“What’s new? / How is the world treating you? / You haven’t changed a bit / Lovely as ever, I must admit”*
For me and my chosen occupation, listening is a lone endeavor guided by my choices alone in terms of what gear comes and goes. So it’s nice to get out every now and again, mingle with like-minded souls, and have a chance to hear what’s new—and what new gear people are buzzing about in the halls and bars at hifi shows.
Here’s my list of the new & noteworthy and it is admittedly not complete. My excuse is there’s only so much time in a day and I focus on things I’m interested in with an eye toward future reviews.
Ø Audio Ymir Loudspeakers
Part of the reason the new Ymir from Norway’s Ø Audio had the halls and bars abuzz is because company co-founders Jonathan Cook (left weilding an axe) and Sveinung Mala along with their US Distributor Harmonia Distribution know how to get attention in nontraditional ways like plopping a giant tree stump in the main lobby of the Renaissance Schaumburg and holding competitions, on camera, where people compete to see who can axe hammer giant nails into it the fastest. Another reason is the speakers from Ø Audio call attention to themselves is by being really good at reproducing music as you may have learned from my review of the former flagship Verdande (review).
The new Ymir ($67,000/pair) have moved into the flagship position at Ø Audio in a kinda unusual manner seeing as they are roughly the size of the Icon 12 not the larger Verdande and I’d imagine many a hifi shopper equate bigger with better when it comes to loudspeakers. But that’s only a guess seeing as I’ve never worked on the sales side of hifi and it’s important to know what you don’t know.
Essentially every aspect of the Ymir’s design from the ground on up has been refined and improved upon from the footers, to the robust cabinet construction including a 10mm stainless steel front baffle, the drivers, crossovers, and materials. I attended the press event and went get back for a longer listen and you can color me intrigued.
Jones and Ceretta Troubadour Loudspeakers
The buzz about the new Andrew Jones designed Troubadour loudspeakers ($33,900/pair) from Jones and Cerreeta had to do with two things—they are designed by Andrew Jones2. The novelty, if you will, of the Troubadour lies in the fact that it is, according to the company, the first speaker in hifi history to employ a field coil concentric driver.
Andrew Jones explained in a very easy to understand manner his design process and the difficulty of having two field coil magnets in series and his ultimate solution of implementing concentric field coils with the midrange field coil wrapped around the tweeter’s field coil. Does that make the Troubadour a quad-concentric design? I timed my visit by dumb luck and arrived just as Andrew was giving a presentation that included musical interludes and when I left the line to get into the Jones and Cerreta room ran down the hall and around the corner. That’s the magnetism of a new Andrew Jones speaker. Color me intrigued.
Ideon Audio Axiom DAC
Imagine you get into building DACs and after 35 years and a number of very well reviewed DACs under your company’s belt you decide to go all out and build a no compromise product, a statement piece with no budget constraints. This sounds like a dream come true to me but some audiophiles take issue with that last part, as if every hifi designer on the planet needs to check in with every audiophile on the planet to see how much is too much when it comes to building a statement product. And some audiophiles believe this is rational thinking. Anywho….
The Axiom DAC ($199,000) is Ideon Audio‘s new statement DAC presented in a room with Distributor 2WA Group. As you can see the Axiom is a three chassis design with a twist as they come as one piece incorporating “an extreme-performance parallel DAC architecture built around a sophisticated 16-channel hybrid conversion engine operating in a fully differential configuration,” isolation and re-clocking based on the company’s”advanced reclocking and isolation technologies…the company’s proprietary end-to-end architecture for USB audio transmission – USBCore™ and ChronoCore™ platforms,” and “2KW power supplies with massive energy reserves and exceptionally low impedance, designed to deliver instantaneous current with absolute stability.”
One thing I can tell you about the performance of the Axiom is—dead quiet, smooth, and natural. OK, that was three things.
LAiV Audio
Singapore-based LAiV Audio brought their little big under $1k guns to Axpona 2026 with the new Crescendo series of components that includes the Crescendo Verse DAC ($849 I have on In Barn for review), Crescendo BEAT Linear power supply ($TBD), and the Crescendo CHORUS ($998/each) 50W per channel (8Ω) GaN FET-based stereo amps here run as a mono pair.
