The High End Munich 2025 audio show has brought its usual excellent, extravagant and extremely expensive mix of speakers, headphones and hi-fi gear this year – though 2025 also continued the show's recent trend of including more affordable options.
We've scoured the whole show floor – and its many, many side rooms – for the most interesting new releases that are the type of products TechRadar usually covers, to see which are worthy of one of our 'Best of High End Munich 2025' awards.
This means we're looking less at stereo speakers that cost five figures (though check out the Munich coverage from our friends at What Hi-Fi? for that), and more at the kind of headphones, wireless speakers and music players we usually review.
We only had five trophies to give out, so the competition was extremely tight this year, despite us focusing on newly unveiled products only; there were lots of truly excellent launches that just missed the cutoff. But here are our picks of the High End Munich winners that just pipped them to the post.
Best headphones
Meze Audio 105 Silva
Firing up these wired headphones, I was struck immediately by the intense physicality to their sound, expressed in everything from the papery rasp of vocals to the imperfect impact of a stick on a drum skin. It's all captured and expressed in the detail here, giving instruments a wonderful weight and sense of reality.
That's backed up by deep and gut-busting bass, which is magnificently controlled despite being heady, and which helps to build that feeling of real-life impact from the recorded instruments. But it's never overwhelming – the 105 Silva are really dynamic, and really sharp off the mark for transients.
These headphones have a striking design, as most Meze headphones do, and a very comfortable headband design that leads to them feeling very wearable overall – though I'll be interested to see if they get a little warm when we eventually review them, or if that was just the toasty show floor…
Are they contenders for our list of the best wired headphones? Well, I had a lovely time testing them at the show, but we'll see how they hold up again the tough competition at their likely $600/£500-ish price. They're due out later in 2025.
Best portable speaker
We Are Rewind GB-001
We said that the boombox is back when we covered the announcement of this, and whatever you call it, it's the real deal.
You've got 100W of speaker power here to play music that's connected over Bluetooth, aux-in or – most notably – from its built-in cassette deck. Yes, following We Are Rewind's first Bluetooth tape player revealed at CES this year, now we've got the logical next step.
All not-so-mod cons are here. You can record to cassettes either from the aux-in port or by connecting a microphone (but not from Bluetooth sources, alas), and there are twin VU meters on the front, and I can't tell you how much fun they are to see twitching up and up the dial as you crank up the volume.
And crank you will, because the sound is fun, crucially. I wouldn't describe it as super high fidelity, and I was listening to it in a busy public space (though this actually felt quite appropriate for this product), but there's good driving low end to fulfill your funky outdoor dancing needs, and fair clarity to vocals. It performs better with Bluetooth sources than tape, delivering a bigger dynamic range with a bit more airiness to the high frequencies, but that's no surprise.
It's also lighter than I expected, and also not as expensive you might think: for £379 (expect about $449), you could find a better-sounding option among the best Bluetooth speakers – but not, I think, a cooler one. I love it.
Best hi-res player
Astell & Kern A&ultima SP4000
The new flagship portable music player from the company that defines flagship portable music players is here. Made with a solid shell of steel that's the same grade as that used by the likes of Rolex, and a hefty weight to match, it's beautiful bit of craftsmanship.
Naturally, it's elite inside as well, packing a quad DAC setup that A&K's never managed to pull off before, despite trying hard.
A&K also said this is its first player that uses full-fat Android with access to the Google Play store and therefore any music service you want easily – but told me that it's bypassed Android's handling of high-res audio files, which apparently isn't great for maintaining their quality. Instead the SP4000's own system will keep every bit in pristine condition.
Listening on A&K's own earbuds, it certainly sounds the business – full of range, power and with a deft touch for detail.
We'll give it the full review when it releases later this year, for an unknown (but definitely mid-four-figures) price. But from what I heard, it's likely to be the new elite king of the best hi-res audio players.
Best Wi-Fi speaker
WiiM Sound
The WiiM Sound was just announced alongside a new sub and amp for WiiM's range – and it's the first time that WiiM has released a speaker that it designed itself.
WiiM's system is aiming to be a direct competitor to Sonos, but as far as speakers go, it had only worked with others in the past, putting its system into speakers from Audio Pro.
Now it's done its own thing, and it's a fun mix of the familiar and different. It's a little bigger than a Sonos Era 100, and looks slightly closer to the Apple HomePod 2 – and the speaker setup inside is just like the Sonos competitor, with two tweeters angled left and right, and a larger woofer facing forward.
But it has that round touchscreen on the front, which gives it a great look of its own, displaying artwork for the current track. Give it a tap and you unlock playback controls.
Obviously, it needed to sound good too to win this award, and I was impressed by the demo I got. There's a great thick layer of bass underpinning things like pop songs, but that felt well-heeled and controlled from my time with it. There was energy to the mid-range and vocals, and a width to the sound that should help it to fill small rooms really well.
We don't have pricing yet, but it's due out in "Q3" of 2025, so probably by October. I'm looking forward to seeing how it compares to the best wireless speakers – this really could be a danger to Sonos.
Best physical media player
Shanling EC Zero T
Portable CD players have been making a comeback as part of the retro music revival over the last few years, and I've seen several striking, square players like this recently.
But I was particularly charmed by the combination of the see-through cover and the use of dual tube amps inside the Shanling EC Zero T – another trend, where companies are seeing the value in adding a little extra analogue touch.
We've also seen tube amps in a hi-res player and directly in headphones recently. In this case, you can bypass the tube amp mode and stick with less delicate amplification if you're worried about microphonic noise when on the move.
On top of the tube amp, this has other tricks under its see-through lid. It has Bluetooth aptX HD output for the audio, it can work as a pure USB DAC using Shanling's own in-house RSR DAC, and you can run it either from its 5,500mAh battery or powered by USB in a desktop mode. There's a screen on the front to show options, and a lovely physical volume slider on the front edge.
I listened to it with Shanling's own HW600 planar headphones, which it had no problem driving (planar headphones can be rather power hungry) and the combination was great – meaty, rich, energetic and crisp.
With a price of $589 planned for its release this year, it's not as expensive as I was fearing, either. I had a blast exploring everything it could do, and enjoying that combination of an ultra-modern looking square digital music player with the tube amps tucked under a clear panel on the front.
You might also like…
- Audio-Technica's see-through turntable is so cool, it seems a shame to put your vinyl on it
- This Bluetooth travel adapter for flights lets two headphones connect for shared viewing – and can be used to stream music to your car, too
- Wharfedale's new Evo 5 speakers look perfect for music or home theater, at a price I can get behind
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