channel (into 8 ohms) using Class A/B amplification. During testing, we have it hooked up to our reference bookshelf speakers, the Epos ES-7N, and the amplifier seems perfectly at home driving them.

We start with a track or two from our Naim Uniti Core server accessed through the controller app, and we like what we hear.

Playing Lady Gaga’s Starstruck, the A-50 puts its best foot forward. The track sounds punchy, weighty and piques our interest with a lively and spacious sound.

There’s plenty of scale and size to the soundstage, too – the Onkyo sounds bold and forthcoming, but doesn’t sound overpowering. It’s nicely measured in its approach.

Bass notes hit with weight and authority, but it’s not just about the amount of bass. There’s decent detail and texture there too, and the difference in intensity between each low-frequency blow is easy enough to distinguish.

We wheel out the five-star Ruark R610 for comparison, and although it sounds smaller scale and less open, you do get a much greater sense of focus and precision compared to the Onkyo.

The current What Hi-Fi? Award-winner sounds more sure of itself, displaying greater composure and also has the edge when communicating the rhythmic flow and dynamic shifts of the track.

We slow things down with George Michael’s Careless Whisper and the Onkyo’s large, expansive delivery comes to the fore once again. It’s nice to listen to and does a fine job of separating the various elements of the track.

However, the vocal isn’t delivered with quite as much conviction or precision, nor does the saxophone sound as solid or dynamically dexterous as it is when heard through the Ruark.

Having said that, the A-50 still sounds balanced. There’s no sign of any brightness or hardness at the top end, and you certainly couldn’t accuse the Onkyo of delivering unruly and overly keen bass frequencies, either.

We play the same two tunes over Tidal Connect and Bluetooth, and the amplifier remains in character. Yes, the compressed Bluetooth versions sound just that, but the Onkyo maintains its broad, expansive personality.

Unfortunately, we can’t say the same for the phono stage. Connecting a Rega Planar 3 RS Edition and playing Lukas Graham’s Happy Home, and we are left feeling disappointed by the slightly flat and compressed sound that greets us.

Tonally, there’s nothing too off-putting, and it’s balanced and easy-going enough, but there’s a distinct lack of drive to the synthy bassline, and his normally expressive vocal sounds stunted.

The headphone output, by contrast, sounds tonally grey compared to what we hear from the amp’s speaker outputs. There’s a lack of natural warmth, and detail levels take a hit too.

Verdict

As you’ll have probably guessed by now, we aren’t as enamoured with the Onkyo Icon A-50 as we had hoped to be.

The large-scale, powerful sound it produces shows potential, and there are likeable elements to its sound quality, but it never really comes close to troubling the composure and dynamic finesse of the class-leader at this level.

Combine the questions over build with the buggy app, and the Onkyo feels like one of those products where it’s a good concept on paper, but, ultimately, the execution is lacking.

Review published: 9th June 2026

SCORES

• Sound 3
• Features 3
• Build 3

MORE:

Also consider the Ruark Audio R610

Best music streamers: top network audio players tested by our experts

The annual High End Show always treats us to the very best and latest from the world of hi-fi, but this year, the move to a new venue in Vienna, Austria, seems to have invigorated the industry as a whole. There were several new launches and upcoming previews to feast our eyes upon.

We saw big anniversaries, a couple of comebacks and new designs and concepts, all of which showed that the world of hi-fi is in pretty good health.

You can head to What Hi-Fi?'s Instagram channel to see more from the show floor, but below is a curated list of our main hi-fi highlights from the High End Show 2026.

Bowers & Wilkins 800 Series Diamond D5

Bowers & Wilkins is turning 60 this year, and it's gone big with the celebrations. The iconic British brand has updated its flagship 800 Series Diamond speaker range, with the fifth generation imbued with a huge list of improvements, advanced technology and more luxurious finishes.

B&W says this range has been five years in the making and "is the most advanced loudspeaker range we’ve ever made and the ultimate embodiment of John Bowers’ True Sound philosophy". It aims to "deliver a flawlessly accurate rendering of the original recording."

The 800 Diamond D5 range comprises seven models, starting with the 805 D5 standmounters (£10,000 / $15,000) and culminating in the range-topping 801 D5 (£43,000 / $65,000) floorstanders. We heard a demo of the 801 D5 and got a taste of their powerful, authoritative bass and vividly detailed sound – and came away wanting more.

Read our first impressions: I've had a first listen to Bowers & Wilkins' new flagship 800 Series Diamond speakers – and now I'm desperate to hear more

JBL Summit Everest

JBL wants to be on top of the world with its flagship Summit Everest speakers, which are an appropriately mammoth pair, comprising two 38cm woofers and twin 25cm mid/bass drivers, and a large 'Sonoglass' horn working alongside a trio of 5cm compression drivers.

These are the 80-year-old brand's biggest and most expensive speakers: they cost $160,000 per pair, measure 144 x 99 x 69cm (hwd) and weigh 237kg. Phew.

In our demo, they sounded big, powerful and bold, and seemed to handle small-scale recordings with as much gusto and dynamism as more dramatic and demanding tracks.

If our review of the punchy, capable and much smaller five-star Summit Ama are anything to go by, then the Everest should be something quite special.

Read our first impressions: Are JBL’s range-topping Summit speakers worth $160,000? I've had an exclusive listen to find out

Ruark Audio R710

If all of the above seems a bit too rich and too gigantic for your tastes, let us offer something a little more home-friendly.

Ruark Audio's five-star R610 streaming amplifier impressed us hugely with its blend of stunning design, ample feature set and engaging sound, and now it is upping the ante with the step-up R710.

The R710 features the same streaming features and connections as the R610, but boasts a more powerful 200W per channel, a larger cabinet and display screen, and, most important of all, an integrated CD player.

Ruark says it was a popular request with CDs back in demand, and the R710 could be your one-stop music console that can play just about anything. All you need to do is add speakers.

Yours for £2199, the R710 blends “analogue charm with digital convenience” and looks gorgeous in the flesh with the wood details and tactile RotoDial controller on top. The CD drive being hidden in the wooden slats at the front is a clever touch, too.

MORE: Ruark’s gorgeous streaming amplifier blends “analogue charm with digital convenience” and features an integrated CD player

Jamo Concert Element 50

Another brand that is keeping lifestyle-friendly designs at the forefront of its offering is Jamo, whose return is marked with a variety of ranges, from the traditional Concert Legacy speakers to the small, portable, Bluetooth-friendly Hyg range.

But the model that caught our eye is the Concert Element 50 bookshelf speaker, which is intentionally not designed like a traditional speaker to blend into living spaces.

The Element 50 features a concentric circle of drivers and a shallow 18cm cabinet, so it can fit neatly into bookshelves and cabinets. The fabric grille is removable and can be swapped out for different colours.

We liked how fresh and fun this design feels, and with a price tag of £999/$1099 per pair, Jamo is aiming high for sound and design alike.

MORE: Jamo's Concert series gets an encore with two new ranges from the newly resurrected brand

Dali Vega

Dali's all-in-one wireless system is one of the more interesting and innovative designs we saw at High End Vienna. The Dali Vega can be placed on a tabletop or wall-mounted in landscape or portrait orientations, and is designed to be “the most versatile and user-friendly audio source in the home”.

There are thoughtful touches – from the rather lovely control dial to the OLED screen that flips according to the orientation – while there are modes that detect where the Vega is placed and adapts the sound accordingly.

The music system (it's not a soundbar, there's no Dolby Atmos here) has a 400W digital amp powering 8 channels, and runs on the reliable BluOS streaming platform.

With its distinct style and hefty price at £2599 / $4500, it's a more expensive all-in-one system than the Naim Mu-so 2 and Ruark R410, but it could well go toe-to-toe with the even pricier Focal Mu-so Hekla. We're excited to find out after the Vega is available in October.

Read our first impressions: Dali Vega hands-on review

Cambridge Audio Evo 300

Cambridge Audio took to High End Vienna with its most powerful streaming amplifier yet.

The new Evo 300 boasts 300W per channel of Hypex NCOREx Class D power and a new ESS Sabre DAC for playing hi-res files up to 32-bit/768kHz PCM and DSD512. It's packed the gills with every popular network streaming feature you can think of, along with HDMI eARC and a moving magnet phono stage.

As before, it retains the lifestyle-friendly design with swappable side panels and a larger, full colour display that looks crisp and punchy in person.

In our brief demo, we found that the Evo 300 delivered an open, expansive sound with a good amount of bass weight, although we'll have to spend more time with it in our test rooms to get a full picture.

The Evo 300 is also Cambridge's priciest streaming amp yet, costing £3499 / $3999.

Read our first impressions: Cambridge Audio Evo 300 hands-on review

AudioQuest DragonFly Copper

One of our favourite products from the show wasn't big, expensive, flashy or outrageous. It was the latest small but potentially mighty USB DAC/headphone amp from AudioQuest's celebrated DragonFly range, and we couldn't be more excited.

The now-retired DragonFly Cobalt has been one of our most recommended, easy-to-use DACs for many years, and the new DragonFly Copper is set to take on that mantle.

It has the same small form (albeit with a shiny copper exterior), with a USB-A port at one end and a 3.5mm headphone jack/audio output at the other.

The Copper claims to be the most powerful and efficient DragonFly yet, and it will be on sale from September with a modest cost of £230 / $250. If it can match – or improve upon – the performance we enjoyed from the superb Cobalt, then it could be on to another winner.

MORE: The DragonFly Copper hovers into view as AudioQuest's most powerful and efficient DAC yet

Clearaudio Rammstein

We're used to seeing eye-catching artist collaboration turntables from Pro-Ject (who did debut a new Harley Davidson special limited turntable for €2590), but Clearaudio is also dipping its toe into this arena with its inaugural Artist Series.

The first artist for this collaboration? German metal band Rammstein. The Rammstein turntable stands out with a substantial MDF block chassis with metallic lacquer finish, with internal LED lighting in red or white illuminating the band's name.

The turntable is based on the five-star Concept's engineering, and comes fitted with the T1 tonearm and a specially branded moving magnet cartridge.

Only 1000 units will be made worldwide, and it will be available to buy from October with a price tag of £1990 / $2600. A nice touch is that each turntable will ship with a wooden crate that can be used for vinyl storage, too.

MORE: Clearaudio unveils five (!) new turntables, including a new range and a Beatles tribute deck

Arcam A50 Signature

Another brand celebrating a big birthday is Arcam, who is turning 50 this year (the very same age as What Hi-Fi? in fact) and at Vienna, it went for a more subdued approach in its mature age.

The A50 Signature sits at the top of the Award-winning Radia amplifier range, and is created in collaboration with Arcam co-founder John Dawson, who insisted on looking forward instead of revisiting past designs or creating a nostalgia-driven amplifier.

The A50 Signature wants to be the ultimate expression of Arcam's Class G design, and uses a dual-mono architecture with 150 watts per channel into 8 ohms.

Plenty of care has been taken with the internal circuitry to deliver the purest audio performance possible. It follows the same minimal design language and ample feature set as the Award-winning A15+, with Dawson wanting to ensure that the A50 Signature "remains relevant to how people listen today."

His signature can be seen on the rear cowl and on the PCBs (printed circuit boards) inside, but that's all the flourish you'll get on this £2499 / $3000 stereo amplifier.

MORE: Arcam celebrates 50 years of hi-fi with a new signature amplifier and a premium CD player

Musical Fidelity A1 CD

We'll end this list on a product that isn't a reality yet, but still had us talking about it during the show.

Musical Fidelity showed off a prototype CD player based on a mid-90s design that was affectionately nicknamed "The Frog." Why? Because it used Class A single-ended triodes in the output stage, with the valves sticking out at the back of the unit like the amphibian's eyes.

Like the original Musical Fidelity CDT CD player, this conceptual A1 CD features the same casing and design as the iconic A1 amplifier, with a top-loading disc tray, updated to look sleeker, along with redesigned buttons.

We don't have any more information about pricing or availability of this disc spinner, but it's a charming design, and one we hope becomes a reality soon.

MORE:

7 of the quirkiest, coolest and most expensive things we saw at High End Vienna 2026

Dual takes its "legacy into the future" with a fully automatic direct-drive turntable that you can control with an app

All the news and highlights from High End Vienna 2026

This year's High End Show uprooted itself from its established base in Munich and found a new home in Vienna, meaning a new venue, a new city and, most importantly, the chance for lots of new people to come and see the best that the world of high-end hi-fi has to offer.

While the venue might have been different, one thing has remained the same: the propensity for the High End Show to throw up some mind-blowing marvels for the delectation of thousands of eager punters.

