Crius H5S – It's Canor's new headfi/DAC/preamp 3-in-1 half-width component. It runs fully discrete circuitry to avoid all op amps and even shuns signal-path coupling capacitors. The gain section runs adaptive bias between class A and AB. The converter is a dual-mono ES9038Q2M. Headphone ports are on XLR4, 4.4mm, 3.5mm and 6.35mm with up to 5wpc. The display integrated into the master controller is 1.8". Digital inputs are on USB-C, coax and optical, analog i/o on RCA and XLR plus a pair of XLR bypass outputs. Finish options are black, silver and bronze. The power supply is internal. Pricing TBA.

A for Aalborg and… – … Børresen's new A range spanning the models 1-3 in satin walnut or black ash. The 5-inch mid/woofers are a new design sandwiching an aramid honeycomb core between carbon-fibre skins whilst the motors are ferrite with dual copper caps to lower inductance. The tweeter is the brand's familiar planarmagnetic operating above 2.5kHz. The bass loading is described as different from classic bass reflex to avoid resonant peaks. Once again paralleled mid/woofers become 2½-way not 3-way affairs. The A1 promises 45Hz-50kHz bandwidth with impedance above 6Ω. The A2 with its twin 5-inch drivers adds 10 cycles to 35Hz. The four-driver A3 adds another 10 cycles for an F3 of 25Hz.

Vienna 5 – The Meliá Vienna hotel is the 5th show location we've learnt of and occupied by Dali of Denmark.

Balearic convertible – Palma Audio's new DHS-10 [€1'595] continues where their DHS-1 left off. It's still a full-size over-ear headphone that can be operated open-backed or sealed by rotating the perforated end plates. There's 32Ω impedance, 107/109dB/1mW sensitivity open/closed, 3.5mm connectors and the seven different finishes shown.

225Ω – 3Hz-115kHz bandwidth. Less than 0.05% THD. 495g. Those are the basic specs for Meze's new high-impedance Arta [€6K] planarmagnetic headphone which will launch at Vienna HighEnd.

Grimmoire – It's Grimm's secret recipe for a 150W class AB monaural power amp—200W into 4Ω—called the PA1. DC-coupled input stage. Feed-forward error correction. Fully balanced. 96 small power transistors. 2nd-order feedback loop. 90'000µF capacitance. 118dB full-power S/NR. THD below 0.0001%. Bandwidth of 0.1Hz to 300kHz. Weight of 15kg. Dimensions of virtually 25cm cubed. Switchable RCA/XLR inputs. 18/26dB of voltage gain. Selectable signal sensing. Industrial design by Michiel Uylings. Wanna hook up?

2 x 8 – It's the woofage in Raidho's new X2.8 which no longer is a 2- or 2½- but proper 3-way design with the brand's signature planar tweeter and what looks like a 4" dedicated midrange plus their customary Mundorf/Nordost filtering. The F3 is a claimed 32Hz, pricing €27K for gloss black or white, €30K for the shown Walnut veneer. The marginal press release lacked further specifics. Not to be left behind in the news cycle, the TD series 1.2, 2.2 and 3.2 models get the Signature upgrade of Furutech terminals, hot-rodded filter parts, IsoAcoustics isolation footers and softer suspensions on the bass drivers. The standard finish for these models is black whilst Walnut and custom colours demand a surcharge. Per-pair pricing has been at €24/€26.5K for the TD1.2, €45/49K for the TD2.2 and €69/€75K for the TD3.2.

Dextrous Dexter – Four of 'em in fact; compliments of Marten's new Dexter range from the €20.9K/pr Duo to the €49.9K/pr Quintet, with the Trio [€32.9K] and Quartet [€42.9] holding down the middle ground. Common to all is a pure diamond tweeter and triple-layer cabinet construction. The midranges of the 3-ways and mid/woofers of the two-ways are black ceramic, hookup wiring is Jorma Duality. The bass loading of the floorstanders is a combination of bass reflex and transmission line. Available finish options are matte and gloss Walnut, gloss black and natural Oak. All four models also come in Statement Editions upgraded to Jorma Statement wiring and more upscale filter parts.

Kalista enter the stream – France's digital experts Métronome introduce DreamPlay S and SC for their luxury brand Kalista. The two-letter prefix indicates an on-board DAC, the S version is a pure streamer to feature RJ45, USB host, I²S, coax and AES/EBU ports plus stub antenna for 2.4/5GHz WiFi and multi-pin umbilical for the outboard Elektra power supply. Data compliance is 32/384 PCM and native DSD256. Supported protocols include DLNA/UPnP, Audirvana, the three Connect services for Spotify/Tidal/Qobuz, Roon Ready and vTuner. The SC adds RCA/XLR analog outputs.

