Munich High-End 2025: Amplifiers

This was joined by the D-80 power amplifier (c. $15,000). This replaces the VT80SE and draws upon the Reference 80S power amplifier. By eschewing the Ghost Meter panel, the fully-balanced, pentode-powered D-80 looks like classic Audio Research amps, and costs

The final four amplifiers share a similar chassis. The c. $10,000 LS-2 and c. $9,000 LS-3 preamps are nearly identical in appearance. However, the LS-2 employs a tube-based design and the LS-3 relies on pure solid-state architecture. Both feature a colour touch-screen display, balanced and single-ended inputs and outputs and accept user-installable DAC and MM/MC phono cards. These are joined by the c. $9,500 S-100 and c. $12,000 S-200 solid-state power amplifiers. These power amps deliver 100W and 200W per channel, respectively. The differentiator this time is a pair of VU meters on the front panel of the S-200.

Perhaps more importantly, Audio Research’s new pre- and power amplifiers were a part of one of the hidden gems of the show. Fronted by a Wadax Studio • Player and feeding into a pair of $12,990 Acora MRC-2 floorstanders via Cardas Clear Beyond cable throughout, the LS-2 tube preamp and the S-100 solid-state power amp all combined to make one of those systems that sing so well, you keep coming back for more. Yes, there were bigger and considerably more expensive systems with greater dynamics, more headroom, and a more immediate impact. But this was the one that felt ‘right’.

B.Audio

French electronics manufacturer B.Audio is more commonly associated with streaming systems. This is perhaps understandable as its integrated amplifier and DAC preamplifier are designed primarily with that technology in mind. However, the company’s latest development is a retrofittable, plug-in phono stage. The new board is available for €2,000 if fitted to a new amplifier, and a €2,500 retrofit for existing models. The company played two systems in its room, featuring Audiophysic loudspeakers. The central system was streaming Qobuz Connect when I visited the room, and was doing an outstanding job.

Constellation Audio

Last year, Constellation Audio announced it was relaunching its ranges. It replaced its power supplies with a new Constellation Switch-Mode Power Supply (C-SMPS). At Munich High-End 2025, we heard the first models in that revised line. These were from the Revelation 2 Series. The amps share the same form factor as the older Revelation line but without the galactic names. The company played the Revelation 2 Preamp, Revelation 2 Phono, and Revelation 2 Stereo power amplifier. This was fed by a European Audio Team analogue and dCS digital front ends, Artesania equipment supports, Transparent cable and Wilson Audio WATT/Puppy loudspeakers. This sounded exceptionally musical and dynamic, especially when Jozefina Lichtenegger of EAT put the system through its paces. The company was also showing the next product out of the gates: the revised Reference 2 mono power amplifier, now with a chunkinormous front power meter!

Gold Note

This year is all about streamlining the power supply for Gold Note. The optional power supplies had grown organically with the Italian company’s expanding line of powerful half-size 5-Series electronics, full-size 10-Series models, and its range of turntables. Gold Note has thinned the five-strong power supply range down to just the PSX-5 (for the 5-Series models), PSX-10 (for the 10-Series) and PST-X for its turntables. This power trio have also been redesigned with better components to supply cleaner power than ever to the company’s products. The company also showed finished versions of the modular Diana loudspeaker concept. These were joined by the HP-10 headphone amplifier, which was demonstrated in prototype form last year.

Gryphon Audio

The Antileon power amplifier is a firm fixture in the Gryphon Audio line. The DM-100, from which it derives, dates back to 1991. Meanwhile, the original, Signature, and EVO versions of the Antileon has been in continuous production for 30 years. Changing this stereo or mono titan is not undertaken lightly, but for the company’s 40th Anniversary, the release of the new Antileon Revelation was only fitting. A €38,800 165W stereo or 180W mono amplifier, the new amplifier shares many components with the flagship Apex amplifier design while retaining all the key elements that make the Antileon one of the most consistently popular high-end amplifiers in the world. Gryphon’s timed demonstrations are always packed, and always impressive. The new Antileon has some big shoes to fill, but it might be the audio Revelation you want!

