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Ride of the Valve‑kyries: VTL Unleashes the Lohengrin

Twelve years after VTL released its Siegfried Reference monoblock, the California‑based company is poised to launch its little brother, the Lohengrin Reference monoblock ($100,000/pair). Smaller though it may be, with fewer tubes and less power, VTL says that Lohengrin amounts to "a new benchmark for musicality and realism."

The Lohengrin, which should start shipping in the fall, has an eight‑tube output stage that delivers 400Wpc and sports the same driver stages and power supply as the Siegfried. Output impedance is lower, "reducing the necessary step‑down to the loudspeaker…

Exhausted? Fighting a Cold? Try a Dose of Burmester

At High End Munich, Burmester launched an entirely new Reference system—except for the BC150 Reference speakers ($218,000/pair). Debuts included the Reference 249 modular preamp ($55,000) with optional MC phono stage ($5000) and DAC ($10,000); the 257 turntable ($55,000) complete with an arm, cartridge, and a sensor that constantly adjusts speed; and the 259 stereo amplifier ($90,000, bridgeable to mono).

Together, these new Reference components delivered impressively tight and solid sound. The system threw a terrifically involving soundstage on Agnes Obel's "Stretch Your Eyes…

MBL Seeks Investors After Filing for Insolvency

High-end speaker and audio electronics maker MBL—best known for its groundbreaking Radialstrahler loudspeakers—has hit a financial rough patch. The Berlin-based company filed for insolvency on May 27, 2025, and is now actively seeking investors.

The court tapped restructuring expert Frank Brachwitz of PLUTA Rechtsanwalts GmbH as provisional insolvency administrator. MBL says it's business as usual: manufacturing and sales are ongoing, and the roughly 50 employees across its two German locations are still getting paid thanks to Germany's insolvency fund. MBL's U.S. branch isn't affected…

Wave of the Future? Innuos Nazaré Hits Munich

As I type these words, an Innuos Nazaré music server/streamer ($50,000) with 8TB of internal storage is en route to my home in Port Townsend for review. The Portuguese company's new flagship, named after the deepwater canyon off the coast of Nazaré that generates some of the world's largest waves, made its official debut at this year's High End Munich. The unit is expected to begin shipping in September.

According to the press release, Nazaré features a deeply customized PreciseAudio mainboard with new PreciseUSB and PreciseNET boards, each independently powered and directly…

Comments Retired, Letters Welcome: We’re All Ears

Dear readers,

Thank you for being an engaged part of the Stereophile community. We have retired the in-page commenting feature on our website, but we still want to hear from you.

Please email your thoughts, questions, and system notes to: STletters@stereophile.com

Selected letters will continue to appear in the magazine and online. Your feedback shapes our reporting and reviews. We appreciate every note you send.

—The Stereophile team

KLH Model Seven: a 13" Woofer in a Standmount, and a Design That Still Sings

The reborn US brand KLH debuted its Model Seven loudspeaker ($5998/pair) at High End Munich, proclaiming it the first of its kind: an acoustic suspension speaker with a 13" woofer.

KLH and acoustic suspension designs go hand in hand. Co-founder Henry Kloss helped introduce the concept in the mid-50s and established KLH in 1957. The key principle is to use the spring effect of air in a sealed cabinet to control the woofer's movement.

Although the Model Seven was shown as a prototype at AXPONA 2023, what I heard in Munich is the finished, ready-to-ship iteration.

Weighing in…

Revinylization #66: Queen Irma Thomas and New Orleans band Galactic

Photo By Katie Sikora.

In 2010, the funky-eclectic New Orleans band Galactic—known today as much for being the owners of the city's storied Tipitina's club as for their music—cut their song "Heart of Steel" with singer Irma Thomas for their album, Ya-Ka-May. The band noticed that Thomas soon included the same tune in the sets that she played with her band. In 2022, Galactic decided to revisit the Thomas connection and came up with the idea of collaborating with her on an entire album of new music.

Thomas, now 84, cut her first single, "Don't Mess with My Man," for New Orleans–…

Brilliant Corners #28: The McIntosh MC225 and Jerome Sabbagh's Analog Tone Factory

There are things that make me feel so unpleasantly lightheaded that some days I worry my cranium might float away like a helium balloon. Like baby animals generated by AI that I can no longer distinguish from real ones. Skin care for tweens. Headlines about American politics that read like headlines about Turkmenistan. The music of Charli XCX.

And being middle aged. Even the term is a con. At 54, I'm not in the middle of anything, and given the way my back feels in the mornings, the thought of living to 108 fills me with terror. There are things about this stage of life that arrive…

Brilliant Corners #28: The McIntosh MC225 and Jerome Sabbagh's Analog Tone Factory Page 2

This may sound like a small thing that I'm inflating into a larger one, or even a case of audio-reviewer sophistry, but I'm beginning to think this may be the most important thing there is to discuss about a hi-fi component. Many of us equate peak listening experiences with peak sound. This suggests that nothing short of a mind-blowing hi-fi can reliably hold our attention, which if you think about it for even a moment is a pretty miserable predicament. So anything that allows a reprieve from the endless tweaking, optimizing, fussing, and comparing—activities that sometimes occupy more of our…

Audio Note AN-E/SPx Ltd. Field Coil loudspeaker

Stemming from the foundation of Kondo Audio Note of Japan, Peter Qvortrup's Audio Note UK is, for many, a custodian of the definitive audio heritage. The debut of each Audio Note piece sparks obsession among adherents—ardor that outstrips mere fandom.

My first high-end purchase, in the mid-1990s, was from none other than Spin Doctor Michael Trei, who at the time was a dealer for Audio Note UK. (His partner in that venture was another Stereophile columnist, Herb Reichert.) The component was the Audio Note M2 Preamplifier. That exceptional piece was so dynamic and revealing that rolling its…