HIGH END 2025: The Definitive Insider Report On Luxury, Innovation, And Audiophile Excellence
A timely guide to cutting-edge audio innovations at HIGH END 2025 in Munich.
HIGH END 2025 Audiophile Show Report By Jason Kennedy

Those with good memories might recall that Nakamichi once made a turntable that used motors to compensate for eccentricities in vinyl pressings. The new soulution 787 turntable is about as close an example to the legacy Nakamichi that I can think of. Soulution's first turntable, their new 787 (€75,000), is a parallel tracker where the 8" tonearm remains almost rigid and the platter moves beneath it.

There is a tiny amount of play in the tonearm to allow for eccentric discs, though otherwise it stays in place while a motor powers the POM platter beneath the vinyl. It's an extreme solution (no pun intended), though one that resulted in some unusually wide dynamic range and an ease of presentation that is rare with vinyl LP playback.

Xact is the hardware brand of JPlay creator Marcin Ostapowicz. Last year, he introduced the Xact S1 streamer (one of the best I have tried), and this time around, we saw the Xact N1 network switch (€6,000). This is a ground-up design with a custom motherboard, OCXO clock, and fully isolated ports with separate clocking and grounding.

It has four standard LAN ports, one galvanically isolated port, and one SFP. Power is provided by the Optimo linear supply. The Xact S1 and N1 were part of a system largely made up of Thrax electronics and loudspeakers that produced an extremely precise, tight, and fast sound. Albeit one that avoided being hard-edged with Gil Evan's beautiful La Nevada.

Last year, attendees at HIGH END 2024 didn't see Silbatone and its founder Michael Chung and his preferred vintage Western Electric theatre horns because Chung was busy opening his classic audio museum in Seoul. This year, Silbatone was back in a new room with a pair of 1935 Western Electric Wide Range 22B midrange 'snail' horns atop huge bass horns driven by TA4181 18-inch bass drivers.

Higher frequencies were produced by 597A horn-loaded compression drivers. The sound was presented with ease and a very wide dynamic range, as you'd expect from something with incredibly high sensitivity. While not, perhaps, as 'accurate' as modern loudspeakers, these vintage Western Electric hornspeakers and modern Silbatone vacuum tube amplification provided a very special experience and proved very popular with visitors.

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