JMF Audio

French high-enders JMF Audio don’t really do new products; the company’s product line remains the same yearly. But that doesn’t mean the products remain unchanged. The company’s amplifiers receive periodic upgrades, which are retrofittable to previous editions. The latest includes changes to the power supply, including a wholly new transformer module for the PRS 1.5 preamplifier and similar, but more substantial, changes to the company’s top HQS 9001 mono power amplifiers. Also shown in prototype form this year is the PHZ 8.1 adjustable moving coil step-up transformer designed to match the company’s PHS 7.2 and 8.2 phono preamps. Price is still to be determined.

Mark Levinson

Mark Levinson is back with a vengeance! The premium electronics wing of the Harman group showed three new amplifier models in a wholly Newton of the range 600 line intended for launch later this year; the modular €28,000 626 preamplifier (pictured centre) is a fully-balanced ‘Pure Path’ design with built-in 32bit, 384kHz and native DSD DAC, as well as MM/MC phono stage, RCA and XLR inputs and outputs, and a high performance headphone amplifier. It’s joined here by the €34,000 632 dual-mono power amplifier (pictured, top), which features a Class A/AB circuit and balanced and single-ended inputs. Finally the €38,000 631 mono power amplifier tower was on display, but not playing. This new top of the M-L tree will be available late in 2025.

Linn

It’s been a busy 2025 so far for Linn. The paint was barely dry on the new, fifth-generation Majik DSM all-in-one streamer (launched in April this year), but Linn was already showing its next product: the £23,500 Klimax Solo 500. This replaces one of the longest-standing products in Linn’s amplifier range, the Klimax 500 Solo from the last century. This is more than just a swap of letters and numbers; the new amp features Linn’s sophisticated adaptive bias and hybrid cooling matrix; this last means the 500W into 4Ω amplifier is passively cooled unless played so loud that the fan needs to drive, and that level of volume makes the fan inaudible under all listening conditions, even when six of them are used to drive a pair of Linn 360 loudspeakers with great success.

Lyngdorf

The new TDAI-2210 from Lyngdorf sits squarely in the middle of the company’s amplifier range, sitting between the entry-level TDAI-1100 and the heavy-hitting TDAI-3400. It features the company’s own Room Perfect room equalisation system, a 2x 210W into 4Ω fully-digital amplifier section (it’s essentially a power DAC, staying in the digital domain almost until the loudspeaker terminals), includes a full streaming system, USB-C, HDMI,  and touch screen front panel. All wrapped up in a form factor that doesn’t scream ‘audiophile’. The Danish-built amplifier is expected to cost €3,999. Lyngdorf also demonstrated a very effective Dolby Atmos music system.

Master Fidelity

Having recently taken over the NADAC digital line from studio brand Merging Technologies, Master Fidelity this year expanded the range of NADAC D digital converter and NADAC C master clock, by adding the new €27,000 NADAC L line preamplifier (pictured top). This dual-mono analogue design approaches its task with all the painstaking precision of high-end digital audio, featuring a ‘JFET-like’ custom CMOS ASIC architecture. With a channel imbalance of less than 0.1dB, a suggested signal-to-noise ratio of more than 130dB and vanishingly low noise figures, this might be the secret technological wunderkind of preampfification, and sounded excellent in a Boulder and Stenheim system.

VTL

VTL’s latest creation is the new €130,000 Lohengrin reference mono power amplifiers. Taking the long-standing Siegfried II flagship mono amp as its reference point, and developed over five painstaking years, the Lohengrin amplifier features an eight-valve output stage capable of delivering 400 watts, while retaining the higher-powered Siegfried amplifier’s driver stages and power supply. The zero-feedback design features wide-bandwidth transformers that have become a VTL trademark. The result is an amplifier with the speed and grain-free performance of smaller, more responsive amplifiers, with the power and dynamic authority of high-power designs. In a system that began with a Kuzma Stabi R and Safir 9 with a Lyra Etna for analogue, dCS Rossini Apex for digital Nordost Odin 2 cables throughout, VTL’s reference line and phono preamplifiers, Bassocontinuo Cymbalon stands and culminating in Wilson Audio’s Alexx V Carbon floor standers, this was a truly mesmerising high-end experience.

Munich High-End 2025: Analogue

Munich High-End 2025: Digital

Munich High-End 2025: Loudspeakers

Munich High-End 2025: Systems and everything else!

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