From massive horn speakers to setups costing more than your family home, Vienna has been host to some of the most striking hi-fi concoctions on the planet over the past few days.

ESD Acoustic Super Dragon horn speakers

Ah, the ESD Super Dragon speakers – it's always good to see them.

Not that you can miss the mighty Dragons, mind. We've been crossing paths with the mammoth horn speakers for quite a few years at High End Munich, and now they've flown themselves over to pastures new to wow Viennese audiences with their big sound and unmistakably gigantic horns.

Calling themselves the "biggest hi-fi speakers" in the world, ESD's monsters stand at 140cm tall, weigh 1190kg, and house foiled beryllium and titanium sandwich diaphragms.

Want a full Dragon System? Prepare to hand over $1,531,163 for the "entry level" version. The even higher-end, special edition Super Dragon we saw at Vienna reportedly costs over $3.6 million...

Acoustic Signature Invictus Neo turntable

"We could now write an essay on our Invictus Neo. But this would make no sense. You wouldn’t believe us any­way until you have heard our master­piece your­self".

Now that's how you market your product. If big-money turntables are your sort of thing, you won't find many that will empty your bank balance with the same rapidity as Acoustic Signature's Invictus Neo.

At €184,798, it's easily one of the most wallet-busting decks we saw at this year's High End Vienna show. To justify the price, its makers candidly describe it as "the best turntable in the world".

To live up to such a lofty moniker, the Neo packs six integrated AC motors and an external digital control, as well as a rigid DTD bearing, a diamond-coated spindle, and an anodised aluminium and brass sandwich platter. Oh, and a 15-year warranty to soften that mighty financial blow.

MBL 101 X-Treme MKIII loudspeakers

From its polished website to its richly adorned listening space, it's clear that German audio brand MBL is trying to evoke a sense of luxury from its price-stretching range of hi-fi separates and speakers.

MBL had a number of its enviably high-end wares on display in its Vienna showroom, though there's no question that the 101 X-Treme MKIII were the centrepiece of the company's not-so-modest exhibition.

The 101 X-Treme MKIII house a tweeter, upper-midrange, lower-midrange, and a large twin-layered aluminium sandwich subwoofer housed in a downward-firing enclosure. The speakers' drivers use a radial design made from carbon fibre and aluminium segments, which flex outward to fire sound more evenly throughout the room.

We don't know prices yet, but considering the previous generation speakers sailed north of £300,000, that should give you a good idea of what we're dealing with.

Kharma Enigma Veyron EV1D loudspeakers

We don't know about you, but when we hear the word 'Veyron', we think of Bugatti's iconic supercar from a few years back, which smashed records left, right and centre and was the darling of the Top Gear trio for pushing the boundaries of what a legal road car could do.

Kharma teases similar boundary-pushing levels of engineering with its namesake floorstanders, claiming they offer "a new level of sound quality" and "superior technology that pushes the limits of current dynamic loudspeakers".

At the heart of the Enigma Veyron EV1D is the brand's new Omega C-Driver, engineered in-house with a rigid metal composite chassis and solid silver connectors. Those massive cabinets, meanwhile, are constructed using CNC-milled bulletwood, chosen, according to Kharma, for its "exceptional density and acoustic properties".

The EV1D don't just push the boundaries of performance, either. Some have reported the Kharma towers to be "the most expensive speakers in the world" – at $1.5 million, they can't be far off.

Wilson Audio Autobiography loudspeakers

There are houses... and then there are houses. There are cars... and then there are cars. There are speakers... and then there are Wilson Audio's Autobiography towers. Do you get where we're going with this?

To illustrate our point, the Bowers & Wilkins flagship 801 D5 Diamond Series speakers will cost you £43,000 / $65,000 / €50,000, and that's not exactly pocket change. The Autobiography are a tad pricier at $788,000. That's not a mortgage on a house – that's just a house, and quite a nice one at that.

We don't have the time or the space to tell you everything there is to know, but the key bullet points include seven drive units, handcrafted sculpted cabinets, around two meters of height and a total weight of roughly 1000kg.

AMR Luna Series

AMR is back, and it unveiled at High End Vienna its new Luna Series of ultra-high-end separates. The series includes three new models: the Luna Ingenii DAC, Luna Medii preamplifier, and Luna Procellarum monoblock power amp. AMR claims each will offer "unconstrained audio...conceived without commercial compromise".

Production is limited, though. No more than 176 sets of Luna Ingenii, 186 sets of Luna Medii or 148 sets of the Luna Procellarum will be built. According to the firm, this is mainly due to the scarcity of the components used in each and AMR’s desire to provide lifetime service and support.

AMR describes the Luna Series as boasting "engineering without economic restraint". The Luna Procellarum, for instance, uses a unique four-quadrant FET design in which four complete amplifier circuits operate in concert for every channel.

What sort of money are we talking? If you want the entire system, prices will start to creep beyond £400,000 for the pleasure.

Revox Deep Purple Limited Edition series

Are Deep Purple still considered cool? The jury's still out on that one, but we're pretty confident in saying that Revox's limited edition series, built in collaboration with the British hard rock pioneers, isn't exactly lacking in style.

The range consists of the T77 turntable, the Studiomaster A200 speaker and, as pictured above, the B77 MK III stereo tape recorder, all of which sport a rich blue design and distinctive iconographies as part of their special production aesthetic.

Limited edition really does mean limited, too. Only 25 units of the B77 MK III will be available worldwide, while only 50 T77 turntables and 200 A200 speakers will be produced.

We've got to admit that up close and personal, the exclusive new Revox range really does look the business. We only have one question: shouldn't they have been purple instead?

MORE:

10 of the most exciting hi-fi products we saw at High End Vienna 2026

Are JBL’s range-topping Summit speakers worth $160,000? I've had an exclusive listen to find out

I’ve had a first listen to Bowers & Wilkins’ new flagship 800 Series Diamond speakers – and now I’m desperate to hear more

Moon Audio has just announced the arrival of the 491 streaming preamplifier (£5950/$6500) and 461 power amplifier (£4450/$5000). These fit into the brand’s high-end Compass Collection, alongside the excellent one-box 371 streaming amplifier we reviewed earlier in March of this year.

Given what they are, it would be easy to think that the new pairing is just the 371 split into two boxes. While the products share plenty of technology and design characteristics, it is fair to say that the 491/461 combination is far more adventurous than the integrated could ever be.

It is true to say that both the 371 and 491 use the same streaming platform. This is the well-established Mind 2 module that we’ve seen in all of Moon’s more recent streaming products, and that’s no bad thing. Our experience with the Mind 2 has invariably been good; it has proven slick in operation and impressively stable.

The module’s feature count leaves no obvious holes with network streaming and features the Connect versions of Tidal, Spotify and Qobuz. AirPlay and Bluetooth are also included, and the Mind 2 is Roon Ready certified.

Things are equally positive on the 491’s preamp section with balanced XLR and single-ended RCA analogue inputs alongside a switchable MM/MC phono stage. This phono circuit is impressively flexible, offering a range of loading adjustments to allow owners to really fine-tune the performance of their cartridge.

There is a choice of two RCA outputs (one fixed and the other variable) alongside a balanced XLR option.

The 491 also has a great range of digital inputs, including USB-C (for use with storage), HDMI ARC (2.0b), AES/EBU, optical and coaxial. We can’t imagine many people getting caught short with those on offer.

You will find a pair of ESS 9039Q2M DAC chips (used in dual-mono mode) at the heart of the digital section, and it gives the 491 great hi-res file compatibility with up to 32-bit/384kHz PCM and DSD256 on offer, provided the input can handle it.

The analogue preamp circuitry is more ambitious than that fitted to the integrated 371 and allows the 491 to drive a wider range of external power amps with more conviction than its junior stablemate.

All the circuitry is fed by Moon’s clever hybrid power supply design that combines elements of traditional linear circuits with switched-mode to deliver a stable, low-noise DC power feed.

Two such power supplies are fitted to the 461 power amplifier and allow it to deliver 150 watts per channel into 8 ohms, doubling that when impedance halves. However, the power amplifier can also be switched to work as a standard monobloc or used bridged, where its output climbs to a mighty 450 watts. This opens up the 461 for use in some pretty ambitious systems.

I was lucky enough to have a short, private listening session with the 491/461 combination at the High End Vienna 2026 show, and the experience certainly left me wanting more. All the usual caveats apply here, of course. It's a show environment, so that is not ideal from a sound quality point of view, and the room is unfamiliar, making any definitive judgments difficult.

Even so, there is no denying that the Moon pairing driving a pair of Dynaudio Contour Legacy floorstanders delivers good results. We listen to three tracks: Muddy Water’s Country Boy, the smooth jazz of Chantal Chamberland’s Besame Mucho, and the harder-hitting electronica of Look by Leikeli47. It's a decent spread of music, even though it doesn’t cover all bases, and proves that the system has a broad spread of talents.

This listening experience brought back memories of the 371. The new combination has the smooth and refined character we’ve come to expect from Moon’s products, and, I suspect, greater powers of resolution than the integrated, though it is hard to be sure.

However, the 461’s extra power (the 371 is rated at 100 watts per channel) is obvious in the scale, authority and bass punch on offer. This system goes loud with ease, even in a generously sized listening space.

Lows are impressively taut and agile, but still display a pleasing degree of texture and subtlety, while the highs combine bite, insight and sweetness well. Voices come through with clarity, and rhythmic drive has a decent sense of momentum.

All in all, the Moon 491/461 combination makes a great first impression. We’re due to get the products in for review in the next few months, and we can’t wait to hear what they do in our test room's more familiar surroundings.

MORE:

Read our Moon 371 streaming amplifier review

Meet the man behind Audio-Technica’s new £9999 turntable cartridge

All the news and highlights from High End Vienna 2026

We're big fans of AudioQuest's DragonFly range of DACs / headphone amps, so a new model is cause for celebration. The DragonFly Copper claims to be AudioQuest's most powerful and efficient DAC yet, and builds on the Award-winning Red and Cobalt models.

We're promised "gradual refinements" through better parts and materials. But these refinements should add up to some sizeable gains – the new 32-bit ESS Sabre DAC / headphone amp promises twice the output power of any previous model, while the new Microchip Technology Microprocessor reduces the current draw by 25 per cent and improves supply-chain efficiency.

It also promises lower noise and distortion, and has a high-conductivity copper-plated case for improved RF-noise drainage.

The case is "informed and inspired by" the RF-draining barrels of AudioQuest's Mythical Creatures interconnects. We had a first look at the Copper at High End Vienna 2026, and as before, the USB-shaped DAC has a USB type A connection at one end, with a 3.5mm headphone/audio output at the other. A USB-C adapter is also included.

The tiny DAC offers a lot of what made its predecessors so well regarded, including compatibility with digital files from hi-res to the lowly MP3, the ability to work with iOS and Android devices and Apple and Windows computers, and the capability to drive headphones and feed preamps, amps and powered speakers.

We love the now-retired DragonFly Cobalt, noting in our review that it "does wonders in cleaning up our laptop’s performance, no matter what kind of file we feed it... It is such an incredibly precise rendering that we almost feel duty-bound to play our highest-resolution recordings through it."

The AudioQuest DragonFly Copper goes on sale in September for £230 / $250 (around AU$430). We'll bring you a full review as soon as we can.

MORE:

Read our AudioQuest DragonFly Cobalt review

And our AudioQuest DragonFly Red review

The best DACs to improve your sound

Progress really is amazing. Just two years after we awarded five stars to the iFi Go Link Max DAC, iFi has launched a sequel that is smaller and lighter than its predecessor, and with lower distortion to boot.

The iFi Go Link 2 Max is again a highly pocketable portable DAC for listening on the go. But this model can receive over-the-air updates via the iFi Nexis app, though these are available only to Android users at the moment.

The app also has two digital filters – hybrid and linear – so you can tweak the sound profile to your exact taste.

Like its predecessor, the Go Link 2 Max acts as the middle man between your music source and your wired headphones. Plug it into each, and it will boost the sound quality, with THD compensation reducing distortion by over 50 per cent compared with the five-star Go Link Max.

It has the same maximum power output of 241mW as its predecessor, while its balanced architecture claims “improved dynamics, lower noise and greater sonic control”.

Inside are two ESS Sabre DAC chips, one for each audio channel. This allows for superior definition and instrument separation, while Dynamic Range Enhancement (DRE) provides +6dB additional range between the loudest and quietest parts in your music, making both more engaging.

It also includes iFi’s S-Balanced tech. This applies balanced circuitry principles to the 3.5mm headphone output, reducing by half the crosstalk between headphone channels.

