High-End Vienna 2026, Final Thoughts

SHOW
Alan Sircom
Jun 23, 2026

With the all the dust from the first High-End Vienna now settled, what happened? Despite doom-and-gloom from many in the industry, the show stemmed any declines seen in the Munich attendance figures. Increased international visitors – in particular ones from the US and Asia – were especially welcome. And, while those increases were comparitively small, given the negativity surrounding the change in venue put about by some pundits, some positivity is well received.

Has Munich High-End successfully transitioned to High-End Vienna? Mostly. There are still some issues to be resolved, both by the High-End Society and manufacturers and distributors at large. Many of these issues are teething troubles, with people unused to a new venue and how the rooms performed. In particular, there seemed to be some issues with the larger rooms on some of the lower floors with noisy air-conditioning and sound transmission through ventilation ducting. As we said throughout this report, we chose not to focus too closely on sound this year because it’s the first year in a new venue. Teething troubles about room acoustics and more will be resolved in time for next year. However, those who got it right from the get-go do deserve praise.

For our final look at the show, we’ve concentrated on complete systems that integrated well, regardless of size or price tag.

Abbingdon Music Research

AMR was a company that never quite went away. The brand was the high-end brand that kick-started iFi, but its 77 and 777 series products had been firmly in ‘park’ for the last 15 or so years. But now it’s back and aiming for high-end’s stratosphere. The Luna series, comprising the Ingenii digital platform, the Medii line preamplifier and the John Curl-designed 800W per channel Procellarum mono power amplifiers, was launched in Vienna, but because space in the main hall was strictly limited, the products were shown in a booth. This wasn’t the vehicle best suited to showcase the prospective performance of a system of this grade (even when played through Marten Mingus Quartet speakers), but even with these limitations, it showed great potential. The price? Expect somewhere around £450,000 for the complete amplifier package!

Atlantis Lab

French loudspeaker company Atlantis Lab joined forces with the Japanese Triode company to produce a ‘punches above its weight’ room that more thand delivered the goods. We were extremely impressed by the performance of the AT31 Pro floorstanders playing through Triode’s TRV-CD6SE CD player and new Junone 845SE integrated amplifier. I wanted to hear more from both companies (the Atlantis Labs AT16 at €2,680 was mentioned by several people for sounding excellent when it was playing, and Triode’s Muashi amplifiers serve up a lot for not a lot), but what we heard offers great promise.

Audio Group Denmark

There’s rarely a show without a presence from Audio Group Denmark, and the company’s prodigous launch schedule means there’s always something new to see. This time, it was the new Børresen BM2 bass modules. This ‘not a subwoofer’ module is derived from the company’s BM3 units (launched way back in January this year), but this version of the active folded diapole design is half the price of the first model (€9,000 per pair) and designed for smaller systems, such as the A1 stand-mount speakers it was partnered with. Audio Group Denmark prefers stands and booths to traditional rooms at shows of this size, but it still gets the message across.

Audio Reference

Mansour Mamaghani of German and Austrian high-end distributor Audio Reference always had a commanding presence at Munich High-End. His room took up an entire back part of one of the halls and his final flourish at the MOC was to present a system costing well into the millions. But that pales into insignificance next to the stand he took at High-End Vienna 2026. This was the result of months of planning, with the sort of set-building that would shame most theatre productions. This wasn’t just one system, but multiple room sets. In one room, you had a multichannel audio-video Trinnov/Perlisten system, featuring the first outing of dCS’ new sixteen-channel MCD 16 digital processor (pictured above). In another, you had the latest from SME (a new addition to the Audio Reference portfolio), dCS, D’Agostino, and Wilson. Static displays included a Wilson Audio Autobiography and the almighty Velodyne 1812 subwoofer. You could have easily spent half a day in the Audio Reference section and still not seen everything. As an example of how to do a high-end audio presentation ‘right’, this is a tough act to follow.

Chord Electronics

Shown at events in prototype form, High-End Vienna saw the first public outing of the company’s new Quartet Scaler, designed to be used in partnership with the evergreen DAVE DAC, being fed by an Innuos server. Used with an Ultima PRE, Ultima 3 mono power amps, Ultima phono stage from a Rega RP10 turntable) all driving passive ATC SCM50 loudspeakers using Chord Company (no relation) cables. This all-British system was playing an eclectic mix of music, which at once ruffled a few feathers and came as a welcome relief to hour-upon-hour of well-recorded jazz and blues.

