StereoNET London Hi-Fi EXPO 2026 - Highlights

The London Hi-Fi EXPO was busy, cosmopolitan, and generally excellent, with the Heathrow venue offering some great rooms, both big and small.  Here are my highlights, in no particular order!

Topping

The ElectroMod stand was a truly high-end affair, pairing the stunning A900 headphone amp with the stunning D900 DAC, which we recently reviewed here. The DX9D DAC, Pre and Head Amp looked fabulous; it replaces conventional integrated DAC chips with Topping’s self-developed 1-bit Phase Switching Reference Modulator (PSRM) architecture, using 16 discrete elements per channel.

Naim Audio & Focal

The Naim Audio room was a bit of a showstopper with New Classic 300 electronics driving the new Focal Scala Utopia EVO M.  The famed Focal Beryllium tweeter has been replaced with a new PRISM (Photon-Refined Intelligent Structured Membrane) tweeter, which is apparently just as fast.

Sound Design

The Sound Design room was stunning, featuring Grimm Audio products and an ONKK direct-drive turntable.

FiiO

The FiiO stand, shown by Advanced Players, had the FiiO K13 R2R on demo with the new FiiO Darkside power supply on the M Rack stack system.  The M Rack caught my eye as a desktop solution to my storage woes.

UNITRA

UNITRA’s excellent room, featuring the brilliant 805 amplifier, was a standout room. The Unitra WSH-805 Dual Mono Amplifier in the centre of the above picture was reviewed here. Their more affprdable 605 integrated was debuted at the show, see below.

Kerr Acoustic

One of the busiest rooms of the day was Kerr Acoustic.  Every time I went past it, it was teeming, probably because of the stunning K400 loudspeaker monitors, driven by Cyrus Electronics, in a well-treated room.

Kanto

One of the more surprising rooms was the Kanto Room, featuring their new Yu4-powered loudspeakers, which Dynamic Distribution distributes in the UK.

Canor

Another busy room was HEA’s room with Canor electronics and Triangle loudspeakers.

AIRT

An oasis in a show of rooms that were too loud, the AIRT room featured Avalon Acoustics Saga Signature loudspeakers driven by Vitus pre and power, a J Sikora Reference turntable, and extensive room treatment.

Renaissance Audio

Some of the best music I heard was in the Renaissance Audio room, where John Carroll introduced MOON’s new COMPASS range.  COMPASS is presented as a more affordable range, taking trickle-down innovations from the NORTH Collection.  John also introduced Hans Henrik from Audiovector, Geraldine from MOON, and Alex from NORDOST.  He concluded the presentation with Henri Mancini’s Pink Panther theme!

Monitor Audio

The final word goes to Monitor Audio, with their incredible £ 70000-a-pair Hyphn loudspeakers.  The pillars are made from thermoformed, machine-cut acrylic stone for an exceptionally rigid, inert cabinet.  The soundstage was exceptional, as was the clarity, with some of the most spacious cymbals I have heard in a long time. The cymbals in question were in the track Agbada Bougou by Tony Allen and Hugh Masekela in the Tidal Playlist below.  The room was also driven by Vitus Audio and featured DELA’s N1 library and S50 Switch, which is in for review here at HF&MS.

Stereonet London Hi-Fi Expo Playlist in Tidal

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