Quad DAC+ and Time Domain Jitter Eliminator technologies combine with iFi’s dedicated GMT clock circuitry to provide low distortion, and better clarity and musical timing.

The silver copper cable has polymer insulation and a “twisted pair” design, which reduces inductance and capacitance while helping to quash unwanted noise. And because it has volume controls on the hardware itself, it doesn’t decrease the amount of data sent to the DACs, and hence retains the musical details.

All this, and it manages to be 3g lighter and slightly smaller than its predecessor. It looks very good indeed, and given the resurgence in popularity of wired headphones at the moment, we’re probably not the only ones eager to take it for a spin.

The iFi Go Link 2 Max costs £85 / $85 (around AU$160) and is currently listed as sold out on iFi’s website, so expect it to go on sale very soon.

MORE:

Read our iFi Go Link Max review

Also consider the AudioQuest DragonFly Red

Best DACs: USB, desktop and portable digital-to-analogue converters

Streaming amplifiers make a lot of sense – they are solutions for people who want convenience but don’t want to sacrifice audio quality.

Historically, Cambridge Audio’s Evo line has provided just that – and it now has a new addition in the shape of the range-topping Evo 300.

We headed into Cambridge Audio’s demonstration room at High End Vienna 2026 to see and hear it in action.

Price

The Evo 300 costs £3499/€3999/$3999 which places it slightly above our current favourite around that price, the Award-winning Arcam SA35. The Arcam costs £2999 / $3300 / AU$6495 and launched back in May 2024.

To give you some extra context, the Cambridge Audio Evo 75 and Evo 150 launched in 2021 for £1799 / $2250 / AU$3299 and £2249 / $3000 / AU$4299, respectively, while the Evo 150 SE arrived in 2025 with a price tag of £1999 / $3299 / AU$5795.

Design and build

If you’re familiar with any of the previous Evo models, you’ll know what to expect from the Evo 300. And the fact that it takes after its siblings is a good thing.

Like the rest of the Evo family that has come before, the new model is a good-looking piece of kit with styling that should look at home in a wide range of listening environments.

It has a premium-looking and feeling black aluminium cabinet which boasts Evo’s party piece – interchangeable side panels. You get two options: a real wood veneer or a black slatted option, should you want a traditional or more modern aesthetic.

On the front of the amp is a 7.8-inch display – the largest Cambridge Audio has used to date. And it seems just as crisp and punchy as the screens we have seen on older Evo products.

Album artwork looks good, and it’s also easy to read, whether you’re looking at track information, changing volume or switching inputs. This is good to see – it isn’t always a given on products of this type.

As with previous Evos, a small strip of buttons runs down the right side of the screen, and at the far right side of the fascia is the volume dial/control wheel combination.

You do get a slender remote control with the Evo 300, although you’re more likely to use Cambridge Audio’s intuitive StreamMagic app for the majority of your interactions.

Features

As the model name implies, the power output of the Evo is 300W per channel. This is provided by Hypex NCOREx power modules.

Under the aluminium chassis, you’ll find a dual-mono layout, a balanced pre-amplifier stage and an ESS Sabre ES9038Q2M DAC, which supports up to 32-bit/768kHz PCM and DSD512.

Streaming comes courtesy of Cambridge Audio’s excellent StreamMagic platform, which provides support for Spotify Connect, TIDAL Connect, Amazon Music, Deezer, Qobuz Connect, Roon Ready, UPnP and Internet Radio. The amp also supports Bluetooth 5.4 (including aptX HD), AirPlay 2 and is Roon Ready.

Around the back of the unit, there are two sets of speaker terminals, RCA and balanced XLR inputs, HDMI eARC connectivity, and a built-in moving-magnet phono stage for a compatible turntable.

You also get an adjustable subwoofer output and an optional high-pass filter for the main speakers.

Sound

All the hi-fi show listening caveats apply here in terms of room design, layout and impact of external noise. In a room full of keen journalists jostling for position, it’s tricky to get the complete picture of a product.

Still, we were treated to a few tracks on the Evo 300 – partnered with a pair of £8000 Dynaudio Contour Legacy floorstanders – to give us a flavour.

We kick things off with a blast of Inertia Creeps by Massive Attack, and there seems to be plenty of power behind the drum thwacks.

The overall delivery appears focused and precise with a good amount of insight. Edges of notes seem well-defined with a good amount of texture.

Switching to Foo Fighters’ Stranger Things Have Happened, and there seems to be good separation in the stereo image with space around both the guitar and Dave Grohl’s vocal.

It’s an open, expansive image, and the guitar strums sound nicely defined with a good amount of weight behind them.

As the intensity of the guitar play and the vocal pick up during the course of the track, the amplifier seems to follow suit.

Initial verdict

In terms of build, design and features, it certainly looks as though the Cambridge Audio Evo 300 ticks a lot of boxes.

And, although we aren’t too familiar with the speakers used by Cambridge Audio in the demo, what we hear in our brief time with the streaming amplifier is more than enough to make us keen to get one into our test rooms for a closer listen.

The streaming amplifiers category is growing in size all the time, so it will be interesting to see if Cambridge Audio can set the benchmark for performance at the price.

MORE:

High End Vienna 2026: all the news and what to expect from Europe's biggest hi-fi show

I’ve had a first listen to Bowers & Wilkins’ new flagship 800 Series Diamond speakers – and now I’m desperate to hear more

Our pick of the best hi-fi systems for all budgets

Yosuke Koizumi is Audio-Technica’s Cartridge Global Product Manager. He started working at the company in 2002 and joined the cartridge development team after a year of training.

Around 8 years ago, Koizumi was promoted to manager status, giving him the responsibility for developing the brand’s cartridges and turntables.

We had the chance to sit down with Yosuke Koizumi at the High End Vienna show and find out more about the technology behind Audio-Technica’s new range-topping AT-MCD1 moving coil cartridge (£9999/$11,000).

What do you think differentiates Audio-Technica from its rivals?

I think our generator structures are very different from our rivals. When it comes to moving coil cartridges, we have two sets of coils arranged in a V shape, which we think gives better results. Also, when it comes to moving magnets, we have two magnets rather than the usual one.

How did the AT-MCD1 come about?

Around four years ago we launched our 60th anniversary model, the AT-MC2022. It was a limited run of just 60 pieces, and all of them sold out very quickly. After that, Audio-Technica continued to receive enquiries about that product and so we decided to make a successor.

The company didn’t just want to do the same thing again, so we spent almost two years developing the design further. The AT-MC2022’s one-piece diamond cantilever/stylus tip was improved with the stylus profile changing from Microlinear to a new Shibata shape.

Why use diamond for the cantilever material?

The cantilever material needs to be stiff and lightweight to be able to track the record groove properly. Aluminium is usually used, or maybe Boron in premium cartridges, but we think diamond is a better choice in performance terms.

Diamond’s speed of transmission is very fast (around the speed of sound) because of its rigidity, but its density means that you have to be careful when using it to avoid the cantilever becoming too heavy. One improvement we made on the AT-MCD1 is that we reduced the amount of material on the front edge of the cantilever to reduce weight

Diamond is a very hard material. The Shibata stylus tip is polished into shape rather than machined, which is a laborious process.

How important is the stylus tip profile?

We wanted to improve the sound over the AT-MC2022, so the idea came to change the stylus tip from Microlinear to a Shibata shape.

Our existing Shibata shape is very nice with good midrange and bass frequencies, and very good dynamics, but the stereo imaging isn‘t quite as spacious as we wanted. The new Shibata profile keeps all the good points of before, but has more expansive soundstaging and greater nuance in its presentation.

How does body material affect performance?

In the AT-MCD1, we mixed several materials: titanium, aluminium and an elastomer for its damping properties. Using only titanium gave us a compressed presentation, while aluminium on its own gave the sound a metallic edge when playing cymbals or high hats because of added resonances. The combination of these metals and the elastomer gives much more balanced results.

Wouldn’t it be better to get rid of the cartridge body altogether?

We think the cover is important because it prevents dirt and dust from getting into the generator system. Also, it provides a degree of damage protection for the diamond cantilever.

Is the AT-MCD1 demanding of the partnering phono stage?

Of course, a very high-class phono stage is recommended. But the cartridge has an output of around 0.55mV and a 12 ohm impedance, so it is relatively normal and not difficult for a phono stage.

Which area is there scope for the biggest improvements in cartridges?

One thing is the rubber damper. It is a part that we have done many things to improve, but there remains plenty of scope to make progress. It is a component that looks very simple, but it affects every part of a cartridge’s performance.

MORE:

Cambridge Audio introduces its “most powerful streaming amplifier yet”, complete with HDMI eARC and turntable-friendly phono stage

Dual takes its "legacy into the future" with a fully automatic direct-drive turntable that you can control with an app

All the news from High End Vienna

There have been quite a few candidates vying for the ‘most exciting pair of hi-fi speakers making their grand public debut’ award at this year’s High End Vienna showcase.

Bowers & Wilkins treating the world to the fifth iteration of its 800 Series Diamond range is no small thing, whereas Ruark’s resurrection of its Talisman-R floorstanders is similarly big news but at a significantly lower price point.

Then there’s JBL. The US giant has added twin peaks (sigh) to its five-strong Summit range, with the range-topping Everest and K2 loudspeakers joining the established Summit Makalu, Pumori, and five-star Ama models.

If you want to know what the K2 and Everest are all about, one word springs to mind: big. Both stretch the bounds of both physical size and required cost, with the mighty K2 costing a mere $100,000 and the colossal Everest pushing the needle at a whopping $160,000 per pair.

Big speakers at big prices from one of the biggest names in audio. You know where this is headed – we had to go and give them a listen.

We have already heard the baby of JBL’s Summit range, the effervescent and richly talented Summit Ama standmounts, so as the iPad is unleashed and the test tunes queued up, we’re quietly hoping for those enviable qualities of punch and dynamism to have translated all the way up to the snowy peak of JBL’s mountain-themed roster.

With Mark Levinson’s 626 preamplifier and 631 monoblock stereo amp in tow, it’s time to call in the sherpas and start our trek up that most famous of famous peaks.

As Pete Belsasco’s Deeper blasts out across our reasonably spacious demonstration room, it’s clear that much of the punch and power, not to mention the poise and balance of the five-star Ama, does seem to have translated to these rather more bank-busting pair of Summit range-toppers.

Harman’s engineers quite candidly confess that they would have liked a narrower space in which to work in order to stop sound from dissipating before it reached each side wall, so our usual disclaimer about less-than-ideal test conditions must once again apply here. Show us an ideal demonstration room at a hi-fi show and we’ll show you a talking unicorn.

Deeper is a smooth, jazzy number designed simply to get things started with something relatively undemanding; a move over to Fink’s Trouble’s What You Are In grants a better showcase of what well over $100,000 can get you.

These are big, bold speakers, yet we do sense an admirable feeling of intimacy and closeness to Fink’s acoustic performance as he croons away during a live recording of his aforementioned sampler. What impresses us as we listen more and more is how the Everest seem to switch gears, moving from small-scale sincerity to more dramatic and demanding fare without painting everything with the same broad brush.

JBL is keen to show the depths to which the Everest are capable of sinking, so we turn to the Sound of Silence performed courtesy of Geoff Castellucci’s deep, rumbling baritone.

Thanks in part to those whopping cabinets and JBL’s three-in-one ‘Phase Coherent Manifold’ – wherein a trio of compression drivers are aligned in a balanced symmetrical configuration and mounted to an HDI geometry horn – Castellucci’s ultra-deep pipes plunge to below the basement depths, yet we sense that the speakers’ control and articulation at these extreme low reaches is enough to keep everything sounding remarkably intact.

The Everest come across as powerful and weighty, too, as you might expect from loudspeakers of this size and price. Our demo team want us to “have some fun”, and so Adriatique and Delhia de France’s pulsating rave tune The Future is Unknown kicks things up a gear – bass drum thumps land with proper wallop, vocals feel precise and well spotlighted, while assorted musical decorations are rarely lost amidst the clamour.

Midrange tones don’t appear to be put in the shade by any overpowering bass, either. If anything, those all-important middle frequencies punch through with remarkable gusto, an enthusiasm which sometimes threatens to tip over into hardness or over-eagerness.

Take that minor reservation with a very large heap of salt, though – these are very large speakers playing very loudly in a modest, poorly conditioned space, and such quirks are almost inevitable. Our overall impression is of a pair of speakers that blend fun and muscularity with considerable nuance and restraint, resulting in a demo that, while short, appeals as much to the heart as it does to the head.

