Meze Astru – It's a new titanium-built IEM [€899] with single 10mm dynamic driver, "premium balanced cable and full accessory kit for high-end portable listening". The dome driver "features over 80 ultra-thin gold layers applied during a 48-hour magnetron sputtering process in a physical vacuum which then bond to a titanium layer atop a Peek base." Specs are 5Hz-35kHz, 32Ω, 111dB/mW, 2-pin input connectors and weight of 13.4g.

Uniquely Unico – It's a new Unison Research range of hybrid class A-A/B electronics with valve inputs and transistor outputs. The first two models are the Unico Pre V2 [$7.5K] with ES9018MkII DAC and MC/MM; and Unico DM V2 [$11K]. The fully balanced class A preamp with no negative feedback runs a pair of 12AX7 Gold Lion bottles and 15/20dB of voltage gain on XLR/RCA. The class AB stereo amp offers 220wpc/8Ω or a whopping 650W in bridged mono. It has a dual 12AU7 front end with a triple-pair Mosfet current buffer. Multiple finish options apply.

Compact Player – At €6'500 and PCM 384 and DSD256 compliant, it's Nagra's new entry-level headless streamer with built-in DAC outputting on RCA exclusively whilst power comes from an external 12V supply. A-weighted noise floor of -140dB and 14Ω output impedance are the basic specs.

Balloon speakers – These cyclops eyes are from TotalDAC's Vincent Brient and coaxial 2-ways with downfire port combining a 10" woofer with a throat-loaded 1" compression driver. Claimed in-room response is 40Hz-20kHz. Filter parts are Mundorf coils and Claritycap capacitors. Efficiency is 95dB/1m. The enclosure colour is solid not painted on. These spheres have a 50cm diameter and weigh 13kg.

CD-5.2 – It's Gold Note's new half-width CD player with Stream Unlimited drawer mechanism, RCA/XLR analog outputs, coax and Toslink digital outputs, AKM AK4493 conversion and with it, volume control most likely digital but not specified. Remote control is included and like all other 5.2 Series models, the only finish option is black. Once again a Gold Note press release lacked pricing information because, clearly, none of us need or want to know.

Going for gold – It's Børresen new M8 Gold flagship speaker, a triple-segmented tower with d'Appolito style 5" two-way centre around the brand's 94dB efficient planarmagnetic thin-foil tweeter whilst six packs of 8" woofers in passive RiPol configuration bracket that centre section above and below. 12 x 8-inch woofers per channel sum to more than 3 x 15" woofers yet exhibit far higher motor-to-cone force and 'super'-dipole dispersion for much reduced room interaction. The neodymium-powered drivers combine carbon skins around an aramid core surface-treated with zirconium, titanium, hafnium and their nitrides. The baskets are milled from solid blocks of austenitic stainless steel coated with the same surface treatment then cryogenically treated. The crossover operates in the current not voltage domain. Bi-amping is strongly encouraged. So are strong floors when these weigh 325kg. Follow the embedded link for all the tech details. Tailor-made companions to drive the M8 Gold are the new Aavik M-880 class A mono amplifiers delivering 400W/8Ω, 1.3kW into 2Ω and a damping factor of 1'000. With the M6 model listed at a cool half a million the pair, does the M8 being 'two more' double to €1'000'000/pr? The press release didn't say but given the exuberance of woofers the M8 installs, shouldn't we expect a downscaled model with 8 woofers per side and then another one with 4 as time goes on and this speaker concept presses downward?

Put yer coil in the field – Miss Elektra sez so. It's Voxativ's latest based on their AC-X2 field-coil widebander covering 60Hz-20kHz with a single rear-horn-loaded driver. Docked below its cab works a RiPol 2×12" active bass system in MkII guise, packing 500W of in-house developed class D power to continue seamlessly for full 20-20 bandwidth. Efficiency is a hair-raising 110dB/1W/1m. Start your flea-power engines and bring down the house. On your way to the track, stop by the bank and take out €65'000.

Foundry not foundation. In F12 guise, it's PS Audio's first active Foundry subwoofer. As the name suggests, it uses a 12" woofer backed by 1kW of power and "advanced room correction". The cellulose driver with carbon dust cap is a monster-stroke type of claimed throw past 2½ inches not centimetres pulled back by a 10" Nomex spider. The amplifier's power supply is rated for 1'800 watts. The associated Foundry control app for iOS and Android "compensates for a listening room's peaks and dips with an auto EQ based on a smartphone's mic; or via a manual function". Adjustments include delay and PEQ, connectivity high-and low-level inputs. A Wisa 24/96 wireless module is optional. Finish options are satin black or white and the retail price is $2'749. Dimensions are 14.75 x 16.75 x 17.5" WxHxD, weight is 77lbs.

HP-5.2 – Gold Note's next-gen headphone amplifier is a dual-mono class A affair with a plethora of analogue adjustments including crossfeed, Harman curve, variable gain, damping factor, stereo/mono and balance control. For digital there's an ES9023 DAC and Bluetooth 5.2 HD aptX. Access is by remote or touchscreen display. There's even an upgrade path to an external power supply. Headphone power is 5wpc max into an unspecified impedance. The press release contained no pricing info.

Titanic drops anchor – From Belfast's Titanic Audio comes the tri-axis isolation platform Anchor [£500] which "separates vibration management into three stages each optimised for a specific frequency range. The top surface incorporates hexagonal traces to manage fast low-amplitude vibration generated by transformers, motors and power supplies. This geometry also embeds within the upper layer of the internal core. Low-frequency vibration carries the greatest energy and is the most difficult to control. Anchor addresses this with a system of spring-loaded hexagonal suspension pins supporting the isolation core. Each pin allows controlled vertical movement while expanding laterally under load, converting vertical energy into distributed lateral motion within the surrounding core where it is dissipated efficiently. This shared mechanical load prevents over-compression and ensures consistent performance across a wide range of component weights without bottoming out or becoming overly compliant. Between the HEX-DNA surface and suspension system sits a layered composite isolation core tuned to absorb and disperse vibration across the midband and lower frequencies. Carefully selected soft and dense materials allow energy to be absorbed without becoming trapped."

Jaywalking with JPlay – How many ways are there to cross the hi-res street? The Polish JPlay app just added HighResAudio to Tidal and Qobuz whereby we can access these subscription services plus local content inside their "audiophile interface" as they call it. From Audirvana to HQPlayer, Lumin and Roon, software with embedded sound-optimizing features behind a graphic user interface to navigate big music libraries abounds; and JPlay is one of them vying for your attention now with a new embedded client.

8 is 1 less than 9 – Umm. Yeah. But how does it apply to Luxsin's new X8 [€699] vs the prior wider X9? It's still a nearly 5wpc/32Ω headphone amp with opamp drive, preamp with RCA/XLR outputs, DAC with 8 x Cirrus Logic CS43198 chips, dual-core HiFi-5 DSP + ARM STAR DSP engine for AI-assisted PEQ, 960x480px touch-screen display, mobile app, web browser and IR remote. The onboard power supply is linear. Bluetooth is by Qualcomm SXW5125. Digital inputs include USB-B, coax, USB-C, USB storage, I²S/HDMI and optical. DSP functions include crossfeed, stereo width, tone and loudness adjust. Finish is black as shown. The display can show various VU and spectrum meters.

Aries – It's Voxativ's fixed 50Hz/2nd-order analog high-pass filter [€4'900] intended to relieve their Hagen² and Alberich² speakers from the lowest frequencies. A 1.7m Ampeggio speaker cable is included.

Børresen sub – The Bass Module 3 [$21K] combines two opposing hence force-cancelling pairs of 8" spread-tow carbon-fibre woofers for compound ~15" surface in a folded open baffle design reminiscent of Axel Ridthaler's RiPol aka Ridthaler Dipole geometry previously seen at Ecobox, ModalAkustik, sound|kaos and Voxativ. A 300wpc stereo amp based on Pascal class D modules and analog 4th-order low-pass crossover with 11 frequency selections between 30-80Hz plus ±6dB gain adjustment in ¼dB steps house in the integral plinth with dot-matrix display. The brand's proprietary noise cancellation includes 36 active Tesla coils, 72 square Tesla coils plus three analogue dither circuits and two golden aerial resonance coils. Basic specs are max 4.5/9Vrms stereo/mono inputs at 10kΩ; dimensions of 58x40x43cm HxWxD, weight of 46.4kg and bandwidth of 20-120Hz, no SPL limits given. The finish is high gloss black with carbon details.

The Arranger – It's Austrian Audio's downscaled open-backed reference dynamic headphone [€999] centred on a 44mm diamond-like carbon-coated diaphragm with ring-magnet drive. The construction is metallic, the design foldable, the cable entry single. Weight is 320g, impedance 25Ω, the cable connector on the ear cup 3.5mm.

Lundahl @ BTB – German tube distributor BTB-Elektronik announces that they now represent the famous Swedish Lundahl transformers, chokes and inductors for Europe starting February 2026.

New Nagra – Audio Technology Switzerland announces the Series II, a new product family between Nagra's Classic and HD ranges. The first model in this line is the tubed Preamp II-S with classic Modulometer. The chassis sports a phenolic damping layer beneath the aluminium cover to control resonances. The 12V/2A Compact PSU is external. 0/6dB voltage gain settings, 9/18Ω output impedance, dynamic range of 125dB and 10Hz-50kHz +0/-0.5dB bandwidth are the basic specs. The tubes are two 12AX7 and one 12AT7. Max power consumption is 12.6W. Connectivity spans 1 x XLR and 4 x RCA inputs and 2 x XLR and 1 x RCA outputs. Dimensions are 38x28x7.6cm WxDxH, weight is 4.8kg.

Preciso – It's Volumio's first standalone DAC [€799] with dual-mono ESS 9039Q2M converters for PCM 768kHz and DSD512 compatibility, volume control in 0.5dB steps across 99dB, OLED display, NOS mode, op-amp coupling, RCA/XLR analog outputs at 2/4Vrms and the usual digital inputs including I²S on HDMI. The DC input takes external 5V/2A power, the all metal remote is optional.

Fun – It's Ancient Audio's latest top-loading Lektor model in response to demand for a more affordable version. It quadruples as a CD player, USB/coax DAC, preamp with ES9038Pro volume control and even sports a coax out for pure transport mode. The spinner module is a CD-Pro8 from Stream Unlimited, the clock from TentLabs. A 2V/5V gain switch accommodates various systems. Analog outputs are on RCA exclusively. The construction is a mix of aluminium and glass.

British racing green on wood – It's Meze's new Strada [€799], a closed-back 50mm dynamic-drive over-ear headphone with magnetic ear pads and a wear weight of 330g. Sensitivity is a high 111dB/mW, impedance 40Ω.

The phantom of iDSD – It's iFi's latest multi tasker so a DAC, preamp, headfi amp and streamer all-in-one [£4'500]. Its parallel solid-state, GE5670 tube and enhanced 2nd-order THD tube paths make for three selectable core flavours. That's well before we make any of the other possible adjustments. Like Gustard's new R26II, it can decode up to DSD2'048 natively and even includes an internal resampler to perform PCM⇒DSD conversion on the fly. There's multi-stage analog bass boost, multi-stage cross feed and JVC's K2 'harmonic restoration' algorithm. Four interleaved BB DSD1793 handle conversion. Voltage gain is adjustable from 0-18dB. Amplification is by discrete class A, power 4.6wpc into 64Ω. The Volumio-collab streamer embeds all the Connect services and AirPlay2. The power supply is external so the 15V switching iPower Elite with active noise suppression from sister brand SilentPower. There's even an IR wand. As the photos show, fore and aft connectivity is extensive as befits a statement effort. Alas, the analog RCA/XLR outputs aren't simultaneously live. We chose one or the other in fixed or variable mode. Whilst the published specs don't mention WiFi or Bluetooth specifically, the antenna port on the rear suggests their presence. 10MHz clock i/o mean that the iDSD Phantom can clock another digital device with its own oscillator; or be slaved to an external master clock. Whilst the look suggests docked twin chassis, this is a one-box affair.

More for the same – It's Gustard's new R26II which upgrades the existing R26 without charging more [€1'600]. It's a 26-bit discrete ladder DAC with true hardware-based 1-bit DSD conversion capable of DSD2'048 over I²S with four menu-assignable pin configurations. It includes a proprietary streaming board co-developed with CelAudio, Bluetooth 5.1 and USB by XMOS XU216. The class A discrete low-pass outputs deliver 2.5/5Vrms on RCA/XLR respectively with 100Ω output impedance regardless. The deck measures 33x26x6.5cm WxDxH and weighs 7.3kg. Finish options are black or silver and the menu is accessed by frontal touch screen or remote. The companion top-loading CD26 transport with up to 8 x upsampling and matching 10MHz external clock input is just around the bend.

Le DAC 3 – It's Métronome's next-gen PCM768 DSD1'024 DAC in their Classic range now with dual I²S inputs and Audirvana partner certification. Conversion is by ES9026Pro and the built-in streamer supports DLNA/UPnP, Audirvana, all the Connect services from Qobuz, Spotify and Tidal, Deezer and vTuner. There's even MQA. The 1'024x600px touch screen is 7" across and max output voltage is 3Vrms on RCA or XLR. Digital inputs add coax, AES/EBU, Toslink and USB plus 1Gbps RJ45 and two USB host ports.

A Greek lover of wine and women in China – It's FangSound's 40wpc/32Ω Dionysus [~3'436], a purely analog fully discrete class AB head/preamp with RCA/XLR i/o switched by front-panel toggles, 3-stage gain plus every headphone port type known to man so dual XLR3, single XLR4, 6.3mm, 3.5mm and 4.4mm. A switching power supply for global voltage acceptance is built in.

Audacious or analytical? – From Gustard's sub brand Audalytic comes the HP70 [€349], a head/preamp with discrete 2wpc/32Ω power from a balanced discrete output stage with eight Mosfet transistors. The active preamp stage based on LME49720 runs 4-channel R2R volume. There's remote control, RCA/XLR i/o and a built-in switching power supply that can be bypassed with a 15-18VDC external PSU. Voltage gain from 0-28dB is adjustable. Finish options are black or silver.