It’s typical of this time of year to be retrospective: to look back on the highs and lows of the past 12 months and to pick and (social) post our favourite albums, movies and cultural moments. But it is just as inviting to look forward and, now that the bulk of Christmas Day planning is (hopefully) in the rearview mirror, past the 2024 threshold – whether that's to any anniversaries, planned holidays or new fitness goals. Or, if you are a What Hi-Fi? reviewer anyway, to the most exciting products you are going to be spending time with over the coming months.
Indeed, our hi-fi and home cinema editors have already lined up weeks of newly announced kit for the test team to sink their teeth into after the Christmas break and beyond, and bolstering that lineup will almost certainly be highly anticipated products due to break cover at CES 2025. There’s lots for us – and you, readers – to look forward to…
Technics SL-1300G turntable
Let’s kick off with a biggie that has just arrived at our testing facility and will be one of the first products our test team tackles in January: the latest direct-drive turntable from Technics that sits above the fourth-gen SL-1200GR2 we called “a joy” last year to take its place as the top-tier model in the company’s Grand Class series.
Announced in September at IFA 2024, the SL-1300G will be the testbed for Technics’ Delta Sigma Drive (ΔΣ-Drive) motor control software, which has been developed here to reduce the tiny vibrations inherent in a direct-drive motor design from affecting rotational accuracy. That isn’t the only on-paper highlight, either, with an advanced version of the brand’s staple iron core-less motor, a heavier three-layer platter and a new power supply all coming together to whet our appetite for possibly more Technics greatness. Watch this space in January, folks.
Ruark Sabre-R speakers
Ever since Ruark told us about its planned return to the speaker market, and especially once its Sabre-R speakers and R610 system had indeed been revealed in September, we have been eager to welcome the British company’s latest head-turners to our test rooms.
The Sabre-R, in particular, are certainly high on our reviewing wishlist considering it has been 20 years since Ruark wound down its once-formidable speaker business to concentrate on the radio and music systems that began flourishing in the early noughties. They certainly look the part, and we can only hope they sound it too. Time will tell.
Austrian Audio Full Score One headphone amplifier
Austrian Audio has been the statement newcomer in the headphone market in recent years (for the uninitiated, the company is made up of ex-AKG employees, so the engineering foundation is strong), and while our first tastes of their compelling sonics came via a handful of budget-to-mid-range over-ear headphones, in April we saw it was just as capable in the higher-end space with the “excellent” and “beautiful” The Composer.
The Full Score One is the Vienna-based brand’s debut headphone amplifier and a match for The Composer (and, naturally, other aspirational headphones). Austrian Audio says it was designed to be just as suitable for use at home as it is in high-end studio settings, and that it can handle low-impedance headphones down to 10 ohms as well as high-impedance pairs up to 600 ohms. Could it even be the duo’s ‘better half’? Our full review will go live in January.
Sony WH-1000XM6 wireless headphones
Plenty of high-profile products are expected to launch in 2025, including a third-generation AirPods Pro, a new Apple 4K TV and, dare we say it, a lossless Spotify tier, but top of the anticipation pile are Sony’s next flagship wireless headphones. And when they arrive, we will naturally be one of the first publications to receive a sample and publish a full review.
They will almost certainly be called the WH-1000XM6 (following the naming tradition set in 2017 by the WH-1000XM2) and will replace the current WH-1000XM5. Why the excitement? Because the XM5 remain the best-value noise-cancelling over-ears on the market, and we are as ever excited by the prospect of the benchmark potentially being lifted once more.
Bowers & Wilkins, Sennheiser and Bose have recently come closer than ever to knocking Sony’s WH-1000X model off their perch, so we’re expecting Sony to want to pull away again by squeezing out more performance and, who knows, even filling the gaps in their feature set by offering spatial audio with head-tracking for the first time. aptX support and a more premium design are on our Sony WH-1000XM6 wishlist, too.