The Summit Everest are JBL’s range-toppers in terms of both price and, from the little that we have heard, performance. As we are told during our sampler, the brand’s engineers were told: “don’t worry about the cost, don’t worry about the components, just make them sound as good as you can.”

Such money-no-object speakers don’t come around often, and while we imagine it can be tempting for designers and engineers to throw their cash around without the same care and attention reserved for more modestly priced models, we rarely had a sense of the Everest sounding like a throwaway indulgence. Proper sound is what we expected and, from what we hear, proper sound is what they deliver.

Are they worth their Olympian price tag? We’d need a lot more testing time to find that out.

We wonder if JBL gives out free samples…

MORE:

High End Vienna 2026: all the news and what to expect from Europe’s biggest hi-fi show

I’ve had a first listen to Bowers & Wilkins’ new flagship 800 Series Diamond speakers – and now I’m desperate to hear more

“It’s about bringing people closer to the detail, depth and emotion that great audio can unlock.” An evening in KEF’s Ultimate Experience Room

All focus might be on the imminent World Cup right now, but there’s another rather special event just around the corner.

Father’s Day is on Sunday 21st June, so before life is consumed by World Cup fever, it might be an idea to get ahead on the gift buying.

Luckily, there are lots of great audio products available to choose from. Whether your Dad is a vinyl purist, a frequent commuter or hasn’t updated his hi-fi since 1998, you can skip the socks this year as our handpicked, five-star gear will guarantee a Father’s Day win.

We have tried and tested all the products below ourselves, so we can guarantee that even if you know nothing about home audio, they will make for a very happy father on the 21st June.

The Sony WH-1000XM6 won Product of the Year in the wireless headphones category at our most recent Awards ceremony, and are still our best overall pick of the best headphones. If Dad regularly spends his time on trains, planes or buses, then the excellent noise-cancelling, exceptional detail and comfortable fit make these a go-to option.

Rugged, IP68 water-resistant and sonically skilful, the JBL Flip 7 is the perfect companion for a dad who loves tinkering in the shed or hosting a backyard BBQ. The Flip 7 is so good that it received a What Hi-Fi? Award and is our portable pick of the best Bluetooth speakers.

Fine-sounding and fuss-free, the Audio Technica AT-LP5x is a great choice for the dad who has crates of dusty records in his loft and wants an easy setup. It can also rip records to digital files thanks to a USB output.

If your Dad is still listening to the tinny built-in speakers of his TV, a Sonos soundbar will be revelatory. The Sonos Beam (Gen 2) offers panoramic Dolby Atmos from a compact chassis, making World Cup matches or late-night action flicks incredibly immersive.

If Dad listens to music or plays games at his desk, then the Ruark MR1 Mk3 desktop speakers are a great fit. They deliver a powerful, punchy and dynamic sound that will put most standard computer speakers to shame.

For the dad who takes his listening seriously but is always on the move, the iFi Go Link Max portable DAC will transform his listening experience at an affordable price. It may be small, but your dad will notice extra helpings of detail, dynamic contrast and punch.

If your dad has a classic analogue hi-fi system but wants to bring it into the streaming age, the WiiM Pro Plus will add Spotify Connect, Tidal, Qobuz and AirPlay 2 compatibility and much more; and rather well, we might add, given that we gave the Pro Plus five stars and it is our budget pick of the best music streamers.

You don’t need to break the bank for premium sound. If your dad has yet to make the jump to Bluetooth or requires a replacement, the Sony WF-C510 offer great sound with minimal fuss.

Or if your dad is an audio enthusiast, then the Award-winning Beyerdynamic DT 990 Pro X are some of the finest and most comfortable wired headphones we have heard at this price. Whether for work or pleasure, they come highly recommended.

MORE:

Our pick of the best wireless headphones you can buy

And the best TVs for all budgets

Looking for a bargain? Here are the best budget soundbars

One of the drawbacks of physical media is that it degrades over time. Cassette tape stretches, CDs get scratched, and vinyl… well that’s possibly the most delicate format of all.

But now you can bring your old records back to life for a very small fee, thanks to this offer from Keith Monks. The renowned record-cleaning company is offering a free 100ml sample of its discOvery 33/45 cleaning fluid, complete with an application roller and instructions for use.

All you have to pay is the £5 postage.

This fluid usually costs £50 for a litre bottle.

Keith Monks, is a very well regarded name in the vinyl cleaning world. It created the world’s first professional record cleaning machine, and its products are used by The British Library and the US Library Of Congress.

Sadly it isn’t giving away one of its machines (which cost upwards of £2000), but a 100ml bottle of cleaning fluid from its discOvery range. The recipe dates from 1976, and contains only pure botanicals and renewable natural ingredients, along with laboratory-grade, triple-filtered demineralised water. There’s no alcohol, or artificial chemicals or additives.

It claims to remove “static, surface noise, grit, grease, fume residue, and residues left by other fluids”. It coats the vinyl in a thin, protective layer to prolong the life of both the record and the stylus. The discOvery 33/45 being given away is for use on standard vinyl, with one litre cleaning up to 200 12-inch LPs.

As well as getting the 100ml bottle for a fiver, you’ll get 15 per cent off your next accessories order. You pay via PayPal to kmonksrcm@gmail.com. Keith Monks will post a bottle anywhere in the world for the same price.

So will it work? Now’s your chance to find out.

MORE:

Don’t dismiss the dirt – cleaning your records properly could revitalise your vinyl collection

How to clean vinyl records at home (and keep them clean in the first place)

Forget vinyl, reel-to-reel tapes are the last word in sound quality – and they’re making a comeback

The resurgence of physical media is starting to sound like old news. We’ve been reporting on the artists and trends behind rising vinyl sales for almost a decade, while 2024 was, according to Music Week, the first year in more than two decades to see overall physical sales register year-on-year growth.

In the same year, a survey by Key Production showed that a greater proportion of Gen Z was listening to music in physical formats than any other age group.

Since then, physical revivals have blossomed in the strangest of places. In 2025, for instance, cassette sales rose by 200 per cent and companies such as We Are Rewind and Gadhouse released brand-new cassette players, infusing old tech with modern twists such as Bluetooth and USB-C charging.

US vinyl sales also hit $1 billion in 2025, according to the Recording Industry Association of America, with a significant proportion of sales coming from Gen Z customers.

An Audio Tech Lifestyles report from Futuresource Consulting even reported that nearly 60 per cent of Gen Z were buying vinyl – even though almost 30 per cent of respondents didn’t own a turntable.

Connor Winyard, a 28-year-old sales assistant at Sister Ray Records, London, says the store’s customer base is “a half-and-half split between Gen Z and people of older generations”.

Speculating on what motivates Gen Z to buy physical formats, Winyard says, “I’d like to think it’s because people are increasingly disassociating from subscription models and are tired of not being able to physically own anything. That’s definitely how I feel about it. But I think younger buyers mainly either want to put CDs in their cars or just think that they are cool items to own.”

Ashli Todd, owner of Spillers Records in Cardiff, believes Gen Z’s motivations for buying vinyl have more to do with impact on artists.

“I think the message about physical music being a far more beneficial way to support an artist is really getting through,” she says. “The rough deal that artists get from streaming services has been much discussed in the press, and rightly so. It’s very much a heart-on-the-sleeve sort of situation. You come across people who are collecting records before they’ve had a chance to buy a record player.”

As a Zoomer myself, I can attest to my generation’s growing appetite for physical media. In the flats of countless friends, modest record collections have been cobbled together from parental hand-me-downs and record-store trips. In my own house-share, a communal collection has steadily grown to fairly respectable numbers.

So if Gen Z is leading the rise of physical sales, what impact is that having on the charts?

Take a look at this week’s vinyl albums chart: at number one sits 26-year-old Maisie Peters, shortly followed by Yungblud, at the ripe old age of 28. This week’s top ten also includes The Roystone Club (who are all in their mid-20s and, notably, made their 2025 debut album available on cassette), Bleachers, Olivia Dean, Hayley Williams and Marmozets.

The closest we come to a legacy offering is Ed O’Brien’s new album Blue Morpho at number four, and Paddington – The Musical’s cast recording, which, frankly, I’m unsure how to categorise.

Compare this with the same period’s chart from 2024, and the differences are stark. The top ten at that time saw Paul Weller, David Bowie, Fleetwood Mac and Lenny Kravitz all holding dominant positions.

Looking to the best-selling vinyl albums list for 2026, the trend is only reinforced. So far this year, Harry Styles and Olivia Dean have occupied the top two, while Sabrina Carpenter, Charli XCX, and Geese have all made it into the top ten.

Admittedly, Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours and Arctic Monkeys’ AM have survived the changing tides in sales, but those are the only two top-ten albums more than a year old. They are also nostalgic favourites among Gen Z.

In contrast, 2024’s best-selling vinyl albums chart saw the likes of Oasis, Fleetwood Mac, the Cure and Coldplay in its top ten – a far higher proportion of older acts.

These shifts have a real effect on the ground. At Spillers Records, for instance, Gen Z’s tastes have started to inform stock choices. “Record Store Day has helped to give us confidence in stocking artists like Olivia Dean, Taylor Swift and Billie Eilish,” says Todd. She explains that Dean’s Live at the BBC 7-inch Record Store Day release was “huge” for the store.

“We’ve seen repeat custom from people who might not otherwise have thought about going to their local independent record shop,” says Todd. “Those artists being involved with Record Store Day gives us confidence in what we stock and also gives certain customers confidence in coming into their local indie, which probably isn’t what they’re used to.”

We can’t be sure if the records Gen Z buy are making it onto turntables, but it seems that the generation’s taste for physical media is nonetheless having a palpable impact on the way music sells.

Whether these vinyl discs end up bluetacked to bedroom walls, or played until their grooves wear down, increased physical sales means greater payouts to artists and retailers alike – byproducts that are pretty hard to sniff at.

Could it be that after an adolescence invaded by screens and ever more pervasive social media, Gen Z is returning to record stores in order to sate a craving for a real-world, tactile connection? In doing so, they might be keeping music alive.

MORE

Ask The Reader: these are the UK's best independent record shops, as chosen by you

Hi-res streaming hits record stores as Rough Trade and Qobuz announce global partnership

Best CD players 2026: budget to premium options tested by expert reviewers

Vacuum tube amplifiers have long been central to McIntosh's approach to high-end audio, but it hasn't launched an integrated model in over a decade. Until now – meet the MA2375, a vacuum tube integrated amp fit for the modern day.

It combines a fully analogue vacuum tube preamplifier and power amplifier in a single component, and offers 75 watts per channel. Along with McIntosh Unity Coupled Circuit Output Transformers, it's capable of providing consistent performance across a range of 4-, 8- or 16-ohm speakers.

You know it's a McIntosh just from looking at it, thanks to the polished stainless steel chassis, visible tube illumination and of course those signature blue watt meters. (The fact it bears a striking McIntosh logo in the company's green also helps.)

The built-in Power Guard Screen Grid Sensor (SGS) tech and Sentry Monitor fuse-less protection should ensure it runs for years to come. And its range of analogue and digital ports (including a configurable phono input, subwoofer and preamplifier outputs, Data Ports and an RS232 control port) means it'll play nice with both traditional and modern setups alike.

The MA2375 also has a 5-band analogue equaliser, four KT88 output tubes and four 12AT7 driver tubes, and two 12AX7A and two 12AT7 preamp tubes. The speaker binding posts are gold-plated Solid Cinch, while the Headphone Crossfeed Director (HXD) helps it drive more demanding headphones.

The MA2375 is out now, and costs £16,900 (around $23,000 / AU$32,000).

MORE:

Bose took over McIntosh a couple of years ago

Here's why that's a good thing

McIntosh's House of Sound NYC townhouse is the AV pad of our dreams

Bowers & Wilkins has just announced its all-new flagship 800 Series Diamond speaker range to celebrate 60 years of the iconic British brand.

The fifth generation of the established 800 Series of loudspeakers once again incorporates B&W's iconic Diamond Dome tweeter, and features seven new models, including the two-way 805 D5 standmounter and a trio of three-way floorstanding models: the the 804 D5, 803 D5, and 802 D5.

And the good news is, we've already heard them. We're on the ground at High End Vienna 2026 so we took B&W up on the offer of some listening time with the range-topping 801 D5 (£43,000 / $65,000 / €50,000).

We'll get a chance to have an even more in-depth listen in due course, but a pair of flagship Bowers & Wilkins speakers don't tend to come around too often, so we were eager to take this first opportunity.

