In ancient Greek, telos was τέλος. It signified goal or aim. In philosophy, rhetoric and law, it still implies ultimate purpose and rationale. Finally, Telos in modern Swiss is an amplifier range within Goldmund's catalogue. The Telos 360 replaces the Telos 250+ and 350+. Both were 300-watt monaural power amp models with a ±3dB bandwidth of 0Hz to 3MHz. This thematic of mid-frequency RF reach is central to Goldmund's philosophy. It's their key to banish time distortion aka phase shift in the audible band*. Based on a 30+-year old Tektronix scope circuit, Goldmund have constantly refined their take on it over many successive generations. Even their direct-sales budget Job amps benefit from it. Those are simply at least three generations removed. The mighty twin peaks of Mount Telos used to be the 5000 monos shown. In a strictly limited collector's edition, only 20 pairs of those were made and duly pre-sold. The subsequent 3500+ replacement is still current. It commands just shy of €300'000/pr and outputs a Herculean 3'500 watts into 2Ω. That's fronted by a massive 12-transformer power supply. At 180kg, those beasts then have the gall to break your designer bath-room scales, both his and hers. But play these leagues and you can certainly afford new scales; or equivalent amps from Boulder, FM Acoustics, Kondo, Naim and Wavac. That's the only excuse at snarky we'll allow ourselves. At ~€40'000/pr, today's assignment still covers luxury turf if not quite as extreme. The Telos 360 twins are dedicated to a few more of the fortunate few who have the means and necessary desire to pursue such elite gear when there's one less zero squeezing the wallet and one less zero pegging the 8Ω power meter. South Korea is Goldmund's #1 export market. Many prospective Telos 360 owners will thus make their homes there. Hwanho!


First whispers of Telos 360 gravitas reached me from Rainer Weber and Jürgen Kaiser, designer and owner of Kaiser Acoustics respectively. They'd stopped by after having departed Goldmund's Geneva facility for their trip back to Germany. Particularly Rainer was still giving off a veritable glow after having heard their top speaker on the new Swiss amps. Being scheduled to eventually review the very demonstrator pair of Kawero! Classics they'd left in Geneva, I was set to hear the same combo when Goldmund's Rodolphe Boulanger announced joint car delivery of amps and speakers. I faintly remembered a Japanese poem. It had a gnarly very stiff tree. That stubborn creature resisted bending to a powerful storm god and snapped. Be ye most supple, grasshopper. Figuring better safe than sorry, I took a sly swig of freshly squeezed Supple juice. Done. Now I was ready to play the luxury leagues for a few weeks before coming back down to familiar terra firma. But as the Borg did say, resistance is futile!

The peanut galleries luv to boo reviews of expensive kit. More or less explicitly, their displeasure insinuates that its punters are nothing but fleeced ignorants, their writers evil shills. Or perhaps that it makes the booers themselves feel like lower-class consumers who must vent their ego's pain. And it's true. When coverage of such gear dominates any publication not titled 'Ultimate Audio' or 'The Robb Report', its core readership might feel abused - titillated without ever getting any.


Yet when such coverage is a mere part of a broader mix of price points and interest angles, it's in many ways incumbent upon the reviewing team to learn what's possible. Many booers accept that. Their real issue is with exclusivity for exclusivity's sake (bling as weight, size and gold-plated details); and how one can't extricate the majority of bling bits from the performance equation. Minus the shiny plaque, would the same circuit perform likewise in a far more basic casing? With a less overkill power supply?


Only the original engineers know. That's a problem for real men. They can't trust anyone. If they won't know for sure from the comfort of their cushy armchairs (and they can't!), it all turns into license to speculate ill-mannered on the forums where it is duly misrepresented as well-informed fact.

Discontinued Telos 500 whose mechanically decoupled heat sink still occupied the rear panel.