Club Benefits
The High End audio show is on! I've been at High End Vienna for two days now, and I've seen my fair share of wildly expensive audio gear (it's called High End for a reason), including a $3.8 million speaker system.
Personally, I prefer the more attainable audio gear. With that in mind, I've rounded up a few of my favorite products from the show, from headphones to turntables. These were either launched at the show, or are fairly new and being shown off properly for the first time. Looking for the latest and greatest in audio? I've got you covered.
1. Noble Fokus Artemis
These are without doubt my favorite headphones from this year's show. I spent some time talking to Kai, Noble Audio's Director of Marketing, who ran me through these new cans.
Building on the success of Noble's Apollo over-ears, the Fokus Artemis are designed to appeal to the general user just as much as the public. "We really wanted something that was for the people," Kai said.
The drivers have been tweaked from the Apollo. In fact, there are three in each earcup: a planar magnetic driver, a dynamic driver and a balanced armature driver, to give a much wider spread of sound.
They're super comfortable, IP52-rated, feature a replaceable battery and can be tweaked with a 5-band parametric EQ via a companion app. The EQ data is also stored on the headphones, so you can theoretically delete the app and your custom EQ will still run.
The best part is that they can utilize an automatic EQ that can compensate for hearing loss. So, if you have a hearing imbalance, the EQ will automatically adjust per side to ensure the sound is balanced. Very cool.
The Fokus Artemis will cost $899 / £799 at Noble Audio and will start shipping in July.
2. Meze Arta
Another set of cans, albeit a lot more pricey: Meze Audio has launched the ARTA, which I got to try out at High End. These things are utterly exquisite — something that applies to all Meze gear, even my "budget" Meze 105 AER.
The ARTA are open-back, planar magnetic beasts that just exude luxury with their gorgeous art nouveau design. The sound profile is exceptionally clean, with as much detail as you could ask for. They're warm, though, and aren't lacking in bass when you want it.
There are a couple of issues, however. Firstly, there's the price. Top-tier Meze gear never comes cheap, and the ARTA are no exception. You'll need a cool $6,000 to get your hands on them. These cans have a very high resistance of 225-ohms, too, making them extremely tricky to drive — so add on the price of upgrading your DAC/amp.
Stay tuned to Meze's official channels for estimated shipping timelines.
3. Kanto OBI3
Alright, this one was known about before High End, but I got to see Kanto's new budget turntable, the OBI3, and even talk to the guy who designed it!
The cheap, entry-level turntable market has plenty of options, but when you dig a little deeper, you'll find that most are all the same, kinda crappy units, reskinned, rebadged and repackaged.
Kanto set out to make its own turntable for the budget market that was built by them, not someone else. It uses an Audio Technica 3600L cartridge and costs $199, meaning newcomers to vinyl can grab a turntable and a budget speaker, like Kanto's $349 YU, for around $550. Not bad.
4. Ruark R710
"The world is crying out for CD players," said Ruark's Design Manager, Jan Paoli, during the launch of the Ruark R710 media console at High End.
British high-end (but attainable) hi-fi manufacturer Ruark has been making radios and CD players for a long time, which is rather fortuitous given the (re)rising popularity of CDs right now.
The R710 is a music console, delivering 200W of power per channel and offering a wealth of connectivity options, including wireless stmreaing via Spotify Connect, Tidal Connect and Qobuz connect.
It offers hi-res streaming up to 32-bit/192kHz, features a phono stage for hooking up turntables, and is designed to be used with the new Ruark Talisman-R floor speakers — which I was treated to a demo of, and which sound utterly lovely, with a warm-but-detailed hi-fi sound.
The R710 will go on sale in September at £2,200, while the Talisman-R speakers will follow shortly afterwards in October, priced at £1,500. They'll be available in the U.S., although pricing has yet to be confirmed.
5. iFi GR2
"A Hip-Dac 3 on steroids." That's how iFi's engineers described the new iFi GR2, and it's spot on. I own an iFi Hip-Dac 3, and love it, but the GR2 is a whole different beast.
Delivering 1,513mW of power, or 2,173mW in its max power mode, the GR2 is intended to be a pocketable powerhouse for hard-to-drive headphones.
Admittedly, it probably won't power the Meze ARTA above, but otherwise there aren't many headphones it can't drive, according to the engineers.
The GR2 takes what I love about the Hip-Dac 3 — its portability and simplicity of use — beefs it up with a touch screen, and adds more power.
In addition to iFi's Xbass mode, the GR2 also has an Xspace mode, which increases the width and spaciousness of sound. It worked extremely well in the ultra-spatial "Antigravity" by Sohn.
The GR2 will cost $529, can be pre-ordered now, and is expected to start shipping in July 2026.
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