First, the usual caveats. It wasn't the longest demo we'll ever be given – around 45 minutes – and demo rooms at hi-fi shows are rarely conducive to giving the best sound possible, especially when you're competing with below par acoustics and the sound of a few thousand hi-fi enthusiasts trying to get their bearings.

With all that said and done – the signs are positive.

It's taken around five years for B&W to bake its latest speakers in the proverbial oven, but as we get our demo underway, the promise of enhanced resolution and forensic levels of detail look set to be proved true.

B&W has promised a more "even-handed" and "generous" character without any loss of resolution from the 801 D5, and when coupled with a system which includes Mark Levinson's 626 preamp and 632 power amp, plus a high-end Innuos Nazaré music streamer, our demo speakers are ready to show some of their clear capabilities.

Odetta's Hit or Miss is our aperitif, with cascading opening drums sounding three-dimensional and authentic before that soulful central performance is given ample room in the spotlight.

We're sitting slightly off-centre, so it's hard to judge just how well the 801 D5 speakers assemble each musical element, but the impression we get is of speakers with a knack for putting music together in a neat, precise and cinematic manner.

We're also promised solid, integrated bass, something that B&W showcases with Eric Clapton's After Midnight and Thom Yorke's Black Swan.

There's ample power and authority to the lower end reproduction across both tracks, with strong evidence of a bass that, in B&W's words, blends "scale and integrity".

We're certainly keen to let the B&W 801 D5 loose in a larger, more conditioned room where the speakers have greater space to blossom and breathe, but regardless, there are strong hints at serious talent here.

Antigravity by Sohn finishes off our session, letting the B&W towers further showcase their dynamic abilities.

Flagship floorstanding speakers such as these should be able to tackle small scale shifts alongside those big dynamic swings, a balance the 801 D5 seem to manage as various instruments scatter and tumble all around.

We'll reserve any concrete judgements until we've had far more time to really dig into the 801 D5 and discover the bounds of their talents.

Initial signs point to a powerful, vivid and impressively detailed pair of flagship floorstanders, even if it's hard to escape the limitations of the listening space working against them.

Once we have a chance to get the speakers into a space where they can really shine, we'll be in a better position to see whether B&W has added a genuine classic to its long-running Diamond line-up.

MORE:

High End Vienna 2026: all the news and what to expect from Europe's biggest hi-fi show

The 6 finest test tracks and albums to soundtrack the start of summer

We're at High End Vienna 2026 and while there's been plenty of new products announced (including the Bowers & Wilkins 800 Series Diamond D5, Cambridge Audio Evo 300 and Arcam A50 Signature), we've also seen previews of new products that are on the horizon.

One of those is the upcoming Dual CS 629Q, which is due in mid-2027, and we've seen a prototype of the new model on display at the show.

The CS 629Q is a fully automatic turntable, and boasts a newly developed direct-drive motor with that is specifically designed for integration with Dual's automatic mechanism.

The brand says the new drive has been engineered for "exceptional smoothness and precise speed stability" with the record player offering "effortless operation."

As with the CS 529 BT (launched in 2024), the automatic controls include start and stop, repeat and electronic speed selection (33/45/75 RPM), with the new model now gaining a pause feature.

It also comes with Bluetooth streaming and an app that allows you to control the automatic turntable from the comfort of your sofa. Handy.

Dual's first fully automatic direct drive turntable was the CS 701 from 1973, while the CS 650 RC (from 1979/80) came with a remote control. The new premium CS 629Q combines the brand's historical core ideas and updates it for the present day, with Dual aiming to blend audiophile sound quality with intuitive, contemporary operation.

The Dual CS 629Q is expected to launch worldwide next year, with an expected price of €1800.

MORE:

Clearaudio unveils five (!) new turntables, including a new range and a Beatles tribute deck

An iconic 80-year-old hi-fi speaker just got a spectacular limited-edition upgrade

High End Vienna 2026: all the news from Europe's biggest hi-fi show

It has been five years since Cambridge Audio introduced its Evo range of all-in-one streaming amplifiers, the Evo 75 and Evo 150.

Then, in June 2025, it announced the updated Evo 150 SE, which introduced a higher-quality ESS SABRE ES9018k2m DAC and Hypex NCOREx amplifier module, improvements to the signal path and a refined output stage.

Now, at High End Vienna, Cambridge Audio has upped the ante with a new, more powerful model, the Evo 300 (£3499/€3999/$3999).

As you can probably guess from the model name, the new streaming amplifier boasts 300W of Hypex NCOREx Class D power per channel.

And decoding comes courtesy of a new ESS Sabre ES9038Q2M DAC, which supports up to 32-bit/768kHz PCM and DSD512.

Streaming comes via Cambridge Audio’s excellent StreamMagic platform, which provides support for Spotify Connect, TIDAL Connect, Amazon Music, Deezer, Qobuz Connect, Roon Ready, UPnP and Internet Radio. The amp also supports AirPlay 2 and is Roon Ready.

The Evo 300 also includes RCA and balanced XLR inputs, HDMI eARC connectivity, Bluetooth 5.4 (including aptX HD) and a built-in moving-magnet phono stage for a compatible turntable.

You also get an adjustable subwoofer output and an optional high pass filter for the main speakers.

On the front of the unit is a 7.8-inch colour screen, which allows you to switch between views that show VU meters, a clock or album artwork. Evo 300 also features interchangeable side panels, should you want to tweak its appearance.

Under the aluminium chassis, you’ll find a dual-mono layout, a balanced pre-amplifier stage, switch-mode power supply and “high-precision analogue volume controls for each channel”.

We were huge fans of the Evo 75 and Evo 150, both of which received five stars from our test team, with the Evo 150 SE picking up a solid four-star rating. We can’t wait to see how the Evo 300 performs.

Also at High End Vienna, Cambridge Audio has unveiled a special “Midnight” black version of its Evo One all-in-one system. It features the same electronics and 14-driver array, but the new finish offers an aesthetic alternative to the real walnut veneer of the original. Pricing remains the same at £1299/€1499/$1799.

MORE:

High End Vienna 2026: all the news and product highlights from Europe’s biggest hi-fi show

Read our Cambridge Audio 150 review

And our Cambridge Audio Evo 150 SE review

Our pick of the best hi-fi systems for every budget

If you want to upgrade your record player, and you have a spare £12,999 (around $17,000 / AU$24,000) knocking about, this new high-end Ortofon cartridge could be for you.

The MC Vertex is the "most advanced moving coil cartridge" that Ortofon has ever made. Its new materials and tweaked geometry promise to give more accurate groove tracing and signal generation. Don't worry, there's a more affordable option for us mere mortals, too, with both models being unveiled at the High End Vienna 2026 show.

At the heart of the MC Vertex is the new Vertex diamond, whose scanning radius of 4 μm and extended contact radius of 110 μm makes for a more even pressure distribution along the walls of a record's groove. This means more stable tracking, lower wear and more consistent detail extraction.

The cantilever that the diamond is mounted on is also made of solid diamond. Because it's extremely rigid with a low mass, it will transfer energy efficiently and so remain controlled.

And the cartridge housing and internal core? Sadly they're not diamond – that would be asking a bit much – but titanium, and were produced using Selective Laser Melting for greater control of geometry, mass distribution and internal damping. All of which should make for a structure that's mechanically stable, and that reduces unwanted resonances for a clean, accurate signal reproduction.

There's also a refined magnetic system with a non-magnetic armature that reduces moving mass and eliminates unwanted magnetic interaction. This combines with high-purity silver coils to ensure the signal generation remains stable and linear with an improved transient response and precise tracking across the frequency range.

Ortofon's own Wide Range Damping system is onboard to help control mechanical behaviour. This uses a platinum disc between two dampers made from proprietary Ortofon rubber compounds to manage resonance across the audible frequency range but without compromising the dynamic response.

And if the MC Vertex is a little dear for you, Ortofon has also announced a follow-up to the MC X40, which is much more affordable.

The MC X50 (above) costs €1499 (around £1300 / $1700 / AU$2400), and claims to be the MC X Series' "most advanced implementation". The stylus and cantilever have been refined from the MC X40, to provide more control and consistency in tracking a record's grooves.

The nude Micro Ridge diamond pairs with a boron cantilever for high stiffness and a low moving mass, resulting in a fast and controlled response time. The rubber suspension is made by Ortofon with a compound that was developed purely for the MC X50, and works with the diamond stylus and boron cantilever for stable tracking and consistent contact with the groove.

Ortofon's more affordable cartridges have reviewed very well – the MC X30 won an Award last year, as did the Ortofon Quintet Blue in 2023. So it'll be fascinating to see how its mega high-end MC Vertex performs, and if the MC X50 can maintain the brand's high standards at the mid-range level.

MORE:

The best cartridges for your turntable

All the latest news from High End Vienna 2026

How to set up a record player to get the best sound

Avoid! 5 mistakes to avoid when setting up a turntable

We are big fans of Ruark Audio's R610 streaming amplifier. Indeed, its vintage-inspired design and smooth, dynamic sound nabbed it a 2025 What Hi-Fi? Award win.

Ruark has now launched a bigger brother, the R710. It builds upon the excellent R610 (£1199 / $1599 / AU$2299) by adding more power and, due to popular demand, an integrated CD player.

Seeing that CDs are having a revival, the team at Ruark (who are “lifelong vinyl and CD fans”) have incorporated a CD drive into the R710 music system, with the slot-loading mechanism cleverly hidden amongst the wooden slats adorning the front of the unit. Ruark calls CDs “the last tangible music format” and believes that CDs can offer “superior sound over streaming”.

That doesn’t mean Ruark has completely ignored the most dominant way we listen to music these days; there are ample network-streaming features included in the R710. Popular music streaming services such as Tidal Connect, Qobuz Connect, Spotify Connect are available alongside AirPlay, Google Cast, Bluetooth aptX HD, and internet radio.

You can also stream hi-res audio files from a connected NAS drive or via USB, with up to 32-bit/192kHz PCM file resolution supported.

As with the R610, the R710 features Class D amplification, but the power output has been beefed up considerably, to 200W per channel. In comparison, the R610 features 75W per channel. The more powerful R710 unit features a custom switch-mode power supply, and Ruark has also taken care with the layout of the internal circuit, from using audio-grade components to keeping signal paths short and direct.

The R710 is also bigger than the R610’s compact footprint, and features a larger 6.8-inch full-colour display screen to show off album artwork, track info and input selection.

Around the back, you’ll find a good complement of digital and analogue connections, including RCA line level, optical, USB-C, and an HDMI eARC input to use it with a TV. Continuing the love for physical media, there is a built-in moving-magnet phono stage so you can directly connect a turntable.

Effectively, you can play music from pretty much any source and in any popular format you have (bar DSD) through the R710.

The R710’s cabinet design remains visually consistent with the R610 and the rest of the 100 Series, and features the brand’s iconic and tactile RotoDial controller embedded on top of the unit, with a matching Bluetooth remote.

The R710 aims to combine “analogue charm with digital convenience”, with Ruark having designed the more powerful streaming amp for both serious listeners and “anyone who wants their home to sound extraordinary”. Its gorgeous lifestyle-friendly looks are a bonus, too.

The Ruark R710 will be available in fused walnut veneer or satin charcoal lacquer finishes, and is available to buy later in this year for £2199 / €2699.

MORE:

Read our Ruark Audio R610 review

Ruark resurrects Talisman-R floorstanders for "people who care about their home as much as their music"

All the latest news from the High End Vienna 2026 show

Tannoy teases exclusive limited-edition speakers to mark its 100th anniversary

Audio-Technica has launched a new flagship moving coil cartridge at the High End Vienna 2026 show, and at £9999 / €11,000, it's also one of the most expensive cartridges we've encountered from the Japanese manufacturer.

The AT-MCD1 cartridge is designed to deliver "an exceptional level of precision and realism" and builds on over 60 years of Japanese audio engineering and craftsmanship. It takes design points from the limited edition AT-MC2022 cartridge made for the 60th anniversary, and refines it further for greater detail, speed and smoothness.

Key to the AT-MCD1 cartridge's design is the integrated, one-piece diamond cantilever and stylus tip, an unusual construction which allows for "ultra-precise signal transmission."

The 0.2mm square diamond cantilever claims to deliver precisely focused vocals, controlled low frequencies and refined highs, as well as "fast attack and decay with outstanding clarity." We're also promised more realistic and fatigue-free listening thanks to unwanted high frequency resonances being reduced.

This lab-grown diamond is created through CVD (Chemical Vapor Deposition) to offer excellent uniformity and high reliability, making it an ideal material for use in a cantilever.

