The Bristol Hi-Fi Show may not have "High End" in the title like a certain Munich-based event set to happen in May, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a wealth of awesome, premium audio hardware to check out at the expo.
In fact, myself and the wider team of top-end hi-fi hunters at What Hi-Fi? has already earmarked three Temptation level products set to appear at the show that we haven't had a chance to see or hear in the flesh yet.
Here’s what you need to know about them.
1. The Wilson Benesch Horizon
We first covered the Wilson Benesch Horizon floorstanding speakers in January, where they immediately caught many hi-fi fans' attention.
First, because they sit in the same Fibonacci Series of loudspeakers as the A.C.T. 3Zero and Discovery 3Zero, which both earned a perfect five-star rating from our testers when we got them in for the full What Hi-Fi? review treatment.
Second because they’re technically interesting beasts featuring a wealth of proprietary hardware, including Tactic 3.0 drivers and a Fibonacci Tweeter, which the company claims will let them deliver "extraordinary clarity, speed and detail across the frequency spectrum".
The Bristol Hi-Fi Show is the first time we’ll have the opportunity to check them out in the flesh, with the company running demos throughout the event.
2. The Devialet Astra
Devialet is an interesting company, with a strong record for creating beautiful looking and sounding high end hi-fi that started all the way back in 2012, when we tested its D-Premier amp and gleefully reported:
“It's like nothing we've seen before, but in terms of sonic ability, the Devialet D-Premier is an incredible performer”.
Which is why we’re super excited that we’ll get the chance to have a first look at its new Devialet Astra streaming amplifier at the Bristol Hi-Fi Show this year. Set to retail for $20,000 the unit boasts 600W of power and all the streaming support you’d expect in 2025.
We haven’t gotten full details what speakers the amp will be paired with at the demo, but we can’t wait to find out and get an early listen to the Astra at the show.
3. The Rotel Michi Q5 CD
Though it was announced all the way back in September last year, the Bristol Hi-Fi Show 2025 will be our first chance to see the Rotel Michi Q5 CD in the wild.
Rotel markets the unit as a “Transport DAC” but it’s essentially a CD player with digital inputs and high resolution file playback that sits in the same family as the X3 and X5 Series 2 integrated amplifiers, which first appeared in 2023.
The flexibility to play CDs, or high resolution files is awesome, but the unit also packs some impressive hardware under the hood. This is headlined by eight-channel ESS ES9028PRO DAC that’s been specially configured so that its channels are split equally between the left and right audio signal paths. This will apparently help it deliver "extraordinary detail retrieval" and a much wider soundstage.
We’ll be curious to check it out at Bristol where the £5499 / $6999 / €5999 spinner will be on show.
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