BEST PRODUCTS OF THE YEAR FOR 2025

The various products herein are simply the Best of the Best we have come to spend time with, to know, and to thoroughly enjoy. The various manufacturers, the representatives, and the distributors of the various products should, indeed, take a well deserved bow. You have brought to the market and thus to customers worldwide the benefit of being able to enjoy music as it was meant to be enjoyed, heard, appreciated, and remembered.

Many a day and a night I have spent time traveling with the electrostatic “Tardis”, as I referred to my time with the various exceptional electrostatic headphone equipment—STAX, Headamp, Dan Clark—so up close and personal and, at times, breathtaking were the journeys. Many of those very same electrostatic components are found within this issue and are listed as Breakthrough components and the Best of the Best. Each has my highest personal recommendation for enjoyment and as I have spent a great deal of time with the other headphone technologies, I cannot help but choose the electrostatic technology as my favorite, by far. Though the planar technology as brought to fruition by HIFIMAN in its Susvara headphones gets one extremely close to the electrostatic landscape and the ‘planets’ of immersion they call home.

The Grimm Audio streamers and their products are superb to a one and, again, very highly recommended. They have brought music to life like I had never imagined possible. Sure it’s great to talk about having the musicians in one’s listening room, but when their in-room palpability, their presence is truly uncanny and even others believe you’ve had over musical guests, well, there’s nothing more to say. They have proven themselves time and again and the Grimm MU2, in particular, is extraordinary in every respect! I don’t know if there’s an amount you can actually spend, at this time, to get closer to the music and yet have the music within your listening room like the Grimm Audio MU2.

Finally, there’s the amplification equipment. Well, when the ‘old school’ technology not only outperforms everything you’ve listened to and by a great margin and then goes on to undercut the price of said equipment by factors of ten, then you know you’re onto something and the something is the Atma-Sphere L-3 and S-30. I didn’t even have to listen to their top of the line products to be convinced! I got it with Atma-Sphere’s near entry-level products, which stomped on the TOTL of other products. One listen is all you’ll need.

Well, I’ve not spoken to the other products, but they’re here for a reason!