The AT-MCD1 is also the first Audio-Technica cartridge to feature a newly-developed Shibata stylus, whose refined profile (R2.7 x r0.08 mil) allows the stylus to trace "even the most intricate groove modulations with more accuracy".

Combined with the "highly responsive" diamond cantilever, the AT-MCD1 is able to relay subtle details of a recording, delivering a "lifelike listening experience."

The cartridge body structure is light and rigid, and combines titanium, aluminium and elastomer materials, which help to control resonances. Each housing is mirror-polished by hand, and then receives an ion-plated finish that adds durability as well as the black finish of the MC cartridge.

Additional features include a dual moving-coil generator that offers high separation and a wide frequency response, while a high-efficiency magnetic circuit offers higher output voltage.

The cartridge also has PCCOCC (high-purity, long-crystal copper) coils, gold-plated terminal pins, and threaded mounting holes to make it easier to install on tonearms and compatible headshells.

Each AT-MCD1 cartridge is individually engraved with a serial number and comes packaged in a solid cherry wood case, which certainly feels necessary for the asking price of £9999 / €11,000. Imagine the high-end turntable it will be mounted on...

MORE:

Read our Audio-Technica AT-LPA2 review

All the latest news from High End Vienna 2026

Dali's premium all-in-one system promises hi-fi-level performance in any place, and in any position

What’s better than one brand new turntable? Five, of course.

Clearaudio has announced an entire quintet of record players at this year's High End Vienna showcase, including an entirely new product range and a few special-edition spins on some of the brand’s established decks.

That entirely new range comes in the shape of the Elevation Series, designed to cater to users seeking “exceptional sonic performance” alongside outstanding consumer-focused usability. The new series currently consists of the Elevation 45 and Elevation 55, with each model equipped with an interchangeable outer frame. This allows, says Clearaudio, for each player “to evolve with the owner’s home and tastes” over time.

Both belt-driven players feature a flywheel-augmented drive system “for exceptional rotational stability” alongside continuous optical speed-monitoring via Clearaudio’s ‘Natural Flow’ control algorithm.

Both are compatible with both 9-inch and 10-inch tonearms, and while the Elevation 45 uses a 45mm platter built for “speed and detail retrieval”, the Elevation 55 uses a heavier 55mm platter designed to produce “maximum dynamic authority”. Users can also upgrade platter sizes, in keeping with Clearaudio’s aim of an accessible, more customisable line-up.

What about those special editions? Clearaudio has also unveiled the Innovation Revolver Special Edition to celebrate the 60th anniversary of one of The Beatles’ most iconic works, with the new model adding a monochrome spin on the brand’s established high-end Innovation turntable.

That monochrome design pays tribute to the iconic black and white cover of The Beatles’ acclaimed seventh studio album, with a new plinth design sandwiching aluminium with a precision-engineered composite stone, the latter of which was chosen “for its resonance control and playback stability”.

The Innovation Revolver Special Edition comes equipped with Clearaudio’s own ‘Tracer’ tonearm and Concept moving-coil Signature cartridge, and you even get a newly mixed special-edition pressing of Revolver with restored artwork thrown in to the bundle.

If you’re more into heavy metal – quite literally – maybe you would prefer a Rammstein-themed turntable instead. Developed from the outset as a fully independent model and combining the engineering of Clearaudio’s Concept record player with a design forged in collaboration with the German metal legends, the rock ’n’ roll spinner uses dimmable LED lighting and an illuminated Rammstein logo to pay tribute to the group’s “monumental stage aesthetic”.

On the more technical side, the new turntable uses Clearaudio’s established T1 turntable and a moving-magnet cartridge for “dynamic, detailed playback”.

Keep going, we’re not done quite yet. As if that wasn’t enough, there is also a gaming edition of the Clearaudio Compass joining the German brand’s swelling ranks.

Built around the standard Compass to which we awarded a healthy four-star review last year, the GT edition features a colourful pixel design and a dimmable LED strip beneath the acrylic platter, resulting in a design “that fits naturally into a gaming setup”.

According to Clearaudio’s CEO Robert Suchy: “Vinyl is reaching a bigger, more passionate audience than at any point in our lifetime, and this range is our answer to that moment. We have never had more to offer more music lovers, and I couldn’t be more excited to share it.”

All of Clearaudio’s latest turntables will be showcased at this year’s High End Vienna show. Prices and availability are as follows:

- Elevation 45: £5000 / €5000 / $6500. Available late 2026.
- Elevation 55: £7000 / €7000 / $9100. Available late 2026.
- Innovation Revolver Special Edition: £10,500 / €11,900 / $17,900. Available summer 2026.
- Rammstein Turntable: £1990 / €1990 / $2600. Available October 2026.
- GT Compass Gaming Turntable: £1499 / €1499 / $1949. Available summer 2026.

MORE:

High End Vienna 2026: all the news and what to expect from Europe’s biggest hi-fi show

Now Playing: cool yourself off with the six finest test tracks and albums to soundtrack the start of summer

The best World Cup songs to test your system

British brand Arcam is celebrating 50 years in the business with the launch of two brand new hi-fi products. The A50 Signature integrated amplifier and the CD25 CD player will both be making their big debut at this year’s High End Vienna showcase.

The new A50 Signature amp sits at the top of Arcam’s established Radia Series of amplifiers. It’s a range that currently includes the Award-winning A5+ and A15+ models, and is billed as the company’s “most complete expression of its Class G platform”.

The CD25, meanwhile, slots into the Radia line-up as a new reference CD player above the Award-winning CD5.

The A50 is the first Arcam integrated amp to use a fully dual-mono Class G architecture, with each channel built as a completely discrete amplifier section. Each side houses its own output stage and power regulation, designed to maximise channel separation and minimise crosstalk for a purer audio signature.

The new amplifier produces 300 watts at 8 ohms, and aims to deliver outstanding control and plentiful headroom across a range of loudspeakers. Digital conversion is handled courtesy of an ESS ES9039Q2M DAC supported by an ESS reference voltage regulator.

Digital inputs include HDMI eARC, USB-C, optical and coaxial, while analogue connectivity includes three RCA inputs, a balanced XLR input pair and a fully integrated Class A moving magnet / moving coil phono stage. For wireless connectivity, two-way Bluetooth with Auracast is also on board.

If you’re seeking a source to go with your new Class G amplifier, the new CD25 could be just the thing. The new model adopts a dual-mono DAC architecture, and is the first CD player in Arcam’s range to to implement ‘ESS Hyperstream 4 DAC’ technology for reducing jitter and minimising timing errors.

The new CD player uses a linear toroidal power supply for a “stable, low-noise operation and consistent analogue performance”, while a vibration-damped internal structure promises more accurate reading for your shiny discs.

Further, balanced XLR and RCA outputs are both on hand for connecting to your amplifier.

Externally, the CD25 follows the familiar design-language found across the established Radia range. It sports a glass front-panel with an OLED display, all housed in a black metal chassis.

The Arcam Radia A50 Signature and CD25 will be available in the third quarter of 2026. Check them out early at High End Vienna 2026 to whet your appetite. The A50 Signature is priced at £2499 / $3000 / €2799 while the CD25 will set you back £1499 / $1800 / €1599.

MORE:

High End Vienna 2026: all the news and what to expect from Europe’s biggest hi-fi show

10 of the best Nick Cave songs to test your hi-fi system

These are the best stereo amplifiers on the market

Chord Electronics will be previewing two new power amplifiers at the High End Vienna 2026 show this week.

First up is the Ultima 7 power amplifier, which is a new addition to the hi-fi brand's flagship Ultima range. The Ultima 7 boasts 135W of power into 8 ohms and is designed to match the Ultima Pre 3 preamplifier in height, which is 13cm.

The new stereo power amplifier features Chord Electronics' advanced Dual Feed Forward technology that promises in "vanishingly low" distortion and "lightning-fast" transient response for excellent dynamics.

It features the same extrovert, space-age styling as the rest of the Ultima range, which includes the Ultima Integrated and the Ultima Pre 3/Ultima 6 pairing, both of which we reviewed to five-star success.

We found the Pre 3/Ultima 6 to pairing to be a "highly analytical beast" with outstanding clarity and insight sitting alongside dynamic finesse. For context, the beefier Ultima 6 power amp offers 180W per channel into 8 ohms and has a height of 18cm, and costs £7500 / $11,260 these days.

Also being unveiled is a brand-new Blade stereo power amplifier with an ultra-slim design built specifically for the custom install market. This model features Class G (Gallium Nitrate [GaN]) amplification and incorporates Chord's Dual Feed Forward technology to elicit high power from a slimline chassis that can be rack mounted.

That's all the details we have so far, and there's no word on pricing either. Final details will be revealed when the two products officially launch in September.

Both new amplifiers are designed by Chord Electronics founder John Franks and handmade in Kent, U.K., and we'll be able to get a first look at them during the High End Vienna show's opening day on 4th June.

Also at the show will be Chord's new Quartet upscaler, which costs £25,000 and promises to "rebuild the timing of a musical performance with a degree of faithfulness previously unattainable in the digital domain."

MORE:

Check out all the latest news and launches from High End Vienna 2026

Tannoy teases exclusive limited-edition speakers to mark its 100th anniversary

Moon expands its high-end Compass range with do-it-all music streamer and 450-watt power amp

Onkyo originally teased the Muse Y-50 Network Integrated Amplifier Anniversary Edition back in January at CES, but we didn’t know the full model name at the time (nor how much of a mouthful it would be) or the pricing.

The new unit is inspired by the Onkyo Integra M-588 amplifier from the early 1990s, which had real-wood walnut side panels and illuminated meters. The Y-50 gets Bordeaux walnut side panels and an aluminium front panel finished in champagne gold.

The special-edition Y-50 gets a 5.46-inch colour LCD display which can be used to show track information, access settings and also display analogue-style VU meters.

You can take control of the Y-50 through Onkyo’s Controller app, and it also comes with proprietary room-calibration software specifically developed for the Muse series.

Amplification is 250 watts of Class D power (into 4-ohms), and connectivity options include analogue RCA, coaxial digital, HDMI ARC, ethernet, wi-fi, and a moving-magnet/moving-coil compatible phono stage.

Streaming support extends to Spotify Connect, TIDAL Connect, Qobuz Connect, AirPlay 2, Google Cast, and Qplay.

Onkyo’s Creator GX-30ARC and GX-10DB Powered Monitor Anniversary Limited Edition speakers bring (as well as another mouthful) a new industrial design to two models which are already on the market.

We gave the GX-30ARC five stars when we tested them back in January, so you already know they are among the best desktop speakers around.

The revamped design for the anniversary edition includes tweaked proportions, dark silver trim rings, textured black baffles, a Bordeaux walnut finish, and black, angled stands. The new look has been inspired by Onkyo D-200 Liverpool monitors, which the company introduced back in 1987.

As with the standard versions, which launched at the start of 2026, these models still use Class D amplification and include features such as Bluetooth 5.3, a USB-C input, an optical digital input, a phono input and a subwoofer pre-out. The more expensive GX-30ARC also boast HDMI ARC connectivity.

Pricing will be $1699 for the Muse Y-50 Anniversary Edition, $399 for the GX-30ARC and $299 for the GX-10DB when they all go on sale in August.

MORE:

High End Vienna 2026: all the news and product highlights from Europe’s biggest hi-fi show

Read our full Onkyo GX-30ARC review

Our pick of the best music streamers

JBL is expanding its mountain-themed Summit range of high-end hi-fi speakers with two new models: the next-generation Everest and K2 loudspeakers.

The two new models join the Summit Makalu, Pumori, and the five-star Ama to round out the five-strong series, a line-up that, says, JBL, "represents the most technically accomplished loudspeakers" the brand has ever produced for domestic use.

As their name suggests, the new 3.5-way Everest are designed to be the peak of the Summit series, acting as the successor to four iterations of JBL's Project Everest loudspeakers. At the heart of each new speaker is a new mid-to-high frequency array consisting of three JBL 5cm dual-diaphragm drivers mated to a large 'Sonoglass' horn, as well as twin 25cm mid-bass drivers and dual 38cm differential drive woofers.

The K2, meanwhile, are billed as JBL's "most accomplished 15-inch 3-way floorstanding loudspeakers", with each housing three 4cm dual-diaphragm drivers, a 25cm differential drive mid-bass driver and a 38cm woofer, all aimed at providing outstanding dynamic precision and emotional immediacy.

The two new models share a host of JBL's most advanced speaker technologies, including 'MultiCap' crossover networks with minimised electrostatic resistance for improved power handling and lower distortion, as well as multi-braced, curved-wall cabinets designed to reduce internal standing waves within each speaker.