Constellation Audio

Showing its new Statement Mono amplifiers, Constellation Audio could have made the rookie error of partnering a super-high-end amplifier with giant loudspeakers. Instead, the company went for a more room-sympathetic set-up, culminating in Wilson Audio Sasha V floorstanders. In the way only the best amplifiers can, this showed just how much more can be extracted out of good loudspeakers. This was one of those Sunday morning chill-out rooms, playing jazz effortlessly across the top floor of the ACV… as you might expect from an amplifier capable of delivering 1.7kW per channel into an eight-ohm load.

Göbel High-End

Launching the Divin Monarque at the show, Göbel’s new €469,000 per pair statement loudspeaker stands approximately Jeff Goldblum tall and features proprietary twin 15″ bass drivers flanking propritary twin 8″ midrange units and a central AMT high-frequency unit. In a cost-no-object system with Wadax Atlantis digital front end and top Vitus amplification, this system showed a lot of promise for those with a big room and even bigger budgets!

Goldmund

You can’t really think about ultra-fi without thinking ‘Goldmund’. The Swiss company practically defined European high-end audio in the 1970s and 1980s, and today creates the ultimate in wireless active loudspeaker systems, with an eye on what ‘luxury’ means today. And, in Vienna, you couldn’t fault the company for its ambition. Where other companies just turned up with products, some brand identity and maybe a few well-placed room acoustic treatments, Goldmund ‘went for it’. It had a small collection of some of its best-known products, laid out in the style of a modern art gallery. Then, in its main listening space, the company ‘just’ played its Gaia active speakers, with music being professionally curated by DJs and recording engineers. If we ever want high-end audio to move out of the man cave and into the homes of the chic and wealthy… this is how you do it!

Kroma Atelier

It’s all about putting together a good system. That was the case with the small but mighty system Kroma Atelier, which featured the Thais loudspeakers playing through Engstrom’s Arne integrated amplifier and J Sikora Aspire turntable/arm (with Kagami Ema cartridge) with an Engstrom M-Phono phono stage, digital audio from Cinnamon (a Galle model II DAC with the brand’s new Network Transport), Argento Flow cables and Artesania Exoteryc panzerholz based stands and shelves. This featured in one of the smaller rooms at the show, and never put a foot wrong!

Innuos

Innuos takes its demonstration and display space extremely seriously. It makes a 3D CAD/CAM image of its rooms for each show, accurately predicting what products to play and with what for maximum effect. This year, as last, the demonstration is all about Nazaré, with the server, NazaréNET (switch) and NazaréFLOW (reclocker) playing through EMM Labs electronics and Marten loudspeakers, with Artesania stands, CAD grounding devices, Transparent cables and Power Conditioner, and Artnovion acoustic treatment. Outside this listening room were prototypes of new versions of the NET and FLOW for the company’s Stream and ZEN lines, replacing and improving on existing models in the range.

Marten and Jorma

Marten’s new Dexter range was launched at Vienna High-End. Two of the four new models – the €25,800 Duo stand-mount and the €58,800 Quintet floorstander – were playing in a room featuring the upcoming TechDAS Air Force 20 turntable with Air Force 10 tonearm and TDC 01 cartridge, Goldmund Eidos digital source, Mimesis phono and preamp and Telos 800 power amps, all fettled with Jorma Statement cables. The new speakers all feature a diamond tweeter, the brand’s ‘M-Core’ triple layer cabinet, and the range is designed to fit between the company’s more affordable Oscar line and the cost-no-object Coltrane range.

ProAc

ProAc showed the Response DB1 with its new DB1R ribbon tweeter option at Bristol earlier this year. So, coupling this ‘new-ish’ version of a classic ProAc loudspeaker with a set of classic Aesthetix amplification and an equally classic Origin Live turntable with AudioQuest cables and conditioners and finite elemente stands isn’t the kind of system that gets a journalist’s ‘novelty’ blood pumping. And, we’re consciously not discussing sound quality due to the ‘new’ home. However, this system (in a very small room) just worked together so well that you’d struggle to find anything better at the show at anything close to the price of entry. A great, well-put-together system that sounded great… we needed more of those!

High-End Vienna 2026 Part One

High-End Vienna 2026 Part Two

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