VPI Forever Series Model One turntable
VPI has recently introduced a new Forever Series of spinners that, as hinted in the name, sport modular designs that can be upgraded over time. The first turntable in it is the Model One, which is on its way to What Hi-Fi?, ready to spin the new records our reviewers will receive from Santa.
So in addition to (we hope) more of VPI’s performance goodness (its Prime 21+ remains one of our favourite high-end record players), you get the added versatility and future-proofing not many designs offer. VPI says the Forever Series is a ‘platform’ you can work within, allowing certain parts such as the motor drive and platter module not only to be swapped out, serviced and adjusted but also upgraded to Model Two or Model Three specifications when those turntables are released.
Esoteric F-01 integrated amplifier
In March, the K-05XD SACD/CD player came into our test rooms as the first Esoteric product we had heard in years, and it left it with a five-star review and a verdict that read: "Without doubt one of the world’s finest SACD/CD disc spinners." It later received a What Hi-Fi? Award as our favourite Temptation (read: high-end) product we had heard in 2024, too. So you can imagine our haste to review another of the high-end Japanese company’s products, and despite its catalogue featuring, perhaps surprisingly, a handful or so more CD spinners, we’ve gone for something from another part of its eclectic electronics lineup.
What has now arrived at our testing facility, ready to go 12 rounds with our reviews team in the new year, is the F-01, a 30-watt per channel (into eight ohms) Class A amplifier and the superior of two integrateds Esoteric makes. Released around a year ago, the F-01 benefits from the preamp and power amp developments of the company’s flagship Grandioso X Edition designs and is, says Esoteric, the “finest” example of its kind.
B&W Zeppelin Pro Edition wireless speaker
The launch of any addition to arguably the most iconic wireless speaker of the past 20 years is going to prick up our hi-fi editor’s ears – not least one with ‘Pro’ in the name. Indeed, Bowers & Wilkins’ ‘Pro Edition’ Zeppelin will no doubt be winging its way to What Hi-Fi? Towers sometime in early 2025, keen to show our test team how it has improved upon the previous model we reviewed three years ago and called “talented sonically”.
Our only bugbear with that 2021 Zeppelin release was a few holes in the feature set, but the new Pro doesn't appear to share that shortcoming, with streaming features that include AirPlay 2, Spotify Connect, aptX Adaptive Bluetooth and the like. Will the Zeppelin Pro Edition be the first in six years to fly higher than the class-leading Naim Mu-so Qb 2nd Generation at this premium price point? We wouldn’t bet against it.
PMC Prophecy speakers
Announced just a few weeks ago, this is another speaker series we hope to take delivery of in the new year. Like the impressive Prodigy range it sits above, PMC’s new Prophecy lineup is stereo- and surround sound-friendly and, of course, another transmission-line design from the British company. (For the uninitiated, this design essentially sees the bass unit’s rearward output being sent along an internal path that absorbs it and uses it to enhance the drivers’ forward output.)
This time, however, that staple transmission-line technology has been significantly honed, as has PMC’s Laminair vent technology. Those supposedly substantial refinements are complemented by all-new drivers across the board. There’s even an interesting-looking flower-shaped waveguide for the midrange cone in the two larger three-way floorstanders.
While we can’t prophesise a verdict, considering how many PMC models have impressed us of late, our hopes here are certainly high.
ProAc Response D20R speakers
It isn’t just brand-new products that we are looking forward to testing next year either. Even though we at What Hi-Fi? review over 150 products every year (and see and hear even more), we sadly can’t review everything on the market! But if something we haven’t been able to review hangs around for a while and becomes successful, it’s likely to pique our interest in its later years. ProAc’s D20R speakers, for example, have been around for a decade and are the company’s best sellers – but we have never reviewed them.
Now that we have them in our testing facility, we will right that wrong early next year. Their price puts them in the firing line of the Spendor A7 that have won multiple What Hi-Fi? Awards, so it’ll certainly be interesting to hear how they fare. We certainly liked the Response D30R when we reviewed them 10 years ago, not to mention plenty of other ProAc models since.