4 + 1 – It's the 2-way party Storgaard & Vestskov's Astrid invites us to. Four 5" polypropylene mid/woofers run in parallel so add up to a classic line source which suffers less distance loss and propagates as a cylindrical not spherical wave. A dimpled soft-dome tweeter covers the treble, two clusters of three ports each the bass loading. Astrid stands just 6cm taller than a metre, 30cm wide and 60cm deep. Weight is 37kg, response 32Hz-20kHz ±3dB, efficiency 90dB, nominal impedance 6Ω. There are three standard satin and four standard gloss finishes which combine lacquered cabinets with two-tone anodized metal work as shown.

Vienna 4 – Hifi Deluxe, Munich's long-standing off-site show in the Marriott Hotel, reappears in the Acrotel Kaiserwasser location in Vienna this year to coincide once again with the main HighEnd show. Confirmed exhibitors include AGD, Audeze, Bayz, Davis, Grandinote, JMF, Lindemann, TotalDAC, Métronome/Kalista, Rockna, Westminster Labs and more. This is the fourth Vienna venue I've learnt of to suggest quite a splintered approach that makes it harder for press and public to see everything they want to see. One ring to rule them all? Not!

Vienna 3 – No sooner had my virtual ink dried on the Vienna 2 post that Stavros Danos of Cypriot hifi house Aries Cerat notified me of a 3rd event/location called Xclusive Audio Show. With Stavros hosting, other brands in attendance will be Aequo, Clarisys, Prodigio, Pink Faun and Shark Cables. This event also takes place from June 4-7 but in the Wolke 19 Ares Tower location "directly opposite the Vienna HighEnd building".

Vienna 2 – Before the 1st installment of the Vienna show is even underway, there's already a parallel offsite endeavour called Vienna Sound Fest. It takes place in parallel from June 4-7 in the Techgate Building, Donau-City-Straße 1. "The project was born from the lack of available space at the main venue where increasing international demand made it impossible to accommodate all participating brands. Located only a three minutes’ walk from the main exhibition, Vienna Sound Fest expands the city’s growing ecosystem of high-end audio events with a more curated, design-focused and experience-driven atmosphere." Exhibitors include Artesanía, Audionostrum, Carbide, DS Audio, Engström, Esoteric/Teac, Kroma, Kuzma, Marten, Pilium, Taiko, Tannoy, Vinnie Rossi, Wadax, YG Acoustics, Ypsilon and more.

Party like it's 1961 – Then French inventors Georges Gogny and Georges Poutut created a flat-panel polystyrene driver called Ortophase. Soon forgotten in the mists of audio Avalon, many decades later Frenchman Thierry Cirot rediscovered it, acquired 20 raw drive units and between 2013-2017 managed to reverse-engineer and resurrect the technology. In Hong Kong meanwhile, Wango Lee had heard an original Ortophase system in his youth and never forgotten the experience. In 2021 he learnt of Thierry's work online. Today the Thierry & Wango Audio brand is dedicated to a modern interpretation of this technology assisted by owning an original 32-cell 1960's Ortophase cabinet. Their modern open-baffle hence dipole line-source V12.1 stacks twelve 1.5g/ea. full-range planar membranes in a crossover-less vertical array which claims 5Hz-40kHz response at ±3dB. It reads like the ultimate widebander but adds cylindrical wave propagation for reduced room interaction and distance loss. Unlike other planar drivers say Manger, Ortophase requires no LF assist from dynamic drivers; nor a mix of planar units for different frequency bands patched together by an electrical filter. One multi-paralleled driver does it all, hence V12.1.

Hubba hubba – Reiki Audio launch the new SuperHub, "a 7-port version of our 2-port SuperSwitch"; and the OpticalBridge X gaining "the same 10mm milled case and footer options as the SuperSwitch X and Pro X. Its FMC circuitry is new and notably quieter and we sourced SFP audibly quieter than those used previously. All these factors add up to a substantial performance improvement over the original. Available to order now, with shipments commencing early August."

Not chromium dioxide but polycarbonate – Famous for their open-reel decks, Revox now serve up silver discs with their Studiomaster CD100  [€1'895], a black, white or silver slot-loading CD player with coax and Toslink digital outs plus standard RCA analog sockets. Measuring 88x200x342mm HxWxD and weighing 3kg, this half-width component runs BB PCM1796 conversion silicon and accepts global 100-240V AC to suggest a switching power supply. The RJ45 socket called CD-Link Joy can connect to other Revox components like their M300 or M500 receivers.

Raidho's passive aggro – Aggrandizement not aggression is the word for their new X.1.6 Reference [€10K] which, taking a page from the recent ScanSonic book, replaces port with passive radiator for maximal bandwidth from a compact monitor. To further level up to the Ref suffix, the crossover goes Mundorf and Nordost Valhalla. Yousa.

Magic wand? – It might be the 12" Dark-Light tonearm [€8.9K] from New Zealand's Wand. It's 308.8mm long, 700g heavy, with an effective mass of just 17g and a mounting distance of 295.6mm though two other options are available. From designer Simon Brown: "As arm length increases, so too does the diameter of the tube toward the pivot, producing greater stiffness rather than the expected loss of rigidity. The larger rear section enables a greater internal brass mass, lowering the centre of gravity and acting as a virtual sink for vibrational energy. Our ZeroPoint™ diamond-on-carbide bearing maintains consistent contact under load. The natural drag of the stylus creates a force vector that biases the contact point, aligning it broadly with the stylus cantilever. This reduces microscopic instability and improves both detail retrieval and bass clarity. Supporting this, the Side-Glide™ bearing provides gentle lateral stabilisation, ensuring controlled motion without introducing additional friction."

Tapped out – 4'000'000 taps is what Chord's new two-box Quartet upscaler [£25K] promises to do for hardware not convolution-based resampling. This operates across 5 x Xilinx FPGA to amass the required computing power. It's also tapped for a 108-bit ten-shelf lossless digital EQ of ±18dB range. A pulse-array A/D converter even allows vinyl and tape to this upscaling party. The shown Choral Ensemble stand adds £1'595 per tier.

Global Collab N°1 – It's not a new perfume by movie or sports celebs. It's a sound-only podcast between Andrew Hutchison of Aussie platform Not an Audiophile; former moonie Edgar Kramer now helming SoundStage Australia; and yours truly. We're chewing the fat and giving you the skinny on some well-seasoned thoughts about this hobby which each of us has pursued for decades already. If enough of you tune in, we just might do another one down the road…

YMCA? – Not exactly. It's the YBA Design One billed as a "transportable" so not portable SACD player [€1'848] which runs on two 21700 batteries. This top loader with magnetic disc clamp combines Sanyo's HD850 laser with MediaTek's MT1389EE on-chip servo controller and AKM's AK4497S conversion chip. Discrete balanced headphone drive delivers up to 1.65wpc into 32Ω and volume is scalable over 100 steps. A rear-mounted 4.4mm and standard RCA outputs in fixed or variable mode can connect to active speakers or power amps. Coaxial and USB-C digital outputs can link to a high-end DAC whilst the internal DAC can also link to a computer via USB-C and process 32/768PCM and DSD512. A magnetically attached protector can cover all the rear connectors when used in 3.5/4.4mm headfi mode. A USB-C power link with 9V/3A PD3.0 allows not only for faster charging but can provide external power for max output voltage. The deck measures 188 x 160 x 40mm and weighs 1.34kg. The line-outs deliver 2.6/5.2V RCA/4.4mm. Battery life is said to reach 5.5 hours per session. The 428x142px display is 2.79" and controls are hardware buttons and customizable mechanical switches. YBA is a French-designed brand built by China's Shanling.

Switch on your muons – You can with Network Acoustics' new statement Muon² LAN distributor aka Ethernet switch [€8K] featuring 5 x high-speed 2.5Gb RJ45 copper ports and one 10Gb SFP fibre-optic jack. The entire chassis is precision milled from solid Beech wood by German speaker house Auer Acoustics of tankwood fame. The built-in power supply is a hybrid of switching and linear halves. More resonance control comes from new Pyramid Isolators machined from hardened silicate minerals. Finish options are high-gloss metallic black or silver.

Klein is fine – Small stands tall is the motto of Fyne's new Cubitt 5 [€649/pr], an active bookshelf speaker based on a 5" dual-concentric driver powered by 240 watts preceded by 24/96 signal processing. Access is via Bluetooth 5.0 with aptX HD/AAC, a built-in phono stage, HDMI/eARC for TV, line-level analog and Toslink digital. For more bass there's a subwoofer output. A rear-docking IR remote handles volume control and source switching. The speaker is available in the five shown finishes.

Watch for the submerged iceberg of noise – It's the Tidal Axis [£300] from Northern Ireland's Titanic Audio, a 5-layer energy-control turntable mat of 12" diameter. It combines a "high-density structural polymer, 3M constrained viscolastic and hexagonal dissipation profiles" and can be applied with either side up for a different mechanical tuning. As an add-on, Titanic recommend their Newton record clamp.

Cambridge not the city – Having rebranded to Cambridge without the Audio, more novelty from the electronics brand is their new range of active loudspeakers in six colourways so gloss white, blue, green, yellow, black and Walnut veneer. The smallest of the three models is the shown L/R S [€499/pr, veneer adds €50], a classic rear-ported 3-inch 2-way in master/slave config but with still individual amps per driver. Two toggle switches handle bass tuning and the remote adds access to three response curves for normal, movie and voice. Connectivity is over aptX HD wireless or USB-C, Toslink and RCA analog. A sub output offers extra bass fun. The connection between the left/right channel speakers is via 4-pole 2m cable. A 5m option is coming. Claimed response is -3dB/55Hz and there's an optional ABS desktop wedge to tilt the speaker back but no networking. For those who want bigger and networking, the LR/ M [€1'300/pr] grows the mid/woofer to two 4" units (one down-firing) and adds lateral 4.75" passive radiators with a 5m USB-C to USB-C cable connection for 40Hz reach, the L/R X [€1'999/pr] grows the lot to twin 5" and twin 6" respectively whilst claiming -3dB/35Hz. Both bigger models offer a touch-panel strip on the top.