Just like last Axpona, LAiV relied on a pair of PureAudioProject Duet15 Loudspeakers (starts at $6950/pair) to bring the tunes into the room along with the Volumio Rivo Plus streamer ($1499) and Kinki Studio x Vinshine Audio Taihang Power Enhancer ($1449) for a very easy to love little but big sounding system.
Dynaudio Legend Bookshelf Speakers
I have a secret–I still think about Dynaudio’s Contour Legacy Limited Edition Loudspeakers that left the Barn coming up on two years ago. When people say aural memory is short they’re talking about sounds devoid of emotion which has nothing to do with listening to music as far as I’m concerned and I still think about the Contour Legacy because I still remember how it felt to live with and listen through them.
For Axpona 2026, Dynaudio brought along the new Legend Bookshelf speakers ($7000/pair) and I’m kicking myself for not getting better photos because the Legend are in a word lovely to look at. Lovely with their “natural rosewood veneer panels selected and matched by eye, paired with Jatoba hardwood corner pieces that fit their colour tone, and assembled by hand at Dynaudio HQ in Denmark”. The driver compliment sees the famous Dynaudio 28mm Esotar 3 soft-dome tweeter paired with their proprietary MSP (magnesium silicate polymer) 15cm mid-bass driver. I will also point out the lack of a label which allows for vertical or horizontal placement without the label making one or the other look wrong. Nice. I tried to get into this room twice to sit and listen with no luck—the buzz filled the room to overflow both visits.
Western Acoustics Type 2.1 Bookshelf Loudspeaker
If it’s not yet abundantly clear, I love variety. The notion that there’s only one way to design a speaker is hooey and anyone who tells you different is blowing smoke up their own patootie. Apologies for the foul language.
From the Western Acoustics website:
Each cabinet is meticulously crafted from rigid Baltic birch, finished with maple veneer and a natural polyurethane topcoat for protection. The horn, carved from solid maple hardwood, now features a broader profile ensuring consistent, room-filling sound with natural balance. Five interchangeable grille options allow the speaker to adapt to a broad range of interiors.
The driver compliment in the 2-way Type 2.1 ($6000/pair), seen here with matching stands, pairs a horn loaded FaitalPRO HF108R 1″ compression driver with a Purifi Audio PTT6.5X04-NFA-01 6.5″ Woofer for a claimed frequency response of 39Hz-18kHz.
The Type 2.1 got their power from a lovely Accuphase e-4000 integrated amp ($13,975 lust!) with a Nagra Streamer ($5950) and Nagra Compact PSU ($3950) providing the music while I was here all tied together and power conditioned by AudioQuest. This was another easy system to fall into.
ampandsound
Justin Weber and his ampandsound company brought three new products to Axpona 2026—the Kenzie Reimagined headphone amp ($6000), Badlands Preamplifier ($12,000 pictured), and the EL-84 based Stereo 17 power amplifier ($6000).
With the exception of the Technics SL-1300G turntable, you’re looking at all ampandsound components and speakers, end-to-end including their Seneca 2-way Loudspeakers (15,000/pair) and DAC 4.4 ($14,000). Justin gave a brief talk about his approach to hifi design and it was passionate, emotional, and informative, three of my favorite things in a hifi talk. This system, as you might expect, also offered sound that was easy on the ears but long on emotional connection.
Rogue Audio M-250 Ultra Tube Monoblock Power Amplifiers
Woof! I’m a fan of PA-based Rogue Audio and have been since I reviewed their Cronus Integrated Amplifier in 2006 (and it’s still in production in an upgraded version which is part of why I love Rogue Audio). Quick math says there were attendees at Axpona 2026 who have spent less time on Earth than the Cronus.
Unflinching power, two words that come to mind when I think of Rogue and here the new M-250s ($18,995/pair) were pushing the Magnepan 2.7x panels hard, making muscular airy room-filling music. Nice.
Michel Audio Gyro Reference Turntable
What can I say. Fidelity Imports imported the new Michell Gyro Reference turntable (from $8999 w/o tonearm) for active display at Axpona 2026. I own (and love) the Gyro SE but this new and improved version sure looks temping…
Lockwood Universal Stanley 1
I admit I’m predisposed to like any speakers called “Universal Stanley” but this diminutive and colorful bookshelf from Lockwood Loudspeakers (£3799.99/pair) that sport a 5″ Lockwood point-source drive unit (coaxial) rocked this room but hard. Color me impressed.
* lyrics from “What’s New” as rendered by Frank Sinatra on Only the Lonely