{"id":43807,"date":"2026-06-09T23:55:15","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T21:55:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hifi-advice.com\/blog\/?p=43807"},"modified":"2026-06-10T15:46:29","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T13:46:29","slug":"high-end-vienna-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hifi-advice.com\/blog\/show-reports\/vienna-high-end\/high-end-vienna-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"High End Vienna 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

Munich High End was huge, but let me tell you: Vienna High End is absolutely MASSIVE! As I found firsthand, the main event alone takes two full days to cover. And then there are the 3 other shows in nearby buildings: Xclusive, HifiDeluxe, and Sound Fest. Sadly, I ran out of time before I could visit the last two shows.<\/p>\n

Overall, the Vienna show is a major improvement over Munich. There’s more space, friendly, helpful personnel at main hallway junctions, and the rooms also sound a lot better! In Munich, many rooms had serious bass issues, but in Vienna, the large majority of rooms sounded well-balanced.<\/p>\n

While the show had more space overall, most rooms remained quite small, often overcrowded with listeners, forcing one to stand to the side or at the back, resulting in incomplete listening experiences.<\/p>\n

I encourage exhibitors to play more diverse music and limit selections to 1 minute rather than full songs. With so many rooms, listeners simply do not have time to spend 20 minutes in each room to form their opinion.<\/p>\n

This is by no means full coverage. I’m keeping my coverage very simple, offering just a brief summary of some systems I found interesting.<\/p>\n

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The show was very tastefully laid out, with nice colorful banners and informative screens everywhere.<\/p>\n

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So far, the walk over was peaceful and calm on the beautifully sunny Saturday. In no way was there any forewarning of the massive crowd I was to embark on shortly…<\/p>\n

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As I neared the entrance, it did not seem too busy… But then, I spotted the massive crowd amassed outside before the entrance, much like the 30-minute waiting queue at a busy airport.<\/p>\n

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It’s not super-visible in this photo, but the end of the massive crowd can just be spotted in the back, where everyone is funneled into a couple of ports where personnel hand out access bracelets.<\/p>\n

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On Sunday, the crowd appeared nearly half as large and began only shortly before the entrance, yet many rooms remained overcrowded.<\/p>\n

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This was the first time I heard Peak Consult, and the smallest Sonora model (in white) made a terrific impression on me. Alas, I failed to take a photo, but the speakers sounded spritely, energetic, spacious, and toe-tappingly engaging, with a perfectly natural tonal balance.<\/p>\n

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The utter neutrality and super-expressive midrange of Stenheim speakers may not be for everyone, but I always like these speakers whenever I hear them. This time, the sound was superb, in combination with a Master Fidelity Nadac S Server, C Clock, and D DAC. Tight and precise, yet agile, supple, and fluid, the music was supremely clean, clear, and transparent, and certainly analytical, but not clinical.<\/p>\n

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The Brodmann\/Ideon system sounded highly accurate and was clearly well adjusted and setup. An interesting eye-catcher was the Oyster Listening Chair. This is the world’s first chair designed as an integrated acoustic component of a sound system, developed in collaboration with Brodmann Acoustics. Its surfaces serve acoustic purposes: interior arms diffuse mid- and high-frequency energy, the tall back blocks rear reflections while maintaining openness, diffusion panels mimic room treatments, curves reduce flutter and filtering, and sloped surfaces minimize standing waves. I have not sat in it, but I find the chair beautiful to look at, and it is most definitely a novel idea. The Oyster Listening Chair\u00a0requires deep pockets at 18.000 USD.<\/p>\n

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The mps-klangwelten electrostatics sounded delicate, lush, and smooth, less propulsive and forceful than hybrid Martin Logans, but all the more velvety and natural.<\/p>\n

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The Zellaton Plural Evo Max speakers offered an excellent mix of engaging musicality and accuracy. In Munich, I never found the Zellaton’s bass as precise as I prefer, but this time was different! Perhaps it was due to the interesting mix of equipment, and perhaps the room also had a hand in this. In any case, this was one of the clearly better rooms of the show.<\/p>\n

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Wadax had a clever viewing box for their components, allowing visitors to inspect them closely while preventing fingerprints, or worse, damage.<\/p>\n