LG C5 OLED TV
LG’s latest C-series OLED TV has become one of – if not the – most anticipated TVs of the year, such has been its consistent success in recent times. The mid-ranger won three of six 2024 What Hi-Fi? TV Awards in its C4 guise this year, so 2025’s successor, which will almost certainly be called the C5, will no doubt look to build on that success – and get one over on Sony’s Bravia rival, which took our most prestigious TV Award (Product of the year) a few months ago.
Micro Lens Array panel treatment and enhanced audio performance are two of the things we want to see from the LG C5 – they would both make the TV a more compelling option in the mid-range OLED market. We should find out what improvements LG has made at CES 2025 in January, although it isn’t until next year’s TVs go on sale around March/April that review samples are sent by manufacturers to AV journalists, so our full review will likely be a few months away still.
Sony Bravia 10 Mini LED TV
Sony surprised us in 2024, choosing not to launch a full new range of TVs headlined by an advanced OLED model, instead releasing only a trio of new sets top-most of which was a Mini LED model called the Bravia 9 (pictured). The flagship was mostly a good surprise – our TV testers called its dazzling brightness and vibrant colours “sensational,” but the fact that Sony’s Bravia 8 OLED was cheaper and actually superior in some aspects of picture quality was the barrier to it getting a five-star rating.
“We're certainly not writing off Sony's new Mini LED backlighting system, as a second-generation version could be truly brilliant,” concludes our Bravia 9 review. We don’t know for certain whether a next-gen Bravia (10) with a second-gen Mini LED system will surface, but if it does, as we think likely, our TV editor Tom Parsons thinks it has the potential to be the TV of the year.
Samsung S95F QD-OLED TV
As with the Sony and LG TVs above, we expect a new Samsung flagship model to surface next year due to the consistent annual refreshes of such TVs, but it hasn’t been confirmed and its model name has only been rumoured. Still, we do have rumours from reliable sources about Samsung’s 2025 flagship S95F, which would be the successor to the superb S95D of 2024 (pictured).
Unsurprisingly, they point to it being another QD-OLED so we can expect more “phenomenal brightness, contrast and colour”, although there could be two surprises: one good and one… not so good. The good news is that the flagship could be extending its size range to 83 inches, but on the flip side are rumours suggesting the model could be subject to Samsung’s ‘OLED panel lottery’ system, which essentially sees one of two panels being used for the same model, with the panel going unspecified.
We await Samsung’s typical TV announcement at CES 2025 next month mostly with anticipation for another fantastic TV but also a sprinkle of trepidation, then.
Fyne F500E speakers
Another two new arrivals at What Hi-Fi? that we cannot wait to crack on with are brand-new speakers – the F5E standmounts and 501E floorstanders from Fyne Audio’s recently announced F500E range. We are always excited by the prospect of good affordable hi-fi, and both models sit on the three-figure price spectrum. Surprising for that price is that their design is built around Fyne’s IsoFlare point source driver, which sees a tweeter placed in the throat of a mid/bass unit and has proven benefits over conventional configurations, such as even dispersion and better time alignment between the two drivers. It was once the preserve of the Scottish company’s premium speakers, but now the trickling-down of the technology means that all of the brand’s current speakers now feature IsoFlare drivers.
The range’s third and fourth models are centre channels, but let’s see how the range fares as hi-fi speakers before we get into their home cinema application.
Dali Epikore 3 speakers
In October, Dali finally took its high-end Epikore offering – which since the High End Munich show in May 2023 had only one member, the Epikore 11 floorstanders – from solo to series status with the launch of two more towers and a standmount. The latter is ready and waiting to be reviewed when our test team gets back from the Christmas break, and should hopefully continue the Danish speaker family’s impressive run of late, most recently carried by the mid-ranging Rubikore 2.
Unlike the Rubikore 2, this higher-ranging standmount sports the same new Evo-K hybrid tweeter module derived from the flagship Kore, marrying that with an 18cm mid/bass paper and wood fibre cone it shares with the range’s Epikore 7 tower.
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