JBL's own 'IsoAcoustic' isolation feet seek to further preserve sonic purity and promote a tighter bass performance by decoupling each speaker from floor vibrations.

According to David Tovissi, Vice President of Harman Luxury Audio: “With Summit Everest and Summit K2, we are honouring four generations of legendary engineering while introducing technologies that move the state of the art forward. These are reference loudspeakers built for listeners who refuse to compromise and who recognise what it means to own the very best."

The new Summit Everest and Summit K2 are available in either gloss black and platinum or ebony wood and gold finishes. The Everest will set you back $160,000 per pair, whereas the K2 are a little more 'affordable' at a mere $100,000 per pair.

Both will be showcased at this year's High End Vienna showcase (4th to 7th of July), so if you've got tickets, it's worth digging out your crampons and seeking out JBL's latest mountainous marvels.

MORE:

Read our recent JBL Summit Ama review

When should you stop feeding your hi-fi addiction?

10 of the best Nick Cave songs to test your hi-fi system

iFi has unveiled the iDSD GR 2 portable DAC and headphone amplifier.

Acting as the spiritual successor to the brand's high-end xDSD Gryphon, the new model is, says its maker, "a portable powerhouse designed for audiophiles who wants uncompromising sound beyond the confines of the desktop".

The new iDSD GR 2 has been rebuilt from the ground up, with both internal and external developments making for a unique model. At the heart of the GR2 is a Burr-Brown PCM1795 DAC chip, designed to produce a "warm, analogue character" with "lower distortion and greater dynamic range".

That Burr-Brown DAC is supported by 'K2HD' technology, a harmonic restoration algorithm that aims to brings recordings closer to their original intention by "reintroducing subtle detail" and restoring musical depth and tone.

For physical connections side, the iDSD G2 offers digital SPDIF USB-C inputs, as well as 3.5mm and 4.4mm headphone ports. If you prefer wire-free, Bluetooth streaming with aptX Lossless and LDAC codec support allows for streaming of hi-res files up to 16-bit/44kHz.

The new DAC features a new hybrid power mode, so that when the unit is connected to an external supply, it prioritises mains power. If extra power is needed, the GR 2 will use the internal battery and then switch to the external supply when the demand drops.

The GR 2 uses the iFi Nexis app, through which you can access digital filters, fine tune your listening profile, select input and access over the air updates.

The iFi DSD GR 2 is available now, priced at £529 / $529 / €549. For context, the xDSD Gryphon launched at £599 / AU$699 (roughly $815) back in 2021.

MORE:

When should you stop feeding your hi-fi addiction?

I listened to iFi’s Rolls Royce-inspired music streamer – and it promises a luxury ride for your headphones and hi-fi

10 of the best Nick Cave songs to test your hi-fi system

High End Vienna 2026: all the news and what to expect from Europe's biggest hi-fi show

The amplifier is the beating heart of your hi-fi. But, while the turntable (or streamer, or CD player) will take the general plaudits, along with the loudspeakers, as far as ‘front of house’ appeal goes, the amplifier tends to take a back seat, while doing more than its fair share of the actual work.

Without a top amplifier, though, there is absolutely no point in spending big money on anything else in your system. And what we have in our £1000-£1300 amplifiers Group Test this month are four truly top amplifiers. And one serious winner. After which, we suggest a stunning hi-fi system using that winner as the starting point.

Also in this issue we test some standalone soundbars and coffee-table projectors that will do any home cinema proud.

Stereo amplifiers from £1000-£1300

Which amplifier you choose will greatly impact your overall system performance, so you want a best-in-class performer that also offers the physical connections your sources need.

And that, of course, is where we come in. We’ve been testing stereo amplifiers since 1976, and our in-house reviews team have experience with integrated amplifiers of all types and budgets.

Every amp we test is compared to the current class leader at its price point, in our dedicated listening rooms. This thoroughness and wide contextual knowledge allow us to judge the relative talents of each amplifier we test.

Here though, we’re pitting four of our current favourite integrated amplifiers against each other in a Group Test to help identify the amplifier we’d most recommend in this price range of £1000-£1300.

This is a competitive market, with excellent models from hi-fi hard-hitters to choose from: step up Rega, Cambridge Audio, Arcam and Quad.

Rest assured, all these integrateds will work well in a range of systems, and much of your decision will come down to personal preference. However, there can only be one winner here. Find out more in this month's What Hi-Fi?

Premium soundbars

Even the best-sounding TVs have plenty of room for improvement by home-cinema standards.

We don’t all, though, have the space, budget or patience for a full system comprising an AV receiver, a surround (or Atmos) speaker package and the cables required to wire everything up.

In truth, even the super-popular soundbar systems that typically combine a bar, a wireless subwoofer and two wireless surrounds are simply “too many boxes” for many people.

What’s the solution, then, for those who have forked out for a gorgeous, premium TV and want equally gorgeous sound without all of the boxes and/or cabling? The premium solo soundbar, that’s what. In fact, that’s exactly the problem the soundbar was originally designed to solve.

These days, a premium soundbar is a very sophisticated bit of kit that typically combines svelte styling with effective Dolby Atmos processing, plus music streaming, simple operation and the option to add additional speakers further down the line. Here, we’re pitching four such soundbars against one another, from LG, JBL, Sonos and Sony.

Which of these premium soundbars deserves the spot beneath your lovely TV? The Dolby Atmos battle commences, only in this month's mag!

Coffee table projectors

Today’s best ‘lifestyle’ projectors are designed to deliver huge-screen entertainment without requiring you to reorganise your entire home around them.

That makes them particularly appealing for big communal events. With the World Cup kicking off soon, there’s obvious appeal in bringing out a projector and plonking it on your coffee table for a giant match-day picture, before packing it away again afterwards.

The same applies to movie nights, gaming sessions, and TV binge-watch marathons: you get the scale and spectacle that only a projector can provide, but with far less of the inconvenience traditionally associated with it.

We have rounded up four coffee table projectors – with different prices, approaches and even different priorities – but all four prove that going big no longer means having to build a bat cave.

Find out more in July's What Hi-Fi?

First with reviews

As always, our First Tests section is where you'll find What Hi-Fi?'s considered verdicts on the very latest hi-fi and AV gear.

This month's reviews section leads with Cambridge Audio's very first pair of active speakers (yes, you'd think they'd have made a pair by now) – the Cambridge L/RS. Compact, desk-focused and available in some smart colours, they are certainly an enticing proposition. But will they achieve our coveted five stars? Find out in this month's What Hi-Fi?

Elsewhere we have reviews of the Hisense UR9 Mini LED TV, Sonos' latest portable speaker the Sonos Play, a new home cinema projector from Optoma, the UHZ78LV, and a new Sony speaker package, the Bravia Theatre Bar 7 + S.

But that's not all. Our expert reviews team also took their time with Samsung's HW-Q990H speaker package, the Merlin Tarantula speaker cable and the A7.2 floorstanding speakers from Spendor.

Find all these reviews in July's What Hi-Fi? – out now!

Temptations for your delectation

Our Temptations section of the magazine is where you'll find the highest of the high-end of hi-fi and AV products.

First up is a new pre/power amplifier from hi-fi kings, Naim, the NAC 552/NAP 500 DR. Together, this a stunning bit of kit, and we had no hesitation in awarding the pairing five stars, noting its "well-engineered, no-compromise design from decades ago that can still compete at the highest level".

Then we have a pair of mighty standmount speakers from JBL, the Summit Ama. With a lofty price to suit their mountain-themed moniker, they "generate a sense of solidity and authority that is rare among high-end standmounters in our experience", to quote our review.

Find out more in this month's What Hi-Fi?

Finally, don't forget to check out our Buyer’s Guide, featuring a definitive and freshly updated list of all the best home entertainment kit you can buy – including winners of 2025's What Hi-Fi? Awards. If you’re looking to purchase anything from a pair of the best wireless headphones to a home cinema speaker system, this section will tell you where to spend your money wisely.

Whatever you do, don't miss the July 2026 issue of What Hi-Fi?. Grab a copy today, or simply download it onto your tablet or smartphone. Enjoy!

You can subscribe or buy the latest issue here, or buy the digital edition on iPhone, iPad, Android devices or Kindle edition

The separates approach has held sway in the world of high-end hi-fi from the very beginning. That is perfectly understandable, given the idea that each component only has one job to do, and so can be optimised for that task. Such logic is undeniable. When you are charging huge sums of money for a premium product, every last degree of performance matters, after all.

But we’ve noticed a change in recent years. Manufacturers are getting better at integrating functionality without compromising the sound, particularly in the digital space. Esoteric’s new N-05XE streaming preamplifier is a prime example of that trend.

This beautifully made unit combines network streaming, digital-to-analogue conversion and a preamplifier in one neat, albeit chunky box. Any house-proud hi-fi enthusiast will appreciate the reduction in interconnects, mains cables and required rack space a product like this brings. Just add a power amp with passive speakers or, even better, a pair of actives, and you have a minimalist but well-featured system that (potentially) can still match the best at the price.

Design & features

The N-05XE seems like an ideal front-end for such a set-up. It is well equipped, sporting a streaming section that ticks almost all the boxes. This Esoteric will play any music file available on your home network, but has to be hardwired via an Ethernet cable or optical using an SFP port. wi-fi connectivity, while undeniably convenient, is not on the menu on stability and performance grounds.

We have no complaints about file compatibility. It is excellent. This Esoteric is happy to play high-res recordings up to 32-bit/768kHz PCM and DSD 22.5MHz. We can’t imagine anyone getting caught short with this player. Embedded streaming services include the Connect versions of Tidal, Qobuz and Spotify, and the N-05XE is certified as Roon Ready.

This streaming preamp’s digital section is a little out of the ordinary. Rather than use off-the-shelf DAC chips for the N-05XE’s digital module, the engineers decided on an in-house solution based around an FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array); a powerful processor programmed with the company’s own software instructions. This converter section is a multi-level Delta Sigma design based around discrete components to optimise performance.

Should the upgrade bug strike, which we suspect may take a while, it is possible to add an outboard 10MHz clock to the N-05XE. Esoteric’s own G-05 clock costs £5500 / $5800 / AU$9000, so it's a serious investment. We have heard such things make a notable improvement, so it is worth a listen.

For a streaming preamp to be successful, the analogue side of things has to be as capable as the digital. Esoteric’s engineers haven’t cut corners with the N-05XE’s analogue preamp section. It is a dual-mono, fully-balanced design with a sophisticated power supply arrangement that even goes as far as delivering a dedicated feed to the volume control circuit. Great care has been taken to ensure that the preamp performs consistently, whether driving a power amplifier, the line output or the headphone socket.

That headphone output is no afterthought. Esoteric has taken things seriously here, developing a new dual-mono parallel single-ended amplifier module. The aim was not only to improve the sound but also to ensure good drive characteristics across a broad spectrum of headphone types. There is a choice of a conventional 6.3mm socket or a 4-pin XLR output on the front panel. The headphone amplifier is rated at a healthy 1200mW per channel into a 32-ohm load, which should be enough in most cases.

The company has worked hard to ensure that the N-05XE can slot easily into a wide range of systems. There is a good choice of digital connections on the rear panel (USB Type B, coax x 2, optical x 2 and AES/EBU) alongside a USB Type A for playback of stored music. In addition, there is a USB Type C socket on the front to connect either a flash drive or a digital source such as a computer or personal music player.

Bluetooth 4.2 is included too. While it isn’t the best sounding connection option as far as sound quality goes, compatibility with higher-quality aptX and LDAC codecs means the results are still more than acceptable. We like that Esoteric has included this wireless functionality, as there are times when the convenience trumps the need for absolute performance

On the analogue side, there are two line-level inputs (stereo RCA and XLR), where the XLR can be configured for conventional balanced use or running Esoteric’s proprietary ES-Link system.

ES-Link is a current-based transmission method (rather than voltage-based, as is conventional), and is claimed to be less sensitive to the impedance characteristics of whatever it is connected to, so improving sound quality. The choice of single-ended RCA, balanced XLR and ESL-A is mirrored on the analogue output side of things

Build

Esoteric has built an enviable reputation for excellent build and engineering, and rightly so. We are happy to report that the N-05XE lives up to those traditions. Its casework is immaculately made and finished, feeling reassuringly solid. Finish options? The N-05XE is available in both black and silver.

The large volume dial spins on ball bearings, so its rotation is as smooth as you like, while every switch and button works with precision, and feels like it will last a generation. We even like the small, double-sided metal remote. It is logically laid out and easy to use.

Esoteric’s engineers are clearly happy to defy convention when they think it is justified. In this case, the N-05XE’s top panel floats loose rather than being attached solidly. It is essentially free to move a millimetre or so and rattles when we tap it.

During development, it was found that mounting the lid loosely in this way lends an increased openness to the product’s sound. Similarly, you will notice that the unit’s feet move around when you take it out of the box. These feet are of a surprisingly complex design, featuring an internal spike-and-base arrangement claimed to disperse mechanical vibrations.

In day-to-day use, a network streamer lives or dies by the quality of its partnering app. Esoteric’s Sound Stream app is a solid effort that proves stable in use. It has the usual range of features, but isn’t quite as slick and intuitive as the best we’ve come across. The layout can look rather cluttered, though we get used to things relatively quickly.

A product at this level deserves a top-class partnering system. We slot the N-05XE into our reference set-up, using it first with our Burmester 088/911 MKIII pre/power driving ATC SCM50 speakers, and then bypassing the preamp and plugging directly into the power.

Our main streamer comparison is with Naim’s pricier ND 555/555 PS DR, but we also have recent experience with price rivals such as Moon’s 681, Linn’s Selekt DSM Edition Hub and Naim’s NSS 333.

Sound

If you love to tweak, you are in luck. In line with most modern digital products, the Esoteric N-05XE allows the user to switch between various upsampling and filter settings.

We spend a good few days experimenting with the various options, and settle on the highest rate (512) for the Delta Sigma Modulator operating frequency and the RDOT option (a slow roll-off design with some clever processing) for the digital filter. But note, the differences between the various settings are subtle at best. The choice comes down to taste and partnering system as much as any obvious superiority.

If you like an extrovert, end-of-the-seat presentation, then this or any other Esoteric product isn’t for you. In our experience, the company’s sonic signature is all about precision, refinement and delicacy. It is a cultured sound that’s impressively clean, combining class-leading detail resolution with a degree of understatement that takes time to appreciate. Once you get used to it, most alternatives seem a little uncouth in comparison.

Stream a demanding classical piece such as Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, and the N-05XE’s composure is welcome. It takes a frantic piece of music and lays it all out effortlessly for the listener. Each instrumental strand is easy to track, and nothing gets lost as the composition becomes ever more difficult. Instruments are carefully rendered, with the texture and shape of notes presented with care.

Tonally, this Esoteric is as balanced as they come, with no particular part of the frequency range gaining undue prominence. The highs are sweet without sacrificing too much in the way of bite, while the top-to-bottom balance remains beautifully cohesive and nicely judged. The presentation doesn’t have the architectural solidity of our reference Naim, but it remains clean and stable.

The N-05XE’s stereo imaging is excellent. The product’s dual-mono configuration obviously pays dividends here, with a broad and spacious soundstage populated by crisply focused instruments. Everything is locked in position and doesn’t blur as the music becomes more demanding. We’re particularly pleased with the way that the N-05XE renders soundstage depth, giving the recording a wonderfully three-dimensional feel.

It is pleasing to note that this Esoteric is equally as talented when used as a DAC. We use a variety of sources from our MacBook Pro (loaded with Audirvana music-playing software and plenty of high-res music files) and Naim’s ND 555 streamer serving as a digital source to an iPhone 14 Pro Max to test Bluetooth.

The N-05XE does well. It has a highly-resolving DAC module and equally talented analogue output stage, which combine to deliver whatever the recording requires. Rosalía’s Berghain comes through with dynamic intensity and rhythmic momentum intact. We marvel at the music’s drama and the Esoteric’s ability to communicate the singer’s emotion while still delivering a high degree of clarity and control.

We switch between various file types from 24-bit/192kHz Beethoven recordings to Stevie Wonder’s Innervisions on DSD, and the N-05XE copes with ease. There is no hint of unwanted hesitation or noise. It gets on with the job without fuss.

Bluetooth pairing is swift, and we have no issues with stability. The sound quality via this input is obviously limited compared to the other options, but it is perfectly fine for casual listening.

It is also pleasing to note that the Esoteric’s analogue inputs sound good too. Such a talent isn’t a given with digital-based components, but it means that the N-05XE is perfectly capable of working well with both analogue and digital sources.

The story is just as positive with headphones. We try Yamaha’s magnetic planar YH-5000SE, Austrian Audio’s open-back The Composer and Focal’s closed-back Stellia, and all work well. The N-05XE drives every headphone with ease, delivering a balanced and detailed sound that is neutral enough to put the spotlight on the headphones rather than the source component.

Verdict

Convenience and the high-end aren’t usually comfortable bedfellows, but this Esoteric proves it is possible to combine the two in a neat, easy-to-use package.

The N-05XE is a hugely capable product that compromises very little compared to more purist options. If you are looking for a top-class sound and don’t want the clutter of conventional high-end separates, this Esoteric is a great place to start.

Review published: 3rd June 2026

SCORES

• Sound 5
• Build 5
• Features 5

MORE:

Read our review of the Naim NSS 333

Also consider the Moon 681

Read our Linn Selekt DSM Edition Hub review

Best music streamers: top network audio players tested by our experts

Chinese audio brand Topping has announced its new budget E50 II digital-to-analogue converter, promising “class-leading performance” for just £199 / $189.

Compact in size, at just 129x41x155mm (WxHxD), the new DAC can also work as a digital preamplifier. It can be connected to power amps and active speakers as well as integrated amps and headphone amps, although no onboard headphone amp is included with this model.

Inputs include USB-C, coaxial and optical, and those of you using Bluetooth streaming will be pleased to hear that this DAC supports higher-quality codecs such as LDAC, aptX Adaptive and aptX HD. An analogue output stage offers a choice of single-ended stereo RCA and twin balanced 6.35mm sockets, one for each channel. If required, both sets of outputs can be used simultaneously to feed two systems at once.

The E50 II can work in two modes. It can be used as a dedicated DAC to feed a preamplifier or integrated power amplifier, or as a digital preamp driving a pair of active speakers or a separate power amp.

If you have a wide range of music files in different formats, this unit could serve you well. The DAC is capable of handling high-resolution PCM music files up to 32-bit/768kHz, alongside DSD512.

Take a look inside, and you will find AKM’s new generation AK4497S chip, which Topping promises will make you feel “as if you were there” when listening to music. Topping’s engineers have worked hard to reduce jitter levels (digital timing errors) and to optimise the dynamic range, which is claimed to be an impressive 131dB.

Unusually, the E50 II can also be controlled by a dedicated app, which is available for iOS and Android devices. This allows you to control playback, adjust volume, switch inputs, and implement digital filters alongside a ten-band parametric equaliser.

But those who prefer good old fashioned hardware need not fret: a remote control handset and integrated touch controls have been included for simple operation. Traditionalists will also no doubt be pleased with the E50 II’s retro design, which houses a simple digital-clock-style OLED display inside a compact aluminium enclosure.

The Topping E50 II DAC is available to buy now from selected retailers in a choice of black, silver or white.

MORE

What is a DAC? And why do you need one anyway?

Topping’s new DAC promises “remarkable” sound from both headphones and speakers alike

Best DACs 2026: USB, desktop and portable digital-to-analogue converters

Over the past few days, I’ve been out and about testing an in-car sound system. The Bose Surround Sound System for the electric Porsche Macan, to be precise.

I’m going to be comparing this system with the step-up Burmester option in a future article, but during my time testing the Bose, I came across a setting in the system menu which I’d previously seen only on a TV before: an ‘Eco’ mode.

Having such a mode in this car makes complete sense. EV ownership centres around power consumption, efficiency and squeezing the most mileage possible from the car’s battery. Why wouldn’t you want to try to save energy wherever possible?

Now, in the world of TVs, an Eco mode normally means a setting which is designed to lower power consumption by reducing things such as brightness and dynamic contrast.

In our experience, though, it’s a mode that can really upset picture quality. And – would you believe it? – the Porsche’s Eco mode has a similar impact. Here, though, of course, it is the sound quality taking a hit.

I reached out to Bose to ask what the mode actually does. Its representative replied, “When the system is in Eco Mode, energy consumption is reduced by limiting playback to selected speakers in the front of the cabin, while the rear speakers and subwoofer are temporarily inactive.

Depending on listening volume and content type, this approach can help lower overall energy usage while still delivering a rich and engaging listening experience for front-seat occupants.”

Well I found that this translates into a shrinking of scale, diminished dynamics and a more laid-back and less expressive sound.

Playing Eric Prydz’ anthemic dance tune Pjanoo, the song has less of an impact. There’s less of a sense of scale, and dynamics are dialled back.

The stomping bassline doesn’t kick quite as hard, leading edges are softened and there’s an audible drop in power. Overall, it’s a more laid-back and less expressive presentation, which means it communicates less with you, the listener.

Bose couldn’t supply any data on how much energy the mode could save, so I have reached out to Porsche and am still waiting for a reply (the mode is also present on the optional Burmester system).

I’m intrigued, because enabling the mode didn't seem to have any effect on the car's remaining range, at least according to the display. Perhaps this is something you will notice only over a much longer period of time with the car?

I can certainly see the appeal of an energy-saving mode when listening to, say, spoken-word radio and podcasts through the system.

Switching from music, the drop in audio quality isn’t felt as much; voices still sounded natural, balanced, and on the whole speech is still intelligible. When listening to voices, the number of speakers used and the impact of a subwoofer doesn’t matter quite as much.

It really depends on your priorities. For me, switching the Eco mode on and off does add an extra step, and if you’ve got a car full of passengers, having no audio out of the rear speakers isn’t going to be ideal.

Assuming other systems in the car, climate control being an obvious example, affect power consumption more, I would concentrate my eco-attention elsewhere first, leaving the sound system free to entertain me.

MORE:

Bentley announces Naim for Mulliner high-end car stereo system with Dolby Atmos

7 things I’ve learned testing in-car hi-fi for a decade

Should I use my TV in Eco mode? The pros and cons of energy-saving settings

Read our Sonos Premium Sound System (2026 Audi A3) review

Astell & Kern is expanding its A&ultima line of flagship portable players with the launch of the SP4000T. It arrives alongside a new pair of in-ear monitors, the Clarus. Both are set to make their debut at this year’s Vienna High End Show (4th June to 7th June).

Astell & Kern’s new A&ultima SP4000T teases a combination of “cutting-edge digital audio” with “classic analogue technology” thanks to its harnessing of vacuum tube amplification.

The new player uses independent dual-tube structures dedicated to left and right channels, the same separated configuration normally associated with classic tube amps. Further, dual flagship AK4499EX DACs and dedicated signal processors across each channel promise a “deep, refined experience” and enhanced “clarity, depth and sonic purity”.

The SP4000T offers three distinct tube sound modes, each of which has its own unique sonic signature. ‘Triode Mode’ emphasises rich harmonics and a warmer, more immersive presentation, whereas 'Pentode Mode' focuses more on dynamic impact and a cleaner, more energetic presentation.

For a third way, ‘Ultra Linear Mode’ promises a blend of the tonal richness of ‘Triode’ with the power and control of the ‘Pentode’ setting.

Astell & Kern’s valve-sporting PMP supports PCM files up to 32-bit/768kHz alongside DSD512, as well as 256GB of internal memory which can be expanded out to 1.5TB via the included microSD port.

Bluetooth codec support is provided via aptX Adaptive and LDAC codecs, while a ‘Bluetooth Sink’ mode allows the SP4000T to function as a Bluetooth DAC for external devices.

The new A&K features a 6-inch HD touchscreen display and is available in either a stainless steel or copper finish. Prices are yet to be confirmed, but considering the established SP4000 player launched at around £3999 / $4000, we doubt the tech-laden SP4000T will come particularly cheap.

Also arriving alongside the SP4000T portable music player are A&K’s latest in-ear monitors, the Clarus, which will be making their bow at this month’s High End Show in Vienna.

Acting as the latest addition to A&K’s high-end IEM series, the new in-ears are built around a 10-driver architecture, with a dynamic driver handling the low frequencies, an array of balanced armature drivers focusing on the mid-range and a host of MEMs units promising to “render the upper frequencies with exceptional precision”.

Again, no prices or official release date are currently available, but we’ll let you know as soon as we have official facts and figures.

We are heading to High End Vienna 2026 very soon, so we’ll be in the best position to give you the low down on everything being showcased, including A&K’s latest releases.

MORE:

Let’s get physical: why I refuse to ditch wired headphones

Yes, there is an ultimate prog rock album for testing hi-fi – at least according to What Hi-Fi? readers

These are the best portable music players you can buy