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Wadax displayed the new Studio DAC Collection, which extends the concept introduced with the Studio Player Collection by separating the Studio Player architecture into two dedicated components: the Studio DAC and the Studio Transport.<\/p>\n

I was eager to hear this system. Sadly, I couldn’t evaluate the sound because the bass-less minimal music made it difficult to draw any conclusions. I visited the room twice on different days, but the experience remained unchanged.<\/p>\n

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As before in Munich, the Auer room sounded excellent. This is a brand to keep in mind!<\/p>\n

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New solid wood enclosures for Network Acoustics products.<\/p>\n

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Magico introduced the S7, which sounded beautifully delicate, refined, and natural. I can’t say much more about it as the exhibitor played several tracks in a row with no bass or drums, and when I tried a second time, the room was consistently overcrowded.<\/p>\n

The S7 is said to be the most advanced evolution of the highly acclaimed S series. Weighing 174 kg, the S7 features a 28 mm tweeter with a diamond-coated pure beryllium diaphragm from the M-series, with a neodymium motor and FEA-optimized design. The 152 mm midrange driver uses Magico’s Nano-Tec Gen 8 cone, made of an aluminum honeycomb core between carbon fiber layers reinforced with graphene, a lightweight, stiff mix developed with carbon nanotubes and nanographene. The three 10-inch woofers enable a bass response down to 20Hz.\u00a0 The photo is courtesy of Jean Fran\u00e7ois \/ 1877 Audio<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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The Xclusive show was in the Ares Tower, a nearby building.<\/p>\n

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The big Aries Cerat room had a very impressive system in place, featuring the new open-back Sirene speakers. The sound was big, smooth, and refined, perhaps not entirely neutral, but never harsh, hugely involving and effortlessly dynamic.<\/p>\n

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This was my first time seeing the Clarisys Aria four-tower speaker system in real life, and I was stoked to finally hear them, after just missing them when I visited the showroom<\/a> in Switzerland. The Arias are bigger than anticipated, with flawless construction. The rest of the system was beautifully put together, and the penthouse location atop the building was very impressive.<\/p>\n

As one might expect, the sound was very open, airy, and transparent, but across 5 different tracks on LP and digital, a feeling persisted that dynamics were crushed with a mild distortion on the peaks, as if one of the components was driven too loudly. In any case, something in the chain must have been not quite right, preventing the system from performing as it should.<\/p>\n

From a technical perspective, their separate bass and mid\/treble towers, which can be positioned and toe’d in independently, make them very intriguing, and I look forward to hearing the Arias again on another occasion.<\/p>\n

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The Prodigio Audio Vitorla full-range electrostatic speakers sounded excellent. They are open, airy, and refined, demonstrating the delicate qualities typical of electrostatic speakers, with smoothness and a relaxed feel, while also being engagingly crisp, upbeat, and expressive. As they are full-range, the bass is entirely uniform, and the speakers sound 100% coherent. Some might still want to add a subwoofer, but I found them to go at least as deep as an average small monitor speaker, and the bass was excellent. Interestingly, and unusually for a flat panel, the treble was focused and well balanced throughout the room, creating a wide listening area.<\/p>\n

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Aequo Audio always delivers! This time, I felt the performance was not quite up there with the Dutch shows in Veldhoven, with less precise imaging and some room-induced bass resonance, but nevertheless, it was very good. The Aries Cerat components were an interesting match, producing a full, harmonically rich sound.<\/p>\n

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The big Avalon room produced some of the best sound on the show: authoritative, fast, precise, linear, transparent, open, airy, and spacious; these speakers are simply great all-round. Too bad the exhibitor started playing so loudly that it drove me out of the room. Nevertheless, if the bank account accommodates them, they are highly recommended.<\/p>\n

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Grimm Audio demonstrated two new models: the PA1 mono amplifiers that are said to minimize dynamic signal distortions that are overlooked by many but have a large impact on sound quality, and a new pair of passive two-way speakers that went so deep in the bass that it made me look behind the banner in search of a subwoofer.<\/p>\n

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That’s all folks!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

External Links<\/h3>\n

Vienna High End<\/a><\/p>\n

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