NDHT Norddeutsche HiFi-Tage 2026

Ever since the announced exodus of the prestigious High End trade fair from Munich’s MOC Event Center to its auspiciously more central European location in Vienna in 2026, the Norddeutsche HiFi-Tage has advanced to become the premier event of the industry in Germany. For the first time this year, an admission fee of €15 per visitor was charged.

Times have become more difficult for the HiFi community and for the manufacturers who are dedicated to it. Europe's formerly affluent middle class has been literally bled dry in favor of privileged interest groups sporting libertarian market ideals. In many cases, the fabulous capital gains of recent years have been diverted to global tax havens, bypassing all member states, and the distribution of financial resources has not been as noticeably unequal as it is today in a long time. The government's focus on shareholder value is likely to be a short-term success. 

But a lot is also happening technologically. The formerly influential HiFi press is seeing ever-increasing noise from self-aggrandising YouTube influencers who are arguably causing more harm than good to the industry in their short time of ascent. Let's put it this way: If you want to get sick of a person or subject, follow them on social media. Then the magic will fade quickly. Because in our real “offline” world of goods and services, quality and stability are still based on long-term commitment to the cause, and this is noticeably lacking in the algorithm-based media. The increasing use of AI also brings the question of meaning in digital media into the spotlight.

This makes the opportunity to talk to manufacturers in person at events such as the Norddeutsche HiFi-Tage all the more welcome and beneficial. Looking at the long list of prestigious 2026 exhibitors a few days before the fair, I decided to focus my attention primarily on those I had missed in the past three years. And since I didn't want to visit the trade fair alone, I asked my HiFi friend and ambitious speaker cable designer, Matthias, to accompany me. This was particularly interesting because Matthias brought two new cable prototypes with him in his suitcase when he arrived at our place in Marne.

Matthias took a renewed interest in speaker cable design since he switched from his omnidirectional Duevel Bella Luna to the Jupiter series speakers built by the same company. Although he had experimented with cable designs before, the Jupiter were Duevel's first model and far more demanding to drive for two reasons: first, their woofer is much larger and demands for greater control on the side of the equipment driving it; second, their dome tweeter diaphragm is enormous, which can easily lead to an audible frequency rolloff in the high frequencies. His challenge was to design a cable that would enable his amplifier to right both these wrongs— which he ultimately succeeded in doing.

Matthias is an experienced listener and has a good ear for nuance. His background in electronics and recent experimentation in building HiFi-cables have also given him some understanding of the underlying technology. In his quest for optimal sound, Matthias is as relentless as I am, even if he is not always as outspoken about it. I was happy to have him as companion and as an extra pair of ears to compare and contrast my experience with on our day at the trade fair.

When we arrived at the fair, the reception area was still bristling with visitors, and so we decided to keep our jackets on for the time being and head straight for the upper floors. This led us to the exhibition space of ATE Akustik by Norman Gerkinsmeyer. Founded in 1982, the company is a German developer and manufacturer of loudspeakers and special drivers for the industry based in Neu-Ulm. Mr. Gerkinsmeyer himself presented the company's patented Ring Mode Driver (RMD) technology at the trade fair, a bending wave transducer based on an oval diaphragm design.

ATE Imagine — Ring Mode Driver Loudspeakers

Following my positive review of Daniela Manger’s bending wave transducer on the P2 loudspeakers, I was interested in finding out more about the differences between the designs. And so I learned that the ATE driver’s design naturally dampens return waves on the diaphragm through its oval shape, whereas the Manger transducer uses its characteristic star-shaped matt to prevent refractions. Both drivers offer the benefit of working without crossover in the frequencies critical to the human ear. 

ATE also makes custom drivers for the automotive and aviation industry, an environment in which there is heavy use of signal processors to flatten frequency response in a unfavourable acoustic spaces. Regrettably, the same technology was also used in the showroom, which resulted in unnaturally short decay and an overly dry, clenched-fist sound. I have to admit that I am sensitive to this and have personally never heard a DSP-augmented vocal section that I would still describe as sounding natural. Our final test track was Peter Bence’s title “Africa”, which we have heard on many systems but found lacking its usual charm and allure for the sake of greater frequency control.

Our tour then took us to Lyravox, a German manufacturer of audio equipment from Hamburg. I had previously heard their smaller Karlos speakers, which had sounded much larger than they looked, most likely due to the integration of an up-firing air-motion transformer and active DSP modulation instead of passive crossovers. This year, Lyravox displayed their Karlsson Mini Monolith towers. Here, too, nothing was left to chance, from the multiple input modalities (XLR, SPDIF, Toslink, analog, etc.) to the powerful Class D amplification (2x 500 + 1x 100 WPC) and a fully-integrated multi-channel hi-res-DSP.

The materials Lyravox uses are of the highest quality, ranging from natural stone base plates to elegant artificial stone enclosures, which are combined with Accuton ceramic invert-dome drivers from tweeter to bass. The look of their whole line-up is clean, white, and elegant. Now, hotel rooms are not ideal listening venues, and my ongoing criticism of the DSPs used in the high and midrange frequencies could well be related to the fact that DSPs have to intervene heavily in such a room. Berlin is not too far from Marne, and perhaps I should pay Lyravox a visit to get a more realistic impression. Among others, we listened to the album “Stay Tuned” by Dominique Fils-Animé.

AUDES Audio in the adjacent room has a long history of manufacturing audio equipment dating back to 1935. The Estonian company initially started out manufacturing radio receivers under the name RET (Raadio-Elektrotehnika Tehas) and already employed 50 people in its first year, who built up to 30 receivers a day. From 1941 to 1944, the factory, called Raadio-Pioneer at the time, belonged to Telefunken and was renamed Funktechnische Fabrik Reval. The name AUDES has exists since 1992 and stands for “Audio from Estonia.”

A full account of the company history is available on their website. Their current loudspeaker line-up (Reference, Excellence, M-Series, Credo, etc.) are phenomenally disparate in their designs, ranging from stubby towers to thin blade-like structures, either in width or in depth. On this day, the M5 speakers were on display, which seemed a little thin and lacking in timbre at the chosen position. Setting up the local electronics and adapting them to the room is, of course, a challenge. Therefore, we left this room without gaining a real impression of the speakers' capabilities.

Rogers is one of the well-known BBC loudspeaker manufacturers, along with Harbeth and Spendor, which were particularly famous in the 1960s and 1970s for their soft, natural reproduction of midrange and vocals in the near field and in small studios. However, the Rogers speakers we heard at the North German Hi-Fi Days were anything but near-field monitors. Although I neglected to note down the name of the speakers on site, my research suggests that they must have been the newly reissued PM510 S3, which impressed us with their enormous dynamics and crisp, powerful highs.

We could not see the drivers through the speaker fabric, so I was surprised to learn that the distinctly metallic sounds were reproduced by an Audax silk dome tweeter. In my opinion, this can only be explained by its relatively large size of 34 mm and the rigid metal diffuser on the front. The room was well attended, and there was no ideal place to sit among the few chairs. Matthias and I agreed that we basically liked the sound, but we were not convinced that we could hear properly under the given conditions. The speakers' partially pressure chamber-like highs reminded me of the early ring radiators from Fostex and Beymar.

Symann Soundboards were certainly among the more unconventional designs at the show. Their engineer, Michael Symann, is a piano and harpsichord builder by profession and develops his speakers based on soundboards, the wooden components that form the bottom of the piano and resonate at the correct pitch. The components consist of four wide strips of tonewood, two of which are mounted on opposite sides of a narrow slatted frame. Exciters, as commonly used in automotive applications, serve as drivers, and there is a small Air Motion Transformer (AMT) to supplement the high frequencies.

This innovative design produces a sound wall similar to that of full-range electrostatic speakers. However, the frequency range is limited by the characteristics of the materials used. The accuracy of the otherwise very precise AMTs could possibly suffer from the fact that the tweeter is mounted on the vibrating surface between the resonance plates. I would be interested to hear a future version of the Soundboards with the AMT mounted in a more fixed position. Overall, the Soundboards are a promising invention and deliver an intriguing sound.

Wilson Alexx V — Array Loudspeakers

The most spectacular listening experience was undoubtedly the presentation of a superlative HiFi system by Matthias Böde from Stereo magazine. The speakers used were Wilson Audio's Alexx V model, powered by enormous VTL Siegfried tube monoblocks. The ensemble had the power of a medium-sized PA system and surprised its listeners with enormous attacks. Although the sound remained controlled, precise, realistic, and crisp throughout the performance, I did feel a little sorry for the people in the front rows in the immediate vicinity of the speakers. Their ears probably rang for a long time afterward, just like after a good live concert.

We also wondered how the Wilson speakers would sound in a living room, where they would be operated at moderate volume. The ideal range of a speaker is always optimized for a specific listening distance and volume level. The selection of songs was undoubtedly excellent and clearly showed who was in charge that afternoon.

While Matthias Börde's presentation in the large conference room did not seem to clash with those of its neighbours, some of the presentations were nevertheless acoustically crushed by the loud competition on the other side of the hallway. The longer the trade fair went on, the louder some manufacturers played their equipment. This behaviour forced all exhibitors into a vicious circle, in which one after the other had to increase the volume until a formerly quality demonstration turned into a show of power. For this reason, I was unable to demonstrate some of highlights of the trade fair to Matthias.

Finally, we stopped by Daniela Manger in room 204 and listened to an electronically separate version of her P2 speakers, in which the bass range was controlled by an active crossover and was optimally compensated for in the room by two inconspicuous active bass traps. Matthias and I were very impressed by the room acoustics and performance this time. The session was comparable to my experience when I first had the P2 speakers in my studio for testing, and I was happy to be able to share this experience with Matthias on this occasion.

Manger P2 — Bending Wave Transducer Loudspeakers

On our way back to Marne, we stopped at a HiFi friend's house in Barmfeld to help him improve the sound quality of his HiFi system in a newly built listening room furnished with absorbers and all. We spent the rest of the evening moving speakers around and discussing sound until our energy was completely exhausted, and after a fulfilling day, we set off on the last leg of our journey towards Marne.

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