The weird and exciting hi-fi of Munich High End 2025

Once Ran

The Ran from Once Custom looks less a hi-fi speaker and more like an exotic plant that grows in the Amazon. The Ran is a portable speaker (surprisingly), which implies it’s either battery or mains powered.

The frequency range covers 65-30,000Hz to reproduce audio across the frequency range, and you’ll notice it only has once drive unit in its 4.5-inch paper coaxial full range speaker.

We didn’t get to listen to it, but just as a statement of design, the Ran is among one of the more striking speaker concepts we saw at High End.

ESD Acoustics

Every year ESD Acoustics attends High End, and as the company that labels itself as “one of the best hi-fi speaker manufacturers”, ESD had another ornate speaker on show.

These were the KunPeng speakers and info about them seems limited at the moment (not even the ESD Acoustics’ site lists them), but the KunPeng costs an extravagant €49,999/pair and feature the ubiquitous horn speaker. It wouldn’t be High End if there weren’t a billion horn speakers to see.

Poet

Our nomination for the best-looking speaker of High End? It might be the Baretta from Austrian hi-fi brand Poet.

You might think from the pictures that the Poet is one long speaker, but it’s actually an active, 2.1 stereo system backed by 340W of power and support for aptX Bluetooth streaming with AirPlay 2 coming down the line

Hand-made in Austria, the perforated look comes in a choice of brushed stainless or power-coated steel, with the inner casing constructed from Valcromat, a special torsion-free wood fibre material. It comes together for a fabulously good looking speaker system.

Constellation

We’ve not heard of the hi-fi brand Constellation before, but after peeking into their demo room we’d happily like to become more familiar with what they have.

We had a listen to the Inspiration 2 amplifier (a big piece of hi-fi to say the least), wired into a pair of Wilson Audio speakers. The sound was majestic. So natural-sounding that it felt as if there wasn’t an amplifier or a pair of speakers in the room.

With the amp available in mono or stereo configurations, the Constellation Inspiration 2 amp felt like hi-fi on a grand scale. It certainly lived up to the name of the brand.

DALI

DALI’s showcase at Munich High End was mostly new finishes of existing products but it did have one new product to show.

The V-16F weighs 53kg and packs 1500W of Class-D power amplification, an absurd number considering wireless soundbar systems don’t even manage to make it past for all their speakers.

All that power and performance will cost £4499 / €4999 when the V-16F subwoofer launches July 2025.

Loewe

German marque Loewe have been diversifying from TVs and soundbars into the wider world of hi-fi.

We’ve reviewed their wireless speaker collaboration with Kylian Mbappe (who’s also a part-owner of Loewe), and we saw its first hi-fi speaker in the flesh last year. Now they’re bringing the Inicio stereo speaker to the market.

Don’t ask us to pronounce the name (we’ve tried and we’re still not sure), but the Inicio comes in two flavours: a 2-way floorstander (called the Grand Inicio) and 2-way bookshelf speaker.

Both support bi-wiring and bi-amping, and feature Purifi USHINDI drivers and Air Motion Transformer for distortion-free playback. Prices have been anounced with the Grand Inicio at £9,999 and the Inicio bookshelf at £4,999.

Revox

Quite possibly the coolest thing we saw at Munich High End were limited edition versions of Revox reel-to-reel B77 Mk II tape recorder and T77 turntable with Alice Cooper’s face on it.

There are only 25 of tape recorders available and 50 of the turntables worldwide, all of which have been signed by Alice Cooper. If you want the former, you’ll have to cough up €27,950 while the turntable sells for, in comparison, an inexpensive €8950.

Worth every Euro / Pound / Dollar.

Pro-Ject

Pro-Ject Audio Systems returned to its large space within the MOC halls with a number of turntables, but this model was the most charming of the lot.

If you’re a fan of US animation Peanuts (or the Charlie Brown Show to others), Pro-Ject revealed a limited edition version of its T1 BT turntable with Charlie Brown’s face plastered on it.

The turntable supports Bluetooth for wireless streaming, 33.3/45RPM speeds, belt drive operation and an Ortofon OM 10 moving magnet cartridge.

Quite how this collaboration came about we’re not show, but we every much endorse it.

Meze Audio

Romanian-based hi-fi brand Meze Audio (who are some of the nicest people you’ll meet) were once again at High End with a new product in the 105 Silva.

We don’t think the Silva was named after any Brazillian footballer but it does boast an equisite touch in terms of its design with walnut wood used for the earcups, and the spring steel headband taken from its predecessor, the 105 AER, to help with its sound and comfort respectively.

No word on price or launch date but one to keep an out for.

Astell & Kern

Right next to the Meze Audio stand was Astell & Kern who had another hefty (and expensive) portable music player in the SP4000 to display.

Carrying on from the SP3000, the A&ultimta SP4000 is A&K’s latest flagship player and like previous A&K players, comes stocked with all the features you’d want from a portable player including Wi-Fi support, LDAC streaming, audio file support up to 32-bit/768kHz and DSD512, 256GB of internal memory (augmented with support up to 1.5TB) and an upgraded UI.

Having given it a demo, the UI is more responsive, while the sound is energetic and punchy.

Price was TBA, but based on previous models, you can expect the asking price to be north of £3000 / $3000.

WiiM

WiiM brought several products to High End 2025 including a new subwoofer, wireless amplifier and smart speaker.

You can read our overview of the new products, and if you want to know more about the WiiM Sound speaker, head over here.

JBL/Harman

JBL/Harman were in attendance new speakers in the Summit range, a three strong line-up inspired by Himalayan peaks.

The line-up is made up of a two-way standmount model in the Summit Ama, floorstanding Summit Pumori (not to be confused with the North Face jacket), and floorstanding Summit Makala.

They all look utterly gorgeous in their high-gloss finishes and are available at prices as big as the very mountains that inspired them.

The Summit Ama (including the stands) is $19,995 / €17,498 / £14,998, the Summit Pumori $29,995 / €30,998 / £26,998 and the Summit Makalu at $44,995 / €43